Closing the Pool

[jessica0917]

I live in central Iowa and our winters can be a bit brutal and the pool water seems to freeze solid during January and February. I need to replace my winter cover and decided to continue to use a solid cover, rather than the mesh and place some inner tubes under it for ease of keeping any water from rain or snow melt around the perimeter. I use a leaf net in the fall and the spring to cut down on the debris from my neighbor's trees. I am still researching solid covers and have been reading some of the forums on them, but that isn't my main question.

My question involves lowering vs not lowering the water level in the pool. I have always lowered the water below the inlet/skimmer and would love to avoid the additional cost of adding it back in the spring. I have been looking at a skimmer plug (not the tupperware like cover) for a Doughboy Skimmer and also plugging the inlet opening. I would still remove all of the hoses and do my normal winterizing of the equipment. I see the pros of doing this, but what are the cons? I mentioned it to a local pool company and they were cautioning against it because of the need to have space for the ice build up but I couldn't figure out why this would be an issue. I plan on lowering the water to lowest "add" mark on the skimmer but before I commit to this I wanted to run it by this forum to gain some insight.

Thank you!

 

[wayner]

Why continue to use a solid rather than a mesh cover?

I live in Toronto where the winters are probably even more brutal than Iowa. My water gets lowered below the inlets but by next spring the pool is full to the top thanks to winter rain and snow - I have to pump out rather than add. That's another advantage of mesh covers, in addition to potentially saving the life of a person or animal.

 

[jessica0917]

I have always used a solid cover over the past six years and I was concerned about the amount of silt that could be on the bottom of the pool when it is opened in the spring, from a mesh cover, but it sounds like that hasn't been an issue with yours. Also, with an above ground pool, I don't know of anything that would be as safe as some of the in-ground pool covers. My son's large dog decided to walk off the deck and onto the pool cover and proceeded to start sinking (it hadn't frozen yet)

Also if I lower the water below the inlets, then the only way it would fill back up from rain/snow melt would mean everything needs to be plugged or else it would just run out of the skimmer/inlet once it reached that point? Maybe I am not thinking correctly about this.

Thanks so much for the comments - and I agree your winters are much worse than ours...