Winterized too early and now I've lost a lot of water

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H

HotKewlAid

0
Apr 27, 2017
23
Republic, MO
I live in southern Missouri and the general practice here is to open your pool around Memorial Day and close it on labor day. Which I did, with a winter pool cover on top. The winterizing pool guide said to wait till the water reach 60 degrees, and I didn't wait for that. Its been SUPER hot. I've lost a ton of water, I assume through evaporation/equilibrium displacement with the cover. So my water level is probably half full if not a little less (maybe 2-3 feet).

Obviously, this would be a problem if I am not actively pumping out any rain water as it will get really heavy pretty quick, do you guys thing I need to fill it up partially with some water?
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A pillow in the middle will help lessen the water that seeps thru the cover. As for now, you can just add water if you feel the level is to low, but you may have to remove the cover to keep the water from seeping thru the cover while filling.

In the future consider covering the pool but leaving the pump connected until you are sure summer is over. I just put my cover on yesterday as I'm tired of removing leaves and pine needles. Since the temps are still warm, I left everything connected and my pump runs 3 hours/day. I'll lower the water below suction and store the pump/filter in about a month.
 
I'm in the same boat. I didn't close early but I forgot that I was draining the pool and drained out an extra 4"-6". Oops. So its about 10"-12" below my skimmer, not the recommended 6".

I just put the pillow in the middle and called it good.
 
Definitely should get a floating pillow for the center next year. On my parents AGP we use two pieces of fairly strong string to help keep the pillow centered tying it on opposite sides of the pool with a little slack.
 
We like those Intex Sit and Float floats, and after some time it seems the seats always tear off, but the back stays fine.

Last year, I decided to leave the pool up over the winter, so in addition to a winter cover, I bought one of the pool pillow doohickeys. I inflated that and tied one of the sit and floats to the top of it by the hanhles and then roped that contraption to the basic center of the pool, and pulled the cover over and did the whole tightening deal with the wite whatsis. When I opened, the pool pillow was flat, but the sit and float was still inflated.

This year, I reinflated the pool pillow, and added two sit and floats and toed them off to the center with slack lines. We'll see what happens in the spring.
 
Your pool is fine in my opinion. Ive had an above ground for 10+ years and never have I had an issue when letting water sit on my cover, displace water, using floats verses not using floats. I dont use the floats anymore because I dont see any huge differences whether I use them or not. Its just an added step i personally dont have time for anymore. I also freeze solid in Pennsylvania.
 

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Just thought I'd come back with an update. Turns out I did have a hole in the liner. There were some small tears where the pool ladder goes into the pool. Since my ladder is broken and moves around a bit, I'm guessing a rock or something got under that and cut the liner as someone was getting in or out of the pool. I had to get into the water, which was about 54 degrees, to confirm that those were, in fact, the tears and not just dark spots on the liner. The water was about thigh deep so reaching down to feel them with my hands (and additionally to put the patch on) pretty much submerged my entire upper body. This sucked on a level I cannot even describe. The coldest water I have ever been in. But 2 days later the water level has not changed. So now I'm filling the pool up to an appropriate winterized level and throwing the cover back on.
 
I'm glad you found your leak. Your pain and suffering in that frigid water saved your pool. Winter is very destructive on an empty pool.
 
In the future I would put a ladder mat underneath the ladder. I use 2 ordinary bathmats with the suction feet on them to prevent the mats from floating up. They work great. They were like $4 each from walmart and they last 1 season before they get gross.
 
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