Freeze - Moving water vs still water

[JJ_Tex]

I was bored and tired of sitting around the house, so I went for a walk through the hood including by a stream a few houses away. I snapped pictures showing ice-free moving water, while areas where the water was not moving were frozen over. The same applies to your pool, particularly in your equipment and pipes. Keep that water moving through all pipes and you will be fine.

See the water to the right is free-flowing and ice-free, even in the shade and well below freezing, while the water slowed down by the island on the left is frozen over.



Here is another view and the water is flowing just fine, even at 20 degrees:

 

[Dirk]

Great illustration of the principle. To take the equipment protection theme one step further: keeping water moving through your plumbing is a great way to ward off damage from a freeze. BUT...

You also need a backup plan for doing so when the power goes out! Oops, now whatcha gunna do?

Your particular solution would depend on many factors, and your particular type of pool and plumbing set up. It might be a stand-by generator that has the watts to run your pool pump. Or maybe some sort or battery powered solution? Or a printed out plan (PAPER VERSION + COPY!) of a minimum set of quick steps to get your pool emergency-winterized (drain filter, pump, pad plumbing, a ready-to-go siphon-setup to drain your pool below the returns, some noodles for your skimmer well, battery-powered blower to clear underground pipes, etc). 3:00 AM in 10° windchill during a power outage is NOT the time to put together this list and/or to find all the equipment!!

Or you can roll the dice. Some of the solutions above can be cheap insurance, others might be quite costly. But weigh that against the odds and what it would take to replace pad equipment (with or without insurance), or what it might cost to dig up an underground pipe under your beautiful, brand new colored concrete deck.

 

[JJ_Tex]

Yes, I totally have my "oh shoot" supplies ready including flashlight in the event we lose power in a hard freeze.

Every situation is different and you have to weigh the risks and other factors in your pool and life.

For me, with a newish pool, the ability to work from home, fairly handy, etc. I'm good taking the risk of having to quickly react to drain the equipment if needed every few years. The only exception would be if they were predicting rolling blackouts ahead of a deep freeze, I would shut down ahead of time.

That is much more appealing than completely shutting down for the winter every year, which has lots of cons in my book:
- Lose the ability to use the spa, which we do often in the winter
- We get most of our leaves in the winter/spring, so keeping the pool clean would be difficult
- We get lots of really nice winter days in the 70's and 80's and like to use our backyard for entertaining and do not want an eyesore of a dirty closed down pool
- I would still worry about freezing weather icing over the pool and causing damage to the tile/plaster, the dog walking over it and falling through the ice, etc.

A lot of people in my area feel the same way. Its not laziness, ignorance, etc. as some people on this forum have implied, its just weighing all of the pro's/con's and making an informed decision that works for your situation.

 

[Newdude]

Also to be fair, before 2020, it had been 25 years since it froze many places. Since then it's froze a few times.

So it wasn't really ever an issue that it suddenly becoming an issue.

 

[Dirk]

Exactly. You can argue the politics or the science, doesn't matter. We're getting both hotter and colder weather than we ever had (in recent decades), and that's just a fact. Stubbornly ignoring weather trends because "you don't believe" won't hurt Mother Nature's feelings one bit! She gunna do what she do.