Three Essential Tips for Closing Your Pool Over the Winter Months

Do you own a home with a pool? Are you disappointed that winter is arriving quickly and you'll no longer be able to use your pool? Unless you have a heated pool or live in a warmer climate, there are a number of months where it's simply too cold to go swimming. Even if you do have a heater, you may find that it's too expensive to run except on rare occasions. In order to make sure that your pool is ready for next summer, you should close down your pool and get it ready for winter. If you've never done this before, read on to learn more about the process. 

Clean: You definitely don't want to allow leaves and other debris to "stew" in your pool for several months. Some leaves may leach chemicals into the water that can cause corrosion if they are allowed to stay. The decaying leaves may also unbalance the winterizing chemicals, causing damage that can result in you needing to pay for swimming pool repair once you want to start using the pool again when warm weather arrives. Properly cleaning the pool before shutting it down is an essential part of regular pool maintenance.

Inspect: Now that nobody is going to be swimming in the pool for a while, it's time to inspect the pool for any cracks or other damage. If you notice something amiss, you may want to have the pool drained and then either have a localized swimming pool repair service fix the damaged area. If the damage is large enough, you may simply want to reline the whole pool while. The best solution for you is going to depend upon a number of variables such as pool size, your budget, and the nature of the damage. The earlier you fix the issue, the easier and less expensive the process is going to be.

Cover: Any pool that isn't going to be used for an extended period of time should be covered. This is true in both summer and winter, but an uncovered pool in winter has the potential to result in more serious issues. If your pool is left uncovered in the summer, you're still likely to at least be outside and reminded of your pool often, cleaning it as necessary. In the cold of winter, you're not going to want to have anything to do with the water that feels ice cold and pulling random flotsam and jetsam from the pool depths. Instead of getting an expensive swimming pool repair bill in the summer caused by debris that fell in over the winter, invest in a cover to keep stuff from getting into the water.