Winterising Your Pool – Is it Necessary?

Do You Really Need to Winterise Your Pool?

Summer is gone and the cooler months are rolling in. So, what is Winterising your pool and is it necessary? Winterisation is the procedure of decreasing your pool’s filtration and chlorination levels during the cooler months when it’s in less use. This ensures that your pool is ready for the swimming season when the warmer months come back around and in the meantime, saves you energy and money on running costs.

However, it’s important not to forget about checking the pool water’s chemical levels. There is a risk of green algal blooms, blackspot, and mustard algae when chlorination and filtration are reduced but water balance is not managed. So, it’s crucial that the pool’s water is maintained and balanced throughout the Winter, and it isn’t just ignored and allowed to turn green. Without winterizing the water, the pool surface and equipment could suffer, which would shorten their life spans.

Are you using a Jim’s Pool Care technician?

Good News: If you are on our monthly service program with your local Jim’s Pool Care business owner they are already monitoring all this for you and adding required chemicals and reducing running times.

Do not turn your pool equipment filtration system OFF

In fact, a lot of pool owners mistakenly believe that they can simply turn off their pool equipment during the Winter. This is not a good strategy, can cause issues with pool equipment and chemical levels, and will most certainly result in a costly green pool clean-up when Spring arrives.

When resumed after being idle for several months, pool equipment frequently seizes and may require repair or replacement at the start of the swimming season. Turning your pool system off can cost you more money than just getting a pool service each month through winter.

How to Winterise Your Pool

When reducing chlorination and filtration, a good tip is to add a winter algaecide into the pool to help prevent mustard algae, blackspot algae, and prevent the pool from turning green.

Due to the drop in temperature during the off season, you can cut the filtration duration to between 4 and 6 hours a day (e.g., 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night), and you won’t need to add a a lot of chemicals because the filtration and chlorination will be sufficient in most cases.

However a great algaecide to use during winter is a copper-based algaecide, and the Jim’s Pool Care team can offer you a Winterize Treatment Pack to make sure you have everything you need to maintain your pool during the winter.

Remember also that we can provide free quotes to come out and Winterize your pool for you, if you would rather leave it to the experts. A Jim’s Pool Care technician will come out and tweak your timers, clean your filters, and add whatever is necessary. Consider also our popular service: year-round pool maintenance, which we highly recommend, with most customers on our 4 weekly program.

It is crucial to remember that your pool should still be cleaned during the cooler months, and perform water chemical balance checks to ensure that any issues are discovered quickly.

Steps to Quickly Winterise Your Pool:

• Don’t just switch off the filter and leave the pool alone for three or four months. This is a false economy because it will take much more time, effort, and money to regulate the pool’s water properly, bringing it back to good levels, the following season than it will to maintain it during the winter.
• Correctly balance the water’s chemicals in your pool.
• Remove your pool cleaner from the water (Automatic, suction, pressure or Robotic Pool Cleaner)
• Remove the vacuum plate from the skimmer box.
• Clean all the pool’s filters.
• Backwash and rinse your sand filter, then add a good pool clarifier if you have one.
• Remove the filter element from any cartridge filters you may have and clean them. Remember: Degrease the filter cartridges.
• Set the filter in place and start the system.
• Treat phosphates (food source for algae). While the system is operating, shake the phosphate Starver, measure suggested dose, and pour down the skimmer box. Pool water may appear cloudy/white if there is a high phosphate concentration because the phosphates are being killed immediately. Phosphate sediment may fall to floor and need to be vacuumed.
• Fill a bucket with water, combine Winterised Algaecide, and scatter over the pool. Note: When using Winterised Algaecide, bubbles may appear on top of the pool’s water, but will disappear over time.
• The system should be run in winter for around 4 hours per day, if not swimming, but test regularly to ensure chlorine is not too high OR too low.
• After one week, backwash or clean the cartridge. Ongoing clean every 4 weeks or so.

After completing these steps, it should only be necessary to clear the skimmer basket if it has accumulated leaves or other debris and check the chlorine level every two weeks. Check baskets weekly.

With these quick tips, you may avoid paying for an expensive green pool recovery and your pool will be ready for the first warm days of spring and summer.

Please reach out to Jim’s Pool Care anytime if you need a hand.