Hi, we moved into the house with the pool in August, and although I have learned a lot, I do not want to tackle learning the closing process this year. So, we are scheduled to have a pool company close our pool next week (7 days from now). I have read a lot of the posts on preparing for closing (water balance) and I think I'm in decent shape there. I've also read a lot about the procedures for closing so I feel like I have a decent feel for what has to be done, I just have no desire to actually do it myself.
I should mention that the guys closing the pool are NOT the same company that we originally hired for weekly maintenance when we moved in (just hire the experts this year, we thought, we have plenty else to do moving in -- well, after the first week, we went to bi-monthly service for a few times, then stopped it altogether. Originally we were scheduled to close with them). Surprisingly there are few choices for pool service around here, at least that come up on a Google search (Baltimore area) but I did find a place that seemed to have a more thoughtful and knowledgeable approach to pool care than the first place. We have already hired them to replace the caulking between the pool deck and coping bricks, and replace a few chipped bricks, and they seem to have done a good job on that. Also, the person I spoke to for scheduling service asked what kind of cover we have (mesh) and said that we should not close earlier than Oct. 15 and should open before April 15. I guess that is their approximation for getting the water temp close to the 60 degrees that's recommended on this forum. I asked what they use for water testing, they do use liquid reagents (vs. the first place which uses strip-based photometer), but she said they switched to that only recently because they realized the strips weren't accurate. Better late than never I guess.
I plan to be home while they are doing it to watch and hopefully learn a thing or two. So here's my question -- any advice on things I should be paying particular attention to (both to learn and make sure they don't mess anything up?) Also, are there questions I can ask the company's service manager to ascertain how good they really are?
I should mention that the guys closing the pool are NOT the same company that we originally hired for weekly maintenance when we moved in (just hire the experts this year, we thought, we have plenty else to do moving in -- well, after the first week, we went to bi-monthly service for a few times, then stopped it altogether. Originally we were scheduled to close with them). Surprisingly there are few choices for pool service around here, at least that come up on a Google search (Baltimore area) but I did find a place that seemed to have a more thoughtful and knowledgeable approach to pool care than the first place. We have already hired them to replace the caulking between the pool deck and coping bricks, and replace a few chipped bricks, and they seem to have done a good job on that. Also, the person I spoke to for scheduling service asked what kind of cover we have (mesh) and said that we should not close earlier than Oct. 15 and should open before April 15. I guess that is their approximation for getting the water temp close to the 60 degrees that's recommended on this forum. I asked what they use for water testing, they do use liquid reagents (vs. the first place which uses strip-based photometer), but she said they switched to that only recently because they realized the strips weren't accurate. Better late than never I guess.
I plan to be home while they are doing it to watch and hopefully learn a thing or two. So here's my question -- any advice on things I should be paying particular attention to (both to learn and make sure they don't mess anything up?) Also, are there questions I can ask the company's service manager to ascertain how good they really are?
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HOWEVER POOLS DO!
