How late can you wait to winterize?

[friguy3]

We are buying a home, central new Jersey, and they have a good sized gunite chlorine pool. It is now Nov 21, temperatures at night dip down into the 30s, and they have not winterized and closed their pool yet. They said "soon." Should I be concerned? There has not been any significant freezing but how late is too late? Does it have to be consistently below freezing to have issues? Thanks

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[JoyfulNoise]

The biggest concern is not the pool (huge volume of water = long time to freeze) but the equipment like the pumps, skimmers and filters. If the pool pump has freeze protection (automatically turns on when the temp goes below 34F), then that can protect it for a good long while. I would have expected a Jersey pool to be closed by now simply because closing a pool is a labor-intensive and wet process. I would not be happy going out in 40F daytime temps trying to mess with pumps, hoses, air blowers, cold water, etc...You need to be worried once the weather starts forecasting extended freezing temperatures (night and day temps below freezing). When do you close on this deal? Perhaps you can make it a condition of closing that the pool be professionally closed on a specific date and offer to pay half the cost.