Winterizing Your Pool
1: PUTTING ON A POOL COVER
A winter cover is designed to protect the pool during the winter months when many above ground pools are not in use and will save you time and money come spring. It is basically a tarp with grommets around the perimeter and comes with a cable and winch to hold it in place.
First take the pool cover out of the box, open it up and thread the cable through the grommets or loops around the edge of the cover.
Next, spread out your winter cover and place it over the pool. This will be easier with at least two people. Winter covers have an overlap which means they are larger than the pool. For instance, if you have a 28 ft round above ground pool, then the cover size would be 32 ft round which gives you a 2 foot overlap all the way around. You’ll need this extra material because the winter cover will dip down inside the pool due to the lowered water level and then overlap the pool wall. Adjust the cover as needed to make it even all around the pool.
Lastly, threat the cable into the winch pull it tight to secure the cover and turn the buckle to finish the process. Try to tuck in any extra material that is hanging down to prevent wind from getting up under the cover.
2: WINTERIZING YOUR POOL
When winter comes, you’ll need to take the correct precautions to make sure your swimming pool is ready for the below freezing temps! Properly winterizing your pool will protect your equipment from ice damage, keep your water clean, and will help save you time and money when opening your pool in the spring. Let our pros show you how to winterize your pool.
A major part of winterizing your pool is winterizing your equipment.
- The first thing you need to do is set your filter head to “winterize”. This opens the valve and allows the excess water in the pool to drain
- After the pool water has drained, start unhooking all three hoses and bring them inside
- Remove the large drain plug at the base of the tank and remove it.
3: WINTER PLUGS ON YOUR FILTER
Winterizing your pump if you have hard plumbing, if you have hard plumbing you are not going to be able to get your pipes off to be able to take everything Inside for winter.
You can winterize your pump without actually having to take the pump off. There are 2 winter plugs on your pump that allow your water to drain out and make it safe to leave your pump outside.
There is one on the side of the housing and one on the front of the housing. Once you get the plugs unscrewed and removed place them inside of the basket so you don’t lose them.
There is also 1 drain plug on the bottom of your filter that needs to come off as well.
So once you get all 3 plugs off that allows your filtration system to drain, it allows the pump to drain that way nothing will freeze over the winter. Put your plugs inside of the basket and you’re good to go.
4: WINTERIZING YOUR CLEAR BLUE OR NATURE’S PURE IONIZER
Now we’re going to talk about how to winterize your Clear Blue Ionizer, with the clear blue ionizer your control pad needs to come off and go in the house also the diodes need to come off and go in the house as well.
They unscrew from the clear pipe, so you can unscrew this and take this part inside the house. take your control pad inside the house.
The clear part is actually glued into your pipes there’s no need to take it off as long as you winterize your equipment. This should be fine outside.
5: WINTER PLUG INSTALLATION FOR YOUR SKIMMER
Today we’re going to explain how to put the compensator and the return plug in your pool.
So the compensator is a bottle that has a universal plug on the end of it that plugs your skimmer, it allows the water to freeze in on the compensator instead of freezing out and breaking your skimmer.
So the first step is going to be to take the basket out of the skimmer, the compensator fits directly in the hole in the bottom of the skimmer press down wiggle it a little bit and then you’re good to go, it actually keeps the water from draining out the bottom, it also keeps the water from freezing out and breaking your skimmer.
The second part of plugging your pool is your return plug. so you have your jet shoot the water back into the pool, it has an eye ball that comes out. once you take the eye ball out then it actually comes out in 3 pieces. So you have your locking ring, you have your directional eyeball and then this piece, may actually be stuck inside of there, it has two notches inside of here you can go in with some needle nose pliers open it and then twist it and get this part out.
The return plug plugs the return so it just slides right inside then it has a wing nut that you tighten to plug the hole, once you tighten this up it should close the water off from the backside.
At this point you don’t have to drain any water out of your pool. This keeps the water level higher which allows the stress to be relieved off of the cover as well. it’ll help your cover to last longer, it will also help to prevent damage to your top rails as well.
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