Very Confused on Closing

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J

jshinklin

0
Jul 5, 2008
108
Bucyrus, Ohio
This is my first year closing using the BBB method and also with having a sand filter, I am really confused on what to do.
I have heard you bring water up to shock level and circulate for 24 hrs., drain 6in below skimmer level and then add the Poly-Quat. What if you dont have any Poly-Quat can you still close it?
I really dont know what to do with my sand filter system, do you take the sand out and store it? Drain it for a few days and just cover it with the drain open? I know someone here can help me with step by step directions cause I am really scared the filter will still have water in it and I will end up with a broken filter system in the spring. What is this about a spyder gasket? where and what is it??? OH MAN AM I LOST.

All the help I can get would be great.

Thanks
 
I can't help you with the sand filter, but others will chime in, no worries.

You don't have to let the chlorine circulate for 24 hours.... You could add the chlorine first thing in the a.m., let it circulate for say, a few hours....then add the polyquat (I got mine at Leslie's-their version, it was like $25 a quart) and let that circulate for another few hours and that should suffice - I would think that at least 8 hours of circulation should be good enough to disperse the chems adequately...if I'm wrong about that I'm hoping those in the know will correct me! :oops:

BTW, I closed mine last year without the polyquat (I forgot it) and opened to crystal clear water. We had an unusually cold fall and winter so I think I lucked out, I'm not taking any chances this year, as I plan to close it a bit earlier. Good luck! Once you do it, you'll get the hang of things and realize it's not too complicated. Worth saving the money to do it yourself...
 
IMO, you dont need the poly-quat in your neck of the woods although I wouldnt close your pool until the water temps get below 60 degrees because algae cant grow in water that cold. Just keep your water balanced until you decide to close.
Drain your pool 6" below the lowest return jet or skimmer line. remove the drain plug on your filter and let it drain for a day or so then remove the filter and store it out of the elements in your garage and you should be ok. Some people do this and some dont. It depends on the individual pool owner. Put the plug in a safe place for the winter ! :wink:

There is a section in our pool school about closing your pool

FPM, I dont think you got lucky with your poly-quat last year. I think your water was cold enough where it wouldnt allow algae to grow any longer if left unbalanced.
 
Take a deep breath. There's no need to stress out over closing the pool, you'll do fine and so will it.

Some of us add polyquat 60 for extra insurance but if you don't have any it's no big deal. Bring the pool to the appropriate shock level and circulate for some hours. Vacuum the bottom and remove what debris might be in the pool. Is yours an in-ground or above-ground?

We have an AG. After we've treated the water we drain it to below the lowest outlet which, in our situation, is the return. Part of this draining is accomplished by backwashing and rinsing the sand filter for a couple of cycles. Once the water level gets near the minimum side on the skimmer (which means the pump can't work anymore) we use a garden hose siphon.

We disconnect the PVC pipes from the sides of the pool and plug the holes with expandable rubber plugs. We drain the pump which pretty much drains the plumbing, and we open all the ball valves. We drain the sand filter, remove the top and the spider gasket (that's the thing you see when you take the lever part off the top) and store it in the house. We also store the skimmer basket and all pool equipment in the house - we have a big basement. We remove the wedding cake steps and store them under the pool deck. The filter and pump get covered with a tarpaulin.

That's it.
 
So when we remove the spyder gasket, do we also leave the top lever thingy off to and leave it wide open? We are planning on leaving the filter outside for the winter, just covering and wrapping it good with a tarp(that is what the neighbors do and they havent had any probs)

I get we leave the drain on the bottom open, I was just reading the instruction that came with the filter system and boy they dont tell ya squat!!!! They must want you to have it professionally done or something.

We will be bringing in the pump for the winter and storing it in the basement.

Any suggestions on covering, last year we had no pillows and still dont, just wondering if you HAVE TO HAVE something in the middle or will it be okay without them? Also we get alot of cross winds and tried the "clips" from the pool store they just let loose the minute the cover got pulled taunt. Would jugs of water hanging from the sides and under the decking work better?
 
If your going to cover your pool you should put something in the center to hold the cover off of the water. The reason for this is so the water doesnt pool in the middle and runs off to the side. If you have trees around your pool it will help keep the leaves out of the center and sitting in water all winter long, making a swampy mess to clean up in the spring next year.
 
Re the filter: we bring the top and gasket inside and we leave the drain open, then cover the whole thing with a tarp, including the drained pump.

We don't cover our pool. Did the first year, found it to be way more of a hassle than a benefit.
 
jshinklin said:
Would jugs of water hanging from the sides and under the decking work better?
Click to expand...

We use jugs of water, but we tie the rope so that the jugs sit on the ground, rope taught. When they were dangling...the wind caused the jugs to rub the paint off the side off the pool in some areas. We also hang some over into the pool cover, keeping the water that sits on top evenly distributed, which also keeps the cover from blowing around. We are careful where the grommets sit, the wind has caused those to rub paint off the pool too, so we try for the grommets to not touch the pool.
 
Any suggestions out there to help with covering a pool that has a deck built too close to the edge of pool and cant get the cover between? I hate not to use the cable to hold down the cover on the open sides but just noticed ....We cant get the cover between the pool deck and pool for almost 10ft. Not sure what to do or how to hold the cover down now or should we just NOT cover here in Ohio?
If we dont cover wont we have a BIG MESS in the spring to clean up????
 
There was a similar post from a fellow here in Illinois, he used sand bags on the deck portion, someone else suggested Paver stones from Lowes/HD....I'm not sure what you would do about the cable then?

As for covering, not to cover....You'll get advocates for both. Think of it this way, You'll have a mess to clean, either on top of the cover or in the pool...and sometimes both, if removing the cover doesn't go smoothly :shock: . But even if you developed a mess in the pool, you know how to clear it, from the advice on TFP.... :-D
 

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Hi there! I'm the gal from Tinley Park, Illinois who started the other post about closing my pool. I have decking all around my above ground pool and have the same problem with covering it.

We've tried the water bags and it does not work. We get a lot of crosswind and those water bags have flown off as if they were weightless. For the last couple of years we have used sand bags to hold down the cover. We do put the pillow in the center of the pool. We tie a string to both sides of the pillow and secure it to the deck. It works pretty well. Just don't inflate the pillow all the way. We then cover the pool with the winter cover leaving some slack on top of the pillow. We position the rest of the winter cover over the pool rails and the deck and then put sand bags on top of the cover every few feet. This works really well for us, but as you can imagine, the sand bags are really heavy. After a few of these, we're pooped! My husband has a bad tennis elbow, so it's not the best situation. I was trying to find another way of covering the pool and had a few suggestions from people on this forum.

Before the sandbag idea, we've also tied the pool cover to the decking. This works okay, but with the bad wind, it goes underneath the cover and actually lifts it up in the air and breaks the string. We found that the only thing that works is to put something heavy on top of the pool cover and try to slip the bottom flap of the pool cover under the rails or decking as close as possible so that no wind can get underneath the cover. The key is to not let the wind get underneath the cover.

I've never used the cable because, like you, we've never been able to get the cable between the rails and the deck. I'm not sure if I've helped at all, but if you have any questions regarding my methods, don't hesitate to ask.

We're not closing our pool for another 2-3 weeks. Once we do, I will post a picture of what we did and what it looks like.
 
We have a deck on part of the pool with the same problem, the cover can't get underneath. So we use bungee cords to tie the cover onto the fence around the pool, then simply bungee the part over the deck to the far end of the deck and place our two deck boxes on top of the cover. There is probably two feet of cover between the boxes and on either side before a bungee goes around the fence pole. It has worked for us for two years. Of coarse we live next to a bluff so we don't get horrible winds here.
 
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