To close or not to close in VA

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uvavi8r

uvavi8r

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Aug 8, 2020
177
Falls Church, VA
it is our first winter with our pool (approximately 11500 gal, SWG, fiberglass partial inground, pics of the install and final here OB in NoVA (Dig Starts tomorrow 6/8)). I live in Falls Church, VA. My wife and I have discussed not closing the pool for the winter...not keeping it open for swimming, but not lowering the water and putting the cover on it. I have a heater, just wondering if we can keep it "open" rather than closing?

Our concerns with closing are we are going to have to drill holes in the deck for the cover, figure out a way to mount the cover on the parts of the pool wall not flush with the ground and we honestly like the way the pool looks from our den. We don't have any small children and would more than likely be opening the pool in mid-April.

Any thoughts or comments are greatly appreciated.
 
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If you don't get days & days of extremely cold weather like up north, you certainly can keep the pool running. A low speed/rpm is all that's needed to keep pipes and equipment from freeze damage. However have a Plan B just in case. Be very familiar with your drain plug locations (heater, pump, filter, etc) in the event you need to expedite removing water during an extended power outage. I doubt the heater will be worth the effort. Cold ambient temps tend to make a heater inefficient.
 
uvavi8r said:
I have a heater, just wondering if we can keep it "open" rather than closing?
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Note that your heater manual says the following:

WINTER OPERATION CAUTION
• Operating this heater continuously at water temperatures below 68° F. (20° C) will cause harmful condensation and will damage the heater and void the warranty.
• If the heater has been drained for freezing condition, do NOT turn "ON" until the system is circulating water.
• Water trapped in the heat exchanger can result in freeze damage to the exchanger or headers. Freeze damage is specifically not covered by the warranty.
• When starting the heater for the swimming season with a water temperature below 50° F (10° C), the heater may be used to heat the water; however, make sure that the heater operates continuously until the water temperature reaches the heater’s minimum setting of 68° F (20° C). During cold weather, if there is no danger of freezing, operate the filter pump continuously even if the heater is not operating. If air temperatures are expected to drop below freezing (32° F/0° C), shut down the heater and winterize it.
 
I will have to think a bit more on this...I did build in a heater bypass, so I can isolate the heater...so do I just keep the pool running 24/7 at a super low speed and add liquid chlorine when needed?

If there is anyone in Northern Virginia that doesn't close their pool I would love to hear from them.
 
uvavi8r said:
I will have to think a bit more on this...I did build in a heater bypass, so I can isolate the heater...
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I don’t know what you think isolating the heater will accomplish. If you bypass the heater for the winter you should winterize it following the manual.

uvavi8r said:
so do I just keep the pool running 24/7 at a super low speed and add liquid chlorine when needed?

If there is anyone in Northern Virginia that doesn't close their pool I would love to hear from them.
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As long as you don’t have a Texas style power loss and freeze that can work.
 
You will never use the pool for swimming till next season so why keep an expensive heater in the loop.If you bypass the heater I'd winterize it to make sure the heater core is drained down along with all else the would need to be done to if it were in a real winter climate. Make sure there isn't a low spot where water just sits in a pipe connection as keeping the flow should cold temps hit won't help a spot with no flow.
 
I'm a little further south of you but we don't close/winterize our in-ground pool. Winter maintenance is very minimal, keeps the pool looking nice, chlorine use is minimal, and is an easy opening process in Spring. As Texas Splash suggested, I keep the pump on low. In the rare events when we get temps in the teens, I do turn it up. I will also loosely drape the equipment and pipes with moving blankets. That likely does nothing but I do it anyway.

This approach worked with no issues when we had 8 days straight in 2018 with temps only 16F-28F.
 
IMissNimoy said:
I'm a little further south of you but we don't close/winterize our in-ground pool. Winter maintenance is very minimal, keeps the pool looking nice, chlorine use is minimal, and is an easy opening process in Spring. As Texas Splash suggested, I keep the pump on low. In the rare events when we get temps in the teens, I do turn it up. I will also loosely drape the equipment and pipes with moving blankets. That likely does nothing but I do it anyway.

This approach worked with no issues when we had 8 days straight in 2018 with temps only 16F-28F.
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So you keep the pump running 24/7? If so, what RPM are you running...I have a VS/VF.
 

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uvavi8r said:
So you keep the pump running 24/7? If so, what RPM are you running...I have a VS/VF.
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I run at 1200 but I have 2.5" pipes and a long run from pool to pump. It kicks up 2500 twice a day for extra skimming that my pool needs. You may be able to get away with less.
 
I live in northern Virginia and am contemplating leaving my pool open for pretty much the same reasons. I have salt in the pool but understand that only lowers freezing temperature about 2°, but have read that PVC provides decent insulation so the temperature would have to be down to 20° for hours before water in the pipes froze.
It would be good to have some statistics on pipes bursting due to freezing pool water, eg, which pipes (2 or 1.5", above and below ground, etc,) and under what weather conditions.
 
When I was in GA I closed my pool in late November through early March. I knew we wouldn't use it, and I didn't want to have to worry about checking on it constantly, adding chemicals, etc. (SWG doesn't work in cold weather). In addition, you have the added cost of running the pump, and the extra wear and tear on the equipment. We were south of you.

I had one of the winter elephant covers (you know, the one where they show an elephant standing on it). I had a number of cover fasteners installed in my stamped concrete deck. When the cover is off, and the fastener is screwed down, you hardly notice them.
 
Chesapeake, VA here. I thought it would be great to just leave the pool open for the winters when mine was built in 2017. After 2 winters leaving it open, I realized that I spent more time maintaining it in the winter than I do in the summer = Constantly scooping out twigs & decomposed leaves, empty skimmers, run cleaner, weekly FC/pH testing, draining to maintain level after a rain, cleaning the filter, etc. Plus there is the $$ for running the pump & chemicals. Then in early April all the pollen drops in and I have to deal with that. So now I close with a plain ol' tarp and water bags - nothing fancy. Closing takes me 4 hours. I drop an automatic pool cover sump pump on top and then don't have to even think about the pool for a good 6 months. Sure its not as attractive, but the peace of mind of not having to perform my daily "how's the pool doing" mental check is great. Best thing is to try doing it both ways and see which works for you! Good luck.
 
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goody222 said:
Chesapeake, VA here. I thought it would be great to just leave the pool open for the winters when mine was built in 2017. After 2 winters leaving it open, I realized that I spent more time maintaining it in the winter than I do in the summer = Constantly scooping out twigs & decomposed leaves, empty skimmers, run cleaner, weekly FC/pH testing, draining to maintain level after a rain, cleaning the filter, etc. Plus there is the $$ for running the pump & chemicals. Then in early April all the pollen drops in and I have to deal with that. So now I close with a plain ol' tarp and water bags - nothing fancy. Closing takes me 4 hours. I drop an automatic pool cover sump pump on top and then don't have to even think about the pool for a good 6 months. Sure its not as attractive, but the peace of mind of not having to perform my daily "how's the pool doing" mental check is great. Best thing is to try doing it both ways and see which works for you! Good luck.
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I’m also in the Tidewater region and close and cover for the same reasons you cited. 👍
 
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goody222 said:
Best thing is to try doing it both ways and see which works for you!
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Sooooooooo much THIS ^^^^^^^

Every yard is different and so is everyone’s thoughts about the +\- of either way.

You’ll have many seasons to experiment and tweak it to your liking.
 
I think we are following @goody222's advice...leaving open this year, see how it goes...then see what happens next year. We are in an unfortunate situation where the back neighbors have a VERY obnoxious black walnut tree that "gives" us some debris (leaves, branches and more importantly the black walnut hand grenades). We have cut as much as we could back, but still get "bombed" in late summer & early fall. Keeping the debris out is a full time job, but I have a very willing partner in my wife...she typically will skim in the morning, I skim in the afternoon.
 
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Well, I decided to close my pool the night of Jan 2nd, a few hours before the big snowstorm and, more relevant, before night temperatures hit the teens. The other factor was that my VS pump's anti-freeze feature (it's supposed to turn on automatically below 37°) isn't working. Once I solve that problem, I may try again next winter.

AJW22, thank you for your reply (and for your many other helpful responses). That was a very useful article. I was almost willing to be a guineau pig for empirical data on leaving the pool open all winter, but now hear there is a PVC shortage :-/.

Good luck to uvavi8r!
 
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I have kept my pool open through all the snow and colder temps (granted my "freeze protection" is working), I do check everything fairly often and the ONLY time I was a bit worried was the Jan 2nd snow storm (I got stuck in Key West). I haven't had any significant problems other than some o-rings leaking...opened them up and put some "magic lube" on and it stopped. I also bought a insulated blanket (survival w/ reflective panels) to put over the pump, it seems to be working very well. I can say that I haven't really seen any big jump in electrical billing, so I think I have been lucky.

@Bkamem - I have spare temperature sensors if you need them...just PM me. Mine are for the Pentair system.
 
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