Pool from Sam's

[Bama Rambler]

Here's what I plan to do this winter (ok, it's really never winter here. ).

I'm going to maintain the water level. Since it only gets below freezing a couple days a year and then only for a few hours at a time in the early hours of the morning I'm going to leave the pump on the timer and it's set to run from 3:00am till 7:00am. That way it'll be circulating and preventing anything from freezing during the freezing hours.

My fountain has been ran this way for the last 5 years and I'ts never hurt anything, though at times it looks like an ice cake.

 

[Pool Jennings]

This may seem like a silly question, but I just read about winterizing your ABG pool and it says to drain it down 6" below the return valve, I'm wondering if the pool cover will still fit properly without the water to the top? Anyone with experience and an Easy Set Pool?

Skidiva44, I had a similar issue last winter when I built my pool, I needed to set it all up on the ground so that I could build the decking around it which took several months, obviously I didnt want to fill it with water and I didnt want it filled with leaves from the nearby trees so I put the cover on it and as soon as it rained the cover fell in along with all the leaves and debris, plan 2 involved building a spiders web from some nylon cord and running it across the top of the pool, this was a little better but still puddled in the webs, either way the empty pool was still 2ft deep come spring.
My thoughts this winter (my first) are to leave filled then place a large peice of polysterine on top of the water and then put the cover over this and then an additional cover after overdosing with chlorene of course.
All the pump and pipework will be removed so I am not sure why the recommendation seems to be to drain below the return ???