Closing NJ gunite pool for 2-3 years?

[Auctor]

My wife and I will be relocating for at least a year or two, and we’re keeping our house in Central NJ, which has an 18k gunite pool with SWG.

I usually close the pool late Oct and open in late May, and pool is always crystal clear upon opening (save for about 1000 worms in the deep end every season). I use a solid tarp with water bags and a pump on top. I usually close with SLAM level Chlorine, and while the pH is always super high, I’ve never had any issues in 4 years.

My plan is to disconnect my pump and SWG and bring them inside to prevent damage. Otherwise, I didn’t plan anything different.

What suggestions do you all have to protect the pool and ensure that it opens with as little work as possible in 2-3 years? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[Texas Splash]

What suggestions do you all have to protect the pool and ensure that it opens with as little work as possible in 2-3 years?

Will you be visiting the home periodically while relocated? Perhaps have a property manager monitoring things for you? Or 100% closed for 2-3 years with no visits or monitoring? That will drive the replies.

 

[Auctor]

Will you be visiting the home periodically while relocated? Perhaps have a property manager monitoring things for you? Or 100% closed for 2-3 years with no visits or monitoring? That will drive the replies.

Appreciate the feedback. The pool will be 100% closed for 2-3 years with no monitoring or visits. We’re moving across the country. We don’t have an automatic pool water filler. A pool service would cost $3k+ for the season to open, monitor for 16 weeks, and close. That’s $6k+ for two summers, and feels like too big an investment.

 

[Auctor]

Anyone have any thoughts?

Maybe I can ask a few Qs and people can help me understand.

1) How green will the pool be, and do you think there will be damage to the plaster?
2) is there anything I can do to prevent algae growth? (Extra chlorine, double the water bags, two tarps instead of one, etc)
3) will I need to drain and refill the pool in 2-3 years?
4) is it worth putting a safety cover UNDER the tarp, or is that overkill?

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

 

[reggiehammond]

There's a number of threads of people who've bought homes (foreclosure and the like) that had pools that hadn't been serviced in years. It seems from those threads that the cover will typically fail, and the pool fills with debris, etc. They are all veritable nightmare looking situations so you should absolutely expect the absolute worst.

Lots and lots of organic growth, plant life, animal life, etc. I don't think there's any way you can hope that the water is maintained while you're gone by how well you treat it before you leave. I could be wrong - just don't know that there's many here that have ever tried it.

 

[1poolman1]

My wife and I will be relocating for at least a year or two, and we’re keeping our house in Central NJ, which has an 18k gunite pool with SWG.

I usually close the pool late Oct and open in late May, and pool is always crystal clear upon opening (save for about 1000 worms in the deep end every season). I use a solid tarp with water bags and a pump on top. I usually close with SLAM level Chlorine, and while the pH is always super high, I’ve never had any issues in 4 years.

My plan is to disconnect my pump and SWG and bring them inside to prevent damage. Otherwise, I didn’t plan anything different.

What suggestions do you all have to protect the pool and ensure that it opens with as little work as possible in 2-3 years? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Without maintenance, you will return to a mosquito filled, very smelly swamp that may cost more in repairs than paying for maintenance. The water will evaporate, uncovering the plaster which can begin delaminating. Even without that problem, your pH will go very high. You will end up, at the very least, with huge amounts of deposits on the pool surface. It may even be reported to any abatement agency in your area for the health hazard it will become. Any cover you may use will fail in that time without maintenance. Once you have a pool, you can't walk away without problems. Two years? Two years worth of problems.

 

[gkw4815]

It's extremely inconsiderate to your neighbors to deliberately abandon a pool. If/when your pool cover fails you've got a mosquito swamp.

Leaving a property vacant for 2-3 years has other negative implications...possibility of major damage to your home going undetected and and a major increase to your insurance rates (vacant-home insurance is $$$). I'd seriously consider selling the house, hiring a house-sitter who could at least minimally check on the pool, or selling/storing your furnishings, renting out the house, and hiring pool and lawn service.

 

[Auctor]

Appreciate the responses.

Trying to understand why, if there’s a solid tarp, maybe even a double tarp with double water bags, the pool would still swamp up so badly? What am i not understanding about either algae or critters?

My plan is to keep the CH at a level where the pH can go to 9 but the scaling would be minimal at most temps (30-90). Is that plan doomed to fail?

I’ve read the doomsday threads here, but my guess is they aren’t religiously following the experts here when they close. I have the benefit of your insights and knowledge - why will this pool swamp up so badly?

Edit - I should note that the house won’t be totally abandoned. We plan to come by for a week or two every quarter to check in on things.
Edit #2 - ugh, I gave the wrong impression in my second post - sorry about that. We will visit quarterly.

 

[Kaylee34]

I'm sorry but this just sounds like a bad idea all round and not just with the pool.

As for the pool, water bags can and will break or leak. One or two good heavy snowfalls and you've got a lot of frozen water weight on there. Power goes out and pump on top of the tarp is out too. The tarp IS going to end up in the pool. Won't talk about ice storms, heavy rain, evaporation or keeping water levels halfway decent much less maintained. Also won't say much about the liability of unmonitored tarps and water bags covering a pool at a vacant house. Sorry, but that's just a disaster waiting to happen for stray dogs, other animals or God forbid a kid. Quarterly visits for a week or two just aren't going to cut it in this scenario. If you're really considering this, please get a proper safety cover at the very least.

As for the rest of it, what will you do with the rest of the property? Who's cutting the grass and maintaining the yard? Snow? What will you do if there's an extended power outage? A tree falls on the house? Pipes freeze? HVAC goes out? Basic routine home maintenance? Vandalism or break-ins?

If you have someone coming by to check on the place, make sure the heat works, keep up the yard and let you know if there's a problem, surely they can check the pool as well and do some basics minimums.

 

[1poolman1]

My wife and I will be relocating for at least a year or two, and we’re keeping our house in Central NJ, which has an 18k gunite pool with SWG.

I usually close the pool late Oct and open in late May, and pool is always crystal clear upon opening (save for about 1000 worms in the deep end every season). I use a solid tarp with water bags and a pump on top. I usually close with SLAM level Chlorine, and while the pH is always super high, I’ve never had any issues in 4 years.

My plan is to disconnect my pump and SWG and bring them inside to prevent damage. Otherwise, I didn’t plan anything different.

What suggestions do you all have to protect the pool and ensure that it opens with as little work as possible in 2-3 years? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Hire a property management company. May be much less expensive in the long run for the entire property, not just the pool.

 

[wireform]

^^^^^^+1
Cheap is expensive and sometimes very expensive.

 

[phonedave]

Quarterly visits are a different story.

You may be able to get away with that.

At the very least your cover is going to need replacing at some time, your water bag refilling/replacing, and chlorine added to the pool.

A covered pool, even with double the water bags, is not a hermetically sealed environment. Things, lots of things, will get in there, and you will have to keep on top of it