How Can You Winterise Your Swimming Pool?

The summer season is the ideal time to relax in your swimming pool. But, when the temperature drops and the winter season progresses, you have to take relevant steps in winterising your outdoor swimming pool. You have to understand that if the winterising process isn’t done correctly, then the upcoming winter season can easily damage your swimming pool.

Therefore, to help you properly winterise your swimming pool, we have created this comprehensive guide that you should go through in its entirety.

The Significance Of Swimming Pool Winterisation

According to a professional home inspector in Middlesex County NJ, if you're living in an area where the winter temperature drops dangerously low, almost near-freezing temperatures, then you shouldn't skip the winterisation process. Winterisation is probably the ideal way to protect your costly investment, i.e. your swimming pool from getting damaged.

Freezing winter temperatures can destroy your swimming pool’s plumbing systems along with other equipment. Even a minimal accumulation of ice can tear the inner lining of your swimming pool.

On the other hand, if you tend to live in an area where it's not too cold during the winter months, then also you should opt for swimming pool winterisation. Since you'll not be using your swimming pool throughout the winter season, any lack of preventive maintenance or winterisation process can quickly wreak havoc on your pool's structural integrity.

Closing Your Swimming Pool For The Winter Season

When the time will arrive for winterising your swimming pool, there are quite a several options available for you to choose from. You can either proceed to select a winterisation process that will only focus on closing the pool completely, or you can choose to leave it open.

Since most homeowners don't use their swimming pool during the winter months, closing might be the ideal solution. And to do that, you can follow the below-mentioned steps:

Ensure That The Swimming Pool Water Has Proper Chemistry

You have to make sure that the water chemistry inside of your swimming pool is correct. That means the chlorine levels, the PH balance along other related chemicals should be in a healthy correlation with each other. You can use a PH strip to test the PH levels of your water. If the PH level is lower than recommended (usual is around 7.2 to 7.6), then you can use sodium carbonate to increase the PH level. To lower the PH level, you have to use muriatic acid or sodium bisulfate.

Eliminate All Useless Items

Proceed to remove all the unnecessary items from your swimming pool, which include your ladders, wall fittings, cleaners and skimmer baskets.

Proceed To Clean Up

Ensure that you brush and vacuum the entire swimming pool before you proceed to shut down everything for the upcoming winter season.

Maintain The Water Level

You have to reduce the water level of your swimming pool so that it sits below the skimmer.

Drain-All Equipment

Any swimming pool equipment that has water in it should be drained properly. These include your pump, filter, chlorinator and the like. Moreover, you have to utilise swimming pool antifreeze on the plumbing pipes and thus lubricate the o-rings too.

Shocking Your Swimming Pool (Adding Chlorine)

Before you close down your swimming pool, be sure to shock the water. Such a process will kill off the bacteria along with other disease-causing micro-organisms.

The Last Touches

Finally, we suggest using algaecide before you close down your swimming pool. Algaecide should be added after you shock the pool.

Once you’ve done the same, be sure to cover the entirety of your pool with a swimming cover. The cover should be sufficiently big so that it can overlap by at least 15 inches at the edges.