Yesterday, a friend and his wife went to look at a house they were interested in, not terribly far from where I live. The house had a pool and since they knew zero about pools, they asked if I could tag along to give it the once over...not in any great detail, just to see if I noticed anything glaringly wrong during a preliminary, cursory look.
Apparently, the seller was a widowed empty-nester, whose husband died about 3 years ago. The husband was the sole caretaker of the pool and when he passed, someone shut it down, closed the valves, put on the safety cover, but it was never winterized. The pool, about 20x40 rectangle, sits down a level from the house, so it was probably a case of out of site, out of mind.
I pulled the cover back a little and the pool was still holding water, black as it was, right up to the skimmers. I told my friends that was a good sign. We then went around to the pool house which was a neat concrete block structure that housed the sand filter, pump and heater. The heater was vented straight up through the roof.
It was obvious no one had been in there since it was shutdown. There was still debris in the pump basket, mold on the walls, and the filter was obviously never drained. At some point it froze and burst, a small pile of sand lay beside it where it spilled out. The kicker is, the room had baseboard heating and a thermostat, but it was never turned on.
So all of that was a long-winded backstory for this picture...what happens when a fairly old sand filter is not properly winterized.
Apparently, the seller was a widowed empty-nester, whose husband died about 3 years ago. The husband was the sole caretaker of the pool and when he passed, someone shut it down, closed the valves, put on the safety cover, but it was never winterized. The pool, about 20x40 rectangle, sits down a level from the house, so it was probably a case of out of site, out of mind.
I pulled the cover back a little and the pool was still holding water, black as it was, right up to the skimmers. I told my friends that was a good sign. We then went around to the pool house which was a neat concrete block structure that housed the sand filter, pump and heater. The heater was vented straight up through the roof.
It was obvious no one had been in there since it was shutdown. There was still debris in the pump basket, mold on the walls, and the filter was obviously never drained. At some point it froze and burst, a small pile of sand lay beside it where it spilled out. The kicker is, the room had baseboard heating and a thermostat, but it was never turned on.
So all of that was a long-winded backstory for this picture...what happens when a fairly old sand filter is not properly winterized.
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