Inground Pool Winterizing
This is general
information on how to close you pool for the winter. Products for closing your pool.
1 -
Locate all your winterizing supplies. This should include the cover, the
water tubes, the plugs for the skimmers (Gizmos) and return jets and your
winterizing chemicals. You will also need an air compressor or a powerful
shop vac. You need these items for proper winterization. If you are using
the green Gizzmos to plug your skimmers, check them out and make sure that
they are not cracked. This is very important when dealing with gizmos.
Gizmos with holes or cracks will not work !
2 -
Backwash the filter very well to clean it out. Drain DE filter tanks and
leave backwash valve open. On sand filters, unplug the filter drain plug
and leave off. Put drain plug with other removed items in the pump basket.
Make sure multiport valve has no water in it. Blow it out with a compressor
or shop vac if necessary. Please note that it is not recommended to "acid
wash" DE filters at the time of the pool closing. This is best to do in the
Spring so that you can immediately run pool water through the system. It is
not good to use muriatic acid on a DE filter and then just rinse it off and
put it away. The acid may degrade the filter parts over the winter.
3 -
Disconnect your pump and filter. Make sure that pump is totally drained out
of any water. Turn pump upside down once to make sure ! Remove any drain
plugs from the pump. It is a good idea to store any small plugs or parts in
the pump basket. This way you will be able to find them easily in the
Spring.
4 - If
there is a heater, drain it and make sure there is no sitting water inside.
Blow it out with a compressor or shop vac. Drain heater totally and remove
all drain plugs (if any). Put drain plugs in the pump basket for safe
keeping. We do not recommend to remove the heater tray. You can remove it
if you want, but you may have trouble putting it back in the Spring. It is
not necessary on most units.
5 -
Unscrew and loosen any quick disconnect fittings or unions at your pump and
filter system. Remember, the name of the game is "no freeze cracks". If the
water is all drained out of your pipes and fittings, it cannot freeze and
expand and crack.
6 -
Remove all return jet fittings ( the entire fitting ! ). If you crack a
fitting while removing it, don’t panic!! You can get a replacement come
Spring. Remove all skimmer baskets. Put fittings and any other items that
you remove in one of the skimmer baskets or the pump basket to avoid loss (
this includes the dive board bolts too ).
7 -
Blow out all return jet pipes using an air compressor or shop vac. Hook up
air compressor or shop vac to the return lines at the filter system - or -
some people prefer to screw the compressor fitting into the drain plug of
the pump. This will give a good seal and allow you to blow out the entire
system from that one spot - but this is up to you. Keep the air blowing
until the air bubbles start to become visible from the return jets in the
pool. Put a plug in the fitting under the water when you see the bubbles
blowing at full force. This will mean that 99% of the water is out of the
pipe. Make sure plug is in tight ! This is most important.
8 -
Blow out all skimmer (suction side) pipes in a similar fashion as noted in
#7. Put a Gizmo-type screw in plug in the skimmer when bubbles start to
become visible. We know that this is sometimes difficult, but proper gizmo
installation is important. Make sure that you put Teflon tape on the gizmo
threads before installing. This insures a tight seal. If you don not want
to use Gizmo plugs and want to use black rubber-type plugs instead, that
is OK as long as there is something in the skimmer to allow for water
expansion when it freezes. Usually a closed plastic empty soda-type bottle
will work. This is very important ! Do not just plug the skimmer lines and
forget about them. Water can easily freeze in a skimmer and crack the
plastic. This would be bad ! Also, if you have a slide, an auto vac system
or a waterfall, you will have to drain and blow out those pipes as well.
Remember - we do not recommend putting anti-freeze type products in the
pipes. You will not need it if the lines are properly blown out. The
anti-freeze can cause a mess in the Spring when you go to start your system
and it gets sucked into your filter and blown back into the pool. Try to
avoid antifreeze - if possible - by properly evacuating all the water from
the pipes.
9 -
Blow out main drain line (if any). No, you don’t have to dive down and plug
the drain pipe. When you see bubbles coming out of the drain, plug the pipe
on your end or close the gate valve. This is as much protection as you can
give to a main drain line. By doing this you will cause an "air lock" in
the line and no more water should enter the pipe from the pool side.
10 -
Put duct tape on all exposed pipes to prevent anything from getting into
them. Use a lot of tape, it’s cheap !
11 -
Remove rope and floats from pool and put with the rest of the supplies.
12 -
Remove dive board and ladders. Put in a safe spot - a shed or the garage.
Put the pump and filter in the shed or garage as well. You probably are not
going to want to move your filter if it is a sand filter. You can leave
that outside ! Remember ... do not lose dive bolts or ladder bumpers. Put
them in the skimmer or pump baskets.
13 -
Mix any granular winterizing chemicals in a bucket so that they are totally
dissolved. Dump mixture into the pool. You want to avoid any un-dissolved
granules from settling on the pool floor and staining the liner. This is
very important. If you are using any liquid winterizing chemicals, pour
them in the pool as well. Test the pool for PH and Total Alkalinity. Adjust
to normal levels using PH PLUS or MINUS and ALKALINITY PLUS. PH should be
between 7.2 - 7.6 and Alkalinity between 100-150 ppm. Make sure one of your
winterize chemicals consists of a SHOCK-type product. You want the chlorine
level in the pool to be rather high (over 3.0 for wintertime).
14 -
Water level. This is an area of a little controversy with some people, so
we are going to tell you how we close the pools here in New York. You do
not have to drain any water out of the pool provided that you have properly
blown out and plugged all your underground pipes as outlined above and you
do not have a pool that has decorative ceramic tiles at the water line.
Some people are used to their pool being drained down past the skimmer.
This is usually done instead of blowing out the pipes and using gizmos.
Realize that the higher their water level is through the winter, the better
it is for the pool cover. Pools that are drained down low cause a lot of
undue stress on the pool cover thereby shortening its life - as well as
exposing the pool liner to the air and causing it to prematurely dry out.
The use of gizmos prevents the skimmers from cracking, plugs the pipes and
allows the water level to remain high for the cover so that rain water does
not cause a lake on top of the pool cover - possibly causing it to fall in.
We feel that the way we have stated to close a pool is the proper way. You
really only have to drain the water down in a pool if it has tile at the
water level because the surface water will freeze and expand over the
winter and this could cause those tiles to crack. Aside from this
situation, we feel that there is no valid reason to lower the water in the
pool. Also, you do not have to remove or "lower" the pool light provided
that you keep your water at the normal level.
15 - Place the cover on the pool. If there are rips or tears in the cover that are repairable, patch them with either vinyl pool patch (for vinyl covers) or
with pool cover patch tape ( for lightweight covers) or with a heavy duty duct-type tape. Remember, if your cover was declared legally dead a few years ago then patching probably is not the right thing to do ! It is probably
time to get a new cover. If there are sharp points that extend into the pool, like step units then it is a good idea to put rags
or cardboard between the cover and the points on the pool which extend out.
Do this right or the cover may rip on those stress points.
16 -
If you use water tubes, lay out the water tubes, placing them through loops
on cover. Fill tubes with water to approx. 85% and tightly seal all tubes.
Do not overfill the tubes - when they freeze you do not want them to expand
and split. Tubes should ideally be touching each other end to end. However
spacing them one (1) foot apart is OK. If you find that tubes are leaking
do not fill them. Replace them with new. It is not a good idea to patch the
old tubes unless you absolutely have to. Remember...do not overfill tubes.
They should not be totally filled with water. Allow enough slack in the
tube for water expansion! Pool Warehouse: This is General Information on how to shut down an inground swimming pool in harsh winter areas. For more detailed instructions please ask your pool
builder or a service tech in your area. |
