Temporarily "Decommission" Pool

[Albromyle]

I like my pool, and have used it before, but more recently, myself and others have just simply not used the pool in a while and I'd want to save money on the pool maintenance.

How would I go about temporarily decommissioning the pool for about 6-12 months? I've looked at the "Pool Opening & Closing" part of this forum, but I've notice that those particular threads are more-so for winterizing a pool rather than just simply temporarily decommission it during the upcoming next season. Could I still do a similar process to what I want to do?

Some things about my pool:
1. The pool is made of plaster.
2. The pool is mostly balanced, save for hardness being higher than normal, and PH being lower than normal. I was in the middle of adjusting these values, but then decided to temporarily decommission it anyways. Should I adjust these first to the proper value?

Is there any other viable solution to temporarily decommission my pool? I'd like to use it again in the future, but at the same time, still save money by doing the above since no one is using it at the moment, and probably for a while.

Thanks

 

[JasonLion]

"Decommissioning" is essentially identical to winterizing, you just want to pay some extra attention to making sure the water is well balanced when you close.

 

[JohnT]

It's likely that repairing damage from neglect would cost more than it would cost to keep it up.

Also you need to consider that it is a city ordinance violation to not maintain your pool in Corona.

 

[Albromyle]

Thanks for the responses, appreciate it.

I'll check back later once I've gone over the Winterizing threads here and gathered more information.

 

[SacPoolPros]

Its cheaper to maintain it then to winterize and let it sit..

 

[jmastron]

I'd be concerned that "winterizing" a pool over the summer wouldn't work -- isn't one of the key parts of winterizing that the water is cold, and thus little to no algae growth is going to occur naturally? If covered (and a California pool may not have any setup for a cover) it might not get quite as warm, but the water is certainly going to get into the 70s.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's an "ignore it" way to not use a pool over the summer; that's one reason pools aren't always a positive to property buyers in some areas.

If you're not using the pool, you can probably "batch" the chemical maintenance a bit more -- putting in a lot of chlorine once a week such that it never gets below the minimum, rather than some every day.

 

[JasonLion]

A closed pool will get algae over the summer, but an opaque cover will limit how much algae can grow and it should never get completely out of hand.

The only really crucial step is to keep the cover clear of debris. That doesn't mean cleaning everything off instantly, but it does mean frequent enough cleanings that stuff doesn't just keep accumulating. If you let the debris accumulate the cover will eventually collapse and there will be complications.

When you do decide to open again, algae can be dealt with straight forwardly enough, but accumulated debris is a much more problematic issue.