Is it too soon to open? I'm located in Central Virginia. The weather is warm some days then cool. Almost time for serious pollen. I have a loop lock cover which lets in the pollen is it best to open soon before it settles on the bottom? I converted to BBB last season and know how important it is to open before it gets too swampy. Thanks for any input.
When to open the pool for the season?
- Thread starter koliver13
- Start date
- May 3, 2007
- 16,875
- Pool Size
- 20000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
I don't close my pool for the winter but if I lived where the water freezes, as soon as the water temp gets above 50 degrees or so, I would open the pool. The reason being if you wait too long, you will have a bigger mess to clean up.
I'm in central Massachusetts. I opened today. Water is 45 degrees. If it freezes now, it will only get to 28 or so. Water was crystal clear with a 3 ppm FC, 0 CC.
We have similar conditions; I’m a tad earlier than you with the pollen & temperature.
Like he said, once above 50F & you won’t have a mess.
I go by the 60F, don’t let it get to 60F, so I open around 55F.
You’ll have that pollen with or without the cover on; with the cover on- you get less sunlight & less pollen, with the cover off- you can zap pollen with chemicals & filtration. The temperature is the controlling factor
What I learned is that it is very important to test & add chemicals over the winter ( really just acid & chlorine; I didn’t measure anything else- should I have?)
Like he said, once above 50F & you won’t have a mess.
I go by the 60F, don’t let it get to 60F, so I open around 55F.
You’ll have that pollen with or without the cover on; with the cover on- you get less sunlight & less pollen, with the cover off- you can zap pollen with chemicals & filtration. The temperature is the controlling factor
What I learned is that it is very important to test & add chemicals over the winter ( really just acid & chlorine; I didn’t measure anything else- should I have?)
I'm in Central MD and I opened mine on Monday. The only disadvantage that I see that I have is that I'm getting a LOT of Crud from the trees and I'm doing a lot of vacumming on the deck, hand skimming, cleaning out skimmers and running my pool cleaner each day. I think there is a real tradeoff when you have trees around your pool.
XsAllOverIt said:
I agree, I have a lot of trees around mine. I keep a a solar cover on it and it helps. Opened mine 1 1/2 weeks ago to 55 degree water. Cleaned it up and put the solar cover on. It was at 69 degrees yesterday and my 5 year old was swimming!
Not enough time in the week to get the solar cover up and running. It's still a rectangle and needs to be become a Kidney shape and needs cut. Maybe this weekend. It's also been awfully windy here in MD.
I'm a newbie in NJ, but we plan to open The weekend of April 23rd. It's our first opening and I wanted get to it before it starts too get hot in case we have any kinks to work out. We are also hosting Mother's day and I'd rather my company look at a blue pool than a black cover. I don't care that we prob. won't be in it until late May.
If you have the mesh cover, as opposed to the solid, you should at least get the pump and filtration going and the chemicals balanced. You can leave the cover on for a while if you're not ready to fully open.
You can take water samples from the skimmer to test and you can pull back a corner of the cover to add chemicals as needed.
You might want to remove the cover to get everything started and clean, and then put the cover back on.
Even if you're not going to swim, it's still nice to look out and see the pool open, so you might just want to leave the cover off.
You can take water samples from the skimmer to test and you can pull back a corner of the cover to add chemicals as needed.
You might want to remove the cover to get everything started and clean, and then put the cover back on.
Even if you're not going to swim, it's still nice to look out and see the pool open, so you might just want to leave the cover off.
JamesW said:
With a mesh cover, I have found to let the rain overfill the pool when freezing is no longer a concern. When I uncover the pool, I take the first 2 days , without the pump on, & just brush all the debris towards the drain, maybe 4-5x/day, & very gently to keep the crud on the floor not in the water, brush super slow. Then I turn the pump on & vac it to waste again with very gentle brushing into the drain. The pool is over filled so you don’t need that water. I vac to waste until I get the water level I want.
Thanks for all the input. Became a grandma for the first time a week ago today so I've been out of town. I took a peek and took some samples it looks great. I hope to get the top off this week and stay ahead of the game.
As always great help.
As always great help.