I'm going on a military deployment for 6 months, from April to October, and I live alone so no one will be using or taking care of the pool. Florida Panhandle (so hot!), gunite, salt, enclosed screen (so no leaves and reduced dirt). I had considered draining it, but everything says not to leave it empty more than a couple weeks especially in the summer. But I was also looking at potentially getting it resurfaced, because it's 20 years old and as far as I know it never has been (I've owned it for about 2 years), and I've got a lot of calcium deposits that I haven't been able to remove (did a no drain acid wash that didn't do much).
In general it requires very little maintenance and the wandering vacuum does a good job of keeping it clean (except the steps), so in theory if I just have my neighbor who is taking care of my house throw a bag of salt in every couple months (I have remote monitoring to know when it needs it), it would get out of balance but probably not green up or anything. But I'd be spending a lot of money with the pumps running for no reason. Obviously if I didn't run it but left the water in, I'd have a huge mess when I return. And of course when I return it won't really be used for another 6 months either!
I haven't been able to get any quotes yet for resurfacing, and now I have to replace my AC before I leave, so not sure I really want to deal wifh that expense now...just seems like a potentially good time to deal with it.
So what would any of you do?
In general it requires very little maintenance and the wandering vacuum does a good job of keeping it clean (except the steps), so in theory if I just have my neighbor who is taking care of my house throw a bag of salt in every couple months (I have remote monitoring to know when it needs it), it would get out of balance but probably not green up or anything. But I'd be spending a lot of money with the pumps running for no reason. Obviously if I didn't run it but left the water in, I'd have a huge mess when I return. And of course when I return it won't really be used for another 6 months either!
I haven't been able to get any quotes yet for resurfacing, and now I have to replace my AC before I leave, so not sure I really want to deal wifh that expense now...just seems like a potentially good time to deal with it.
So what would any of you do?