How can I wait until my water is 60 degrees with so many leaves falling?

[heygreene]

Hi all, last year at closing was a disaster. Although I waited until the water was 60 degrees or lower, the pool was then bombarded with leaves from my trees that hang almost over the pool. I did my best to clean out what I could, but I wasn't about to set foot in that 60 degree water! The end result was still a good bit of leaves in the bottom, and it took about 2 weeks to clean up in the Spring, so I don't want to go down that road again. A few questions for you all:

• How do you clean the pool if it's 60 degrees or less? I'd assume standing on the side vacuuming but I figured you couldn't get the walls clean that way.
• How do I avoid all of the leaves getting in the pool until the water cools down so that I can cover it?
• Do I have to keep my FC levels in the normal range until the water hits 60 degrees?
• My buddy bought a closing kit and closed his pool with it still at around 70 degrees last year. In spring, it looked terrific. Are closing kits a good idea? If not, did he just get lucky?

Thanks!
Heygreene

 

[jmastron]

I can't address all of this, but I do have experience cleaning out leaves -- we don't close or cover, and I've learned that during the prime leaf fall (mid-Nov to mid-Dec here) it's best to turn off the main and Polaris boost pump timers (so the skimmer doesn't get clogged, and because the Polaris gets full too quickly) and manually scoop every couple of weeks.

The key is the right kind of leaf rake/net -- you don't want the ones that have shaped fronts designed for efficiently skimming on the surface; you want one with thin square edges that you can pull toward you, like this: Leslie's 20148 Standard Leaf Rake. I put it on the longest pole I have and scrape out the bulk of the leaves, then run the pump and Polaris 280 for a couple hours to get the remainder (usually emptying the bag a couple times; the big "leaf" bag I tried for it was useless, clogging right at the opening, so I just use the normal one). Relatively simple, no getting in the pool required. For the sides, can't you just brush normally?

Other than that, keep your FC levels where you normally do; as the water cools this will take less and less frequent dosing.

 

[blue pool]

Each situation is different, but battling the leaves waiting for the pool to get colder was a nightmare, and closing the pool too early was not an option either. I actually put our winter cover on the pool and let the pool run until it was time to close. yeah a little more work, but keeping the leaves out of the pool skimmer was not easy either. I also have a robotic cleaner that i could turn on under the cover to clean up the few leaves that I missed.
When it comes time to winterize the pool, I just move the winter cover aside in the area of the jets, surprisingly the leaves by this time are all off the tree. I still have to clean the leaves off the cover, but they typically blow off on their own.

 

[Mr Bruce]

I also put the winter cover on as soon as the leaves really start falling. I leave one corner uncovered for testing and additions and just run everything else like normal until the water gets cold.