Keeping clean until winterization? Tips and Suggestions

[boon4376]

So it's getting too cold outside to want to use my pool for swimming. I have some questions about keeping it clean until closing time. It seems like a pain to be cleaning a pool when you are no longer swimming in it and I'd like to know what people normally do for the easiest maintenance until closing.

1.) Do I keep using the solar cover? Would there be any point? It doesn't really keep leaves out of the pool and I imagine the heat will cause more algae growth than if it was gone...

2.) What do you do about all the leaves? I have 2 100+ year old giant maple trees over my pool, as well as several pine trees, a crab apple tree, an oak tree... I'd like to run the skimmer full time to keep them from sinking to the bottom, but that would cost me ~$3.00 / day with my electricity rates.

3.) Do you just let the leaves build up and do a "final cleaning" right before closing it? But then I might have to spend ~$30 on chemicals to shock it before closing....

What do you do, for you people with a ton of trees? When I opened my pool this year, I filled 3 wheelbarrows with leaves that were sitting at the bottom. I think the previous owners just forgot about it after august and let it get nasty. was a HUGE PITA to get clean when I opened it the first time!...

 

[Jamison04]

I'd keep the solar cover on it when not in use. 1) it keeps the water warmer to entice swimming on those warmer fall days and 2) keeps the majority of the debris and leaves out. Vacuum as needed. It sucks because I hate having to close the pool. Makes me sad

 

[boon4376]

I'd keep the solar cover on it when not in use. 1) it keeps the water warmer to entice swimming on those warmer fall days and 2) keeps the majority of the debris and leaves out. Vacuum as needed. It sucks because I hate having to close the pool. Makes me sad

I live in Maine, past September 15th, there are usually no warm swimming days, actually it is very likely that this will be the last weekend I'll use it

Sucks that we have a short pool season in Maine. Next year I will be building a solar heater to try and extend it by a month or so. When I was a kid we had a natural gas heater and kept it open until october.

2) keeps the majority of the debris and leaves out.

How do you keep the leaves from just falling in the water when you take the cover off? That always happens to me.

 

[Jamison04]

Oooh yeah guess maybe farther north it isn't a big help keeping it warm after a certain time. To answer your question about taking it off w/o getting leaves in the water is it takes two people. We first fold it over itself like a taco and another time over itself. Then one person rolls it up onto the deck while the other person keeps the end closed up. When it's time to put it back on we open it back up in the reverse. Most of the junk gets moved to the middle fold and we just use the net to drag as much as we can to the side and pick or scoop it off. It doesn't stay completely clean that way but it's 100 times better than constantly scooping the leaves out.

 

[Jamison04]

Also the pool is flanked on either side by two huge pecan trees. Now that I think about this and havin to break out the solar cover this week, its a major PITA!!! lol oh what we go through to try and extend the swimming season.

 

[DWSPool]

It seems there are two times of the year when we fight algae the most: in the spring and early summer when there is lots of pollen and "stuff" getting into the pool - and in early fall, when leaves fall in - I have to keep the chlorine especially high during these times. We used a leaf net last year when leaves started falling heavily - worked somewhat, but leaves get wet and very heavy and the leaf net is hard to pull off. In southern Indiana we will still have several weekends of swimming left. Then, we keep the pool chemicals up enough until the pool water drops below 60 and close.

 

[Johnny B]

2.) What do you do about all the leaves? I have 2 100+ year old giant maple trees over my pool, as well as several pine trees, a crab apple tree, an oak tree... I'd like to run the skimmer full time to keep them from sinking to the bottom, but that would cost me ~$3.00 / day with my electricity rates.

Search PoolSkim- it is the bomb !
3.) Do you just let the leaves build up and do a "final cleaning" right before closing it? But then I might have to spend ~$30 on chemicals to shock it before closing....

What do you do, for you people with a ton of trees? When I opened my pool this year, I filled 3 wheelbarrows with leaves that were sitting at the bottom. I think the previous owners just forgot about it after august and let it get nasty. was a HUGE PITA to get clean when I opened it the first time!...

I'd keep thing as clean as you reasonably can, especially until the water temp goes under 60F