We opened the pool already...

About three weeks ago we had some really warm weather for a week, so I took the opportunity to open the pool...

I must start off by saying that this was the longest, most miserably cold winter I can ever remember. I am sooo glad I got the pool winterized properly as I am certain the whole thing froze solid.

Well, I reattached all the hard lines, hooked back up the pump and filter and heater. I never did get a chance to get the pump/heater/filter into the garage, but they did just fine all winter... I also put the eyeballs into the returns and aimed them to not swirl the pool (since there was a massive chunk of ice still in it that I needed to melt).

Once everything is hooked back up I proceeded to open the valving and get water into the pump/filter/heater... I opened the bleeder on the filter and waited until water spewed from it.

Then I hooked up the line to the pool fill bib I installed last fall and proceeded to start the pump. Everything was going great. Since the skimmer was dry I blocked off the skimmer line and I was soooo happy I had the main drains.

After about 15-20 minutes I turned the gas to the heater on, lit the pilot (noticed the pilot is too low when it is cold out, so I need to increase the pilot gas pressure) but after using a lighter for a minute the pilot stayed lit. (I have a millivolt 250k btu natural gas heater). I flipped the switch on and set the temp to max and the heater fired right up.

I filled the pool to midway through the skimmer and stopped filling it. I disconnected and drained the fill line (in case it freezes again) and left the timers without the trippers and let the pump run on high.

I spent the next morning using the pool van and vacuuming up all the slime algae (an opaque colorless goo) and tested the water and it still had a free chlorine level of about 3ppm. I didn't add anything to the pool since I spiked it to 10ppm in the fall, so I felt pretty good about that. I added some more chlorine to raise it to about 6-7ppm.

Well, three days later the pool was 90+ degrees and we had a 69 degree day, so the kids were swimming. I had my oldest daughter get in the pool and vacuum it once more. The kids had a blast for two days swimming already this year.

After that it got cold again, so I just put the solar cover on the pool and turned off the heater and set the pump to low, just in case it feezes again (which it has). I figure for the next month or so it is fine and I might just heat it up again next month once we start getting temps consistently in the 50s and 60s.

Oh, almost forgot, the liner was just fine throughout winter. No leaks. So I am going to rock this liner for now and worry about replacing it next year if I can. As it is money is tight because two of my wife's long-term clients (she is a caregiver for the elderly) both passed away within a couple months of each other. She is still on the lookout for new clientele, but being an independent caregiver tends to leave you to do marketing and searching for new clients on your own. And with the number of facilities that have gotten into the market of offering their own built-in caregivers it is hard to find a good pool of folks to market yourself to consistently, since they don't want independents coming in at all.

Wow! If things are tight, hope the gas bill didn't skyrocket! But I am jealous that you opened and got a swim in! I had in-home independent caregivers so I could get away for a break. Did it twice with no regrets. Better for loved ones over nursing homes if you can afford it. Hats off to the wife. Tough job.

Actually, it cost about $60 to heat the pool. With my schedule becoming less and less predictable I needed to take the opportunity sooner than later to get it done. And, given the fact that I am able to skip the liner replacement this year, the offset from expected expenditures is a non-issue.

Add to that the fact that the gas bill has been pretty low due to a ton of efficiency things I did over the past couple of years, I am still quite a bit lower on gas cost for the size of the house compared to others.

Re: the wife, thanks... She really does enjoy her job, so she doesn't view it much as a job... Which I have to keep reminding her she needs to, since it takes her away from all the rest of her responsibilities.

Yikes! $60 for a Spring swim? Well, I do the same crazy stuff myself. You can't take the money with you, but you can take the memories. Good for you!!!

Yeah, well, considering all we haven't been doing in the past few months with money being tight, and considering how much the kids all love swimming, I figure it served two purposes really... In that the kids got to have a good time and I got to verify I don't need to spend big bucks on the pool this spring... Win-win for all cases...

And the kids really did enjoy themselves...

I forgot to ad, I did make one mistake, that was not putting the baskets back in the skimmer/pump... sucked some ice "fingers" in while it was running, made some nasty crunching sounds... I scrambled and found the baskets and put them back in ASAP... But, I really hope I didn't do any damage to the impeller.

Pressure didn't seem to be much different, so I am hoping if there is any damage it is minimal... On high the system still shows 12psi of pressure at the filter... It is 11-12psi with clean filters, so I think I am OK. If anything I know the pump I have is a newer model (Pentair Dynamo 1.5hp 2-speed), so I will make a note and when I do a filter cleaning this summer (I cleaned the cartridges just before winterizing) I will see about disassembling the impeller housing and checking it out... I do believe a new impeller isn't very expensive, so if there is any damage I will just replace it...