Do you cover yourself? (And other non-swim season questions....)

[vpace74]

Pools are not abundant where I live and I know of no one who covers their pool in the winter. I fully intend to get a safety cover - to protect our pups in the winter and keep too many Disney character suicides (i.e. not having woodland creatures hop on in) from happening. Out of curiosity as a "newbie":

1. Do you cover your pool? If so, is it more for safety or cleanliness? How "clean" does it keep your pool over non-swim season (i.e. how much easier does it make pool opening?)?

2. Is there anything you can do to keep a pool "healthy" in winter? Where we live, it is nothing to see pools freeze. While researching our build options, we visited a friend's pool in December and it was frozen hard enough their dogs could walk on it (no cover) and there were these green, fuzzy looking masses on the bottom of the deep end. Is that just something you can't prevent and have to deal with every spring or is that some sort of lacking in pool maintenance?

As always, thanks for generous answers to "dumb" questions.

 

[danpik]

I use a tarp like cover on mine. When I pull the cover in the spring the water is almost as clean as when I put it on. A couple of leaves do manage to get in somehow, but for the most part all I have to do is adjust the levels and hook up and turn on the filter. By far the biggest issue is cleaning all the gunk off of the top of the cover prior to removing it. I have found that if I skim the debris off once/wk in the fall it really helps in the spring. Once I am ready to remove it, I run a syphon hose to get the water off. If I am lucky, the wind will billow up the cover and knock most of the leftover debris off. If not I grab the shop vac and clear it that way.

 

[Patrick_B]

Those are not dumb questions, believe me, I just read some elsewhere. Lots of us do it for all the reasons. Mostly to help keep the pool clean. You can absolutely stay open in winter and not go green at all. In fact, that is quite easy to do in winter. The pools you mention were simply neglected is all. In many cases winter covering helps tremendously with things like leaf fall, so it just depends on your situation. Safety is a factor, but safety covers are another level, as they are specialized/heavy duty, and expensive.

 

[DaneCE]

I found that for me and my pool that it's less work to keep my pool open year round.

 

[ship of fools]

My neighbor has never covered his. We are in upstate NY and get a good solid freeze (last year most lakes had 2'+ of ice) so he winterizes it but doesn't bother with the cover.

I didn't cover mine last winter and it was fine. I scooped out stuff all fall and then once it thawed i opened it up and got chlorine and stabilizer in and had no issues.

 

[Texas Splash]

As for dogs and critters, we preferred to put a fence around our pool. Not because of children .. but our 7 dogs! Anyways, I have a friend who had a cover on his pool and his dog walked on it, fell in (and under) then could not get out from under it and drowned. That's unusual I suppose, but in my case with lots of dogs, one reason I went with a fence. Covers certainly have their advantages though for a lot of owners - even for trying to save some FC from the summer sun.

 

[vpace74]

We intend to do a safety cover so that nothing can fall through, get trapped and drown. I know they are expensive but I would just personally feel much better since we don't have a fence - and that would be cheaper than a fence.

I don't know that "keeping it open" all year is an option? Or maybe I don't really understand what "keeping it open" means? Because we do get so many hard freezes and occasional ice storms, I know I will have to winterize it. But it sounds like as long as I keep it skimmed and cleaned up until it is covered, even if it isn't in use, it will help tremendously in spring.

When I winterize, is there anything else that needs to be done chemically the rest of the year before it is re-opened? Or do you winterize, keep it clean, and cover?