Closing pool early due to home construction

dmitchsmith · Aug 20, 2020

As a little background - this is our first year owning a pool. We bought the house back in the spring and have learned a lot about pool care and our set up along the way. However we have no experience closing a pool. It’s an in ground, sand filter, ~22k gallons.

Here’s our current situation:

We are set to begin some pretty major home renovation/remodeling in the next few weeks. Our power will need to be turned off for a part of the construction. Even once the power is back on, we will likely want to go ahead have the pool closed for the year anyways due to construction activity and debris around the pool.

I am estimating the need to close the pool within the next ~3 weeks.I have read the pinned thread about pool winterizing and closing (very helpful!). But my concern is with closing the pool this early in the year. In North Carolina we are still due for plenty of hot summer weather all the way into October. Does closing the pool with this much summer weather change any of my closing process? Any helpful tips for closing this early? I’m sure we’ll have a lot of clean up by the time we open back up next spring. And we are prepared to handle that. But is there anything we should do now that will benefit us in the spring? Or just close as normal and be ready for a green pool in the spring?

Newdude · Aug 20, 2020

You can pull the cover about halfway every other day and dose per the test results while the power is off and while debris is happening in that area. They might only be working on the back of the house for a few days or a week so while this method will be the most physical work, it might only be for a month. With no pump you can use your brush to stir up the chlorine after adding.

With everything else you have going on and needing to stay on top of the construction like a full time job, you may not want to be futzing with the pool. Closing it and accepting it will be green next year is fine too. We can help you clear it, and if you open early, before the daily average temps hit 60 degrees, the algae will be dormant and you’ll only have to kill whatever algae is there without it growing exponentially during the battle. It will be an easier SLAM and if it takes the filter a week or two to catch it all, you won’t loose swim time starting so early.

A third option would be to cover the pool and let it go green in 3 weeks, and then clear the pool and close it in late November early December just before freezing is a worry. Then close like normal and have a good opening next season.

dmitchsmith · Aug 20, 2020

Newdude said:
You can pull the cover about halfway every other day and dose per the test results while the power is off and while debris is happening in that area. They might only be working on the back of the house for a few days or a week so while this method will be the most physical work, it might only be for a month. With no pump you can use your brush to stir up the chlorine after adding.

With everything else you have going on and needing to stay on top of the construction like a full time job, you may not want to be futzing with the pool. Closing it and accepting it will be green next year is fine too. We can help you clear it, and if you open early, before the daily average temps hit 60 degrees, the algae will be dormant and you’ll only have to kill whatever algae is there without it growing exponentially during the battle. It will be an easier SLAM and if it takes the filter a week or two to catch it all, you won’t loose swim time starting so early.

A third option would be to cover the pool and let it go green in 3 weeks, and then clear the pool and close it in late November early December just before freezing is a worry. Then close like normal and have a good opening next season.

thanks for helping lay out some options!
I’m thinking I’ll cover and close it up soon because as you said, with construction going on pool maintenance will likely be an after thought for me.
We had a really green nasty pool at open this year (opened late and old pool cover was ripped and allowed debris in over the winter) and using the SLAM method and a lot of great info here, we cleared it all up. So I’m confident I can fix the green in the spring.
I’ll need to double check with the contractor and electrician on the timing of everything. But I’m thinking closing now is my best bet. Just need to be ready to open early next year before algae takes off.

cowboycasey · Aug 20, 2020

Good plan

Newdude · Aug 20, 2020

dmitchsmith said:
with construction going on pool maintenance will likely be an after thought for me

With a forum full of enthusiasts and purists, The default answer is to never let your pool go. But life happens too and we all get that.

ironically, Having completed a SLAM already you have more hands on experience with it than those of us who haven’t yet. So you have that advantage too. And plenty of knowledgeable folks to guide you if you need a bit more experience when the time comes.

Good luck with the project and we’ll be here for you when you’re done. Also, we happen to like ALL pics so we’d gawk at those just the same.

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Closing pool early due to home construction

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