Winter is here and the leaves are almost done falling. The persistant debris from those beautiful trees and surrounding bushes will now hibernate for the winter and give us a short break.
Running your pool equipment is still very important. You can, however, shorten the run time from eight hours to six hours a day. Running your equipment will allow for filtration of the water to keep it sparkling and circulate the chemicals in it.
Winter is generally wet here in the Austin, TX area and it will still be nessesary to backwash your filter once a month. Every time it rains, the rain washes all the trees and surrounding decks into the pool. All of this dirt is then collected in the filter.
Once the temperature of the pool water reaches about 50 degrees farenheit, algae stops growing. This is why winter maintenance seems a lot less taxing. It is also why, come spring a lot of pools turn into instant swamps as soon as it warms up. We tend to get a little lax in our maintenance.
Maintenance is a year round chore in areas pools aren’t winterized. Keeping up your maintenace regiment will keep your pool looking great all year and save you a lot of money when the new swim season begins in early March.
Reliable pool care recommends backwashing the filter once a month, shocking the pool once a month, brush the pool at least twice a month, and adjusting the balance of the water as needed.