I have a plaster pool (1 year old now) that has a sun deck of about 6-8 inches of water and a bench that wraps around most of one side of the pool. There is 9 inches between the top of the bench and the sun deck. (1) What is the best level to drain the water down to for winter closing? I know I want to drain the sun deck, but how low below that? If it gets too low, then it doesn’t leave too much water on top of the bench. Or, should I drain the water to 4 inches below the bench? How will this effect the stairs? Of course, I’m concerned about cracking during the winter freeze.
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I would like to go without covering the pool. We didn’t get a custom cover made bc we don’t like the idea of screws/attachment pieces on the side wall (plus, a pain to attach and unattach, right?) and aren’t excited about the attachment pieces that will have to be drilled into the concrete (as well as the large cost for it). Last year, we just covered it with a solar cover. It didn’t do anything to actually keep any debris out of the pool (it’s just floating on top). So, I was thinking it’d be much prettier to be able to see the pool water during the winter (I could scoop the leaves out once fall is done). I’d enjoy lighting up the pool as well during Christmas time. (2) Will the plaster get damaged by not being covered? (Especially if the sun deck +/- bench isn’t covering it with water?) Does a solar cover really do anything to help protect it?
My other pictures are of my sun deck. Just took off our pool loungers and table with umbrella, and you can see the plaster is much lighter where it was more exposed to the sun. (3) Is that expected?
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Some background: plaster pool in NKY (Cincinnati metro), poured 10/2023. Closed shortly after it was poured. Bad experience with pool construction company (the company as of 2-3 months ago no longer exists). There were tons of stains in the concrete with construction. Mid July 2024 water was drained and surface acid-washed to clear out the dirt construction stains. Then salt added (to use our SWG).
I have had pH creep all summer long. Have to add about a gallon of Muriatic acid/ week in avg with TA about 90 (80-100). Will this ever stop?? I just read about adding borates. I’ll likely do that next season—too late to do that now bc planning on closing tomorrow. I brought the pH down to 7.0 right now with a TA of 70. Aerating so maybe I can add some more and get TA down to maybe 60. (4) will there be problems if the pool go goes back up to 8.0-8.4 through the winter? I’m guess it will inevitably do that since that’s what’s been going on all summer. Do I need to do something else right now?
TIA!
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I would like to go without covering the pool. We didn’t get a custom cover made bc we don’t like the idea of screws/attachment pieces on the side wall (plus, a pain to attach and unattach, right?) and aren’t excited about the attachment pieces that will have to be drilled into the concrete (as well as the large cost for it). Last year, we just covered it with a solar cover. It didn’t do anything to actually keep any debris out of the pool (it’s just floating on top). So, I was thinking it’d be much prettier to be able to see the pool water during the winter (I could scoop the leaves out once fall is done). I’d enjoy lighting up the pool as well during Christmas time. (2) Will the plaster get damaged by not being covered? (Especially if the sun deck +/- bench isn’t covering it with water?) Does a solar cover really do anything to help protect it?
My other pictures are of my sun deck. Just took off our pool loungers and table with umbrella, and you can see the plaster is much lighter where it was more exposed to the sun. (3) Is that expected?
——
Some background: plaster pool in NKY (Cincinnati metro), poured 10/2023. Closed shortly after it was poured. Bad experience with pool construction company (the company as of 2-3 months ago no longer exists). There were tons of stains in the concrete with construction. Mid July 2024 water was drained and surface acid-washed to clear out the dirt construction stains. Then salt added (to use our SWG).
I have had pH creep all summer long. Have to add about a gallon of Muriatic acid/ week in avg with TA about 90 (80-100). Will this ever stop?? I just read about adding borates. I’ll likely do that next season—too late to do that now bc planning on closing tomorrow. I brought the pH down to 7.0 right now with a TA of 70. Aerating so maybe I can add some more and get TA down to maybe 60. (4) will there be problems if the pool go goes back up to 8.0-8.4 through the winter? I’m guess it will inevitably do that since that’s what’s been going on all summer. Do I need to do something else right now?
TIA!
