Closing Pool for Winter - Did I use enough antifreeze?

[garybtru]

Hi all,

Last year I closed & opened my pool myself thanks to this site, and it went great!! This year I'm doing it a second time and I want to try switching it up just a little bit. Can you guys let me know if this sounds alright?

I live in upstate NY and it can get crazy cold, like -14ºF windchill in the dead of Winter. So I'm wondering about antifreeze... last year I:

- Blew out all the lines with my shopvac until mist sprayed out (skimmer and 2 returns)
- Put about 1 gallon into the floor drain intake pipe, by the pump, just to be safe
- I think I put like 3 gallons into the returns (enough so that antifreeze started overflowing out of the pipe.)
- Similarly filled the skimmer line with antifreeze (until it overflowed)

This year, I blew out all the lines same as last year, but only put 1 gallon of antifreeze into the skimmer line, closed the floor drain by the pump (no antifreeze) and added 1 gallon of antifreeze to the returns line. Do you think that's enough?? I'll find out in the Spring I guess.

Thanks!
-Gary

 

[Catanzaro]

Gary:

A little difficult to answer if what you have used enough antifreeze and made the right choice. If the lines were cleared out properly, you will not need as much antifreeze as the previous year, unless you had failure in the skimmers and winter plugs, in where water just filled all the lines. I feel you will be fine with how you have done things. It takes long deep freezes before the ground freezes and starts freezing 100% of the water in all the lines. You really only about 10% air volume in the lines as water will only expand about 9% in extreme freezing conditions. Take care.

 

[garybtru]

Gary:
A little difficult to answer if what you have used enough antifreeze and made the right choice. If the lines were cleared out properly, you will not need as much antifreeze as the previous year, unless you had failure in the skimmers and winter plugs, in where water just filled all the lines. I feel you will be fine with how you have done things. It takes long deep freezes before the ground freezes and starts freezing 100% of the water in all the lines. You really only about 10% air volume in the lines as water will only expand about 9% in extreme freezing conditions. Take care.

Thanks! I haven't had an failures in the skimmer or winter plugs, and when I took the plugs off in the Spring, I heard & saw the air pushing out into the pool water, from the air trapped in the lines, so I think I'll be alright. If I understand it correctly, the antifreeze is just basically an insurance measure just in case like you said the jet plugs or skimmer gizmo fail and water gets into the lines, right? Good to know about the 10% air volume thing, that's interesting.

Thanks again!

 

[garybtru]

So I think I used enough antifreeze! No problems with suction etc. after hooking up the pump yesterday and lowering the level after all rain we had and all the snow melted. Good to know!