Opening Your Pool This Spring

When opening your pool, follow these ten basic steps and you'll have perfectly clear and well balanced water in no time.

1. Remove water and debris from cover using a siphon or submersible pump.
2. Remove and empty the anchoring water bags (or unhook springs in the case of a safety cover).
3. Remove cover, clean it, and store. Make sure cover is dry before storing.
4. Hook up pool pump, filter, and reconnect all hoses, plugs and electrical connections.
5. Clean out skimmers and make sure main drain is free of debris.
6. Remove with leaf skimmer or rake all loose surface and floor debris.
7. Fill pool water up to operational level and start filtration system. Make sure your equipment functions properly.
8. Vacuum pool if necessary.
9. As pool water is circulating, add chemicals from Water Warehouse Spring Start-Up Value Pack.Carefully follow instructions.
10. Test pool water with Water Warehouse test strips and add chemicals as needed.

Comments

[Darren]

Claire-
Could you let me know what kind of climate you are in? Because if you are in an area that has a deep freeze- you have to really be concerned about the PVC pipe and make sure that none of the lines have cracked during the multiple winters. I'm hoping that the lines were drained completely and that everything was winterized properly. Problem is that if you need a new liner, you will probably not have the ability to check everything until the pool is filled and equipment is turned on.

[Claire]

We are getting ready to reclaim a neglected inground pool. What a mess. After we get the water,leaves etc off the cover, we will have to pump out the pool to replace the vinyl liner. Since we have to do all of that, we have decided to change the system to a salt generated one from the old harsh choline. What else do we need to check or replace while we are doing this? This is so much larger than just opening the pool back up. We need some feedback on what exactly we are facing with a pool which has been neglected for 3 years!!

[Anne]

Hi

Thanks for your input. We have a solid cover and thought we might have a leak in it so a couple years ago we bought a new cover and still had the same thing happen last spring. There is a LOT of water on top of the cover. And our bubble in the middle popped. Maybe our problem is in how we cover/close up our pool? We try to keep the cover as tight as possible, but it always winds up with a foot of water on top of it.

[Darren]

Do you have a mesh cover that allows water to pass through or a solid cover? If it's a solid cover, water should not be able to be transfered from inside the pool to the top of the cover. If it's a solid cover with a leak it will be difficult, but try just keeping the cover as tight as possible- and keep pulling it tighter as water is drained until the cover is suspended above the pool water level.

[Anne]

We always have a problem getting the water off the cover in the spring. We seem to be pumping the water from the pool as well as from the top, so we have to do it as quickly as possible and still wind up with our water level down a foot. We were told to put a frisbee under the pump, and we tried it, but it didn't seem to do the trick. What a we doing wrong?