Oh happy day! Uncovered pool today.

SecoSteve said:

Why don't you think about getting a skimmer faceplate

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Well, don't know, might work. I have 2 returns, one deeper one "eyeball" that I can screw out and put a plug in but one is a combo light/return and it is through the wall about 5 inches below the skimmer plate so I drain the water below that and remove the gus from that one. I'm afraid to leave the light in under water as it would be frozen over. Then rain caught in the cover pushes out a few more inches through the removed light fixture hole... I siphon it off after a rain. I'm afraid to leave the light in as it would be frozen over. Water here is about 0.015 to 0.02 cent per gallon depending on volume used. Refilling 10 inches comes to less than 75 bucks.

kevreh said:

What did you do last fall so it opened so clear?

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Water already balanced... Two gallons of bleach dumped in. Remove steps. Cover.

On the mechanical side...
Removed pump/filter basket, multi way valve and SWG and store in garage.
Removed drain plug from sand filter and leave out.
Replaced the temporary stand pipe holder that came with the filter to hold the stand pipe in place when you are filling it with sand then put a blank DIY solid plastic lid on top of the filter tank and secured it with a spare ring like holds the multi way valve on.
Put a tarp over the topless pump house, why leave stuff exposed to weather and UV for 6 months when not in use?
Put the solar cover on the pool... put a pillow on top on that tied in center of pool, put the solid cover over that, put a leaf net over that. Cleaned off the leaves occasionally. Siphoned the water off the cover after each rain.
Made sure no slime or any residual dirty water from on top of the solid cover got in the pool when removing it.
Thats about it... pretty simple.

Got the water topped off today and the pump running on low with the SWG on MAX for overnight... will try to test the water tomorrow and likely add enough bleach to raise the chlorine to slam level and do an overnight test. Solar cover is on. Will replace the leaf net after it is soaked in a bleach bath. Water is 69.7 deg after circulating a few hours.

SecoSteve said:

Both of your returns can be plugged.

I would take out the solar cover when you close the pool. Being in the chlorinated water all winter will probably shorten its life.

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Yea I guess the light could be plugged somehow. Only the guts come out and the housing stays put. The housing isn't designed to be plugged, isn't threaded, but possibly could be plugged with some kind of expansion plug. I'll have to remember to investigate that. The hole through it is around 1 inch. or a tad bigger. The installer said nothing was made to plug it so just drain and remove it over winter when the pool was set up so thats what I been doing.

The solar cover is old-ish anyway and delaminating in some areas. I think this starts it's 4th year so I wasn't too worried about it. On the pool was a convenient place (read lazy mans place) to store it otherwise and it pretty much insured the solid cover stayed flat and didn't sink like it had in the past.

Oh one other thing I did was close the pool late, in early November so the water had cooled off quite. bit. That helped I expect. Usually close around a month earlier.

Having to add salt now, SWG not all that happy. I had one bag on hand...

I will absolutely look into your suggestions for next years closing. Thanks!