It’s April, so we opened our swimming pool. When I mentioned to several people that we would be opening the pool on April 25, they asked how I knew exactly which day we’d do that. I explained that a crew comes out in the fall to shut down the water system and the pumps, blow out the pipes, and winterize everything; then they come back in the spring and reverse the process. As a result, we need to schedule the day they come.
We take the winter cover off the pool the day before the crew comes and the concrete is always dirty around the edges where dust, dirt, leaves, etc. collect over the winter months. Ted set up the power washer and I got busy cleaning the concrete.
The concrete to the left of the red brick trim is clean; the concrete I’m standing on is still dirty. Can you see the difference?
After the crew leaves and all the mechanical stuff is running again, we need to kill off algae that’s grown over the winter, re-stabilize the chemicals in the water, and vacuum the dirt off the bottom of the pool. It usually takes about 4-7 days to finish the cleaning, stabilize the chemicals, and heat up the water. This year we learned that some of the pool-opening work can be greatly reduced and/or avoided.
Vacuuming the bottom of the pool.
We usually open the pool when the air temperatures are warm enough to consider swimming, and we close it when the air temperatures are too cool to have fun in the water. While they were here this week, the pool crew (the same guys who come every fall and spring) told us that algae cannot grow if the water temperature is in the low 60s or below, so if we close the pool after the water cools down to about 60 degrees and open it before the water gets above 60 degrees, it won’t be nearly as dirty. (Our water was 68 degrees when we removed the winter cover.)
The obvious question: Why didn’t they tell us this the first year we had the pool??? We’ll definitely try that idea next fall!