Water temperature and pool opening

The recommendation of our pool maintenance company has been , for many years, to open our pool in the first week of April. They have given me many reasons for this, but the most likely reason is, I suspect, to do it when they are least busy!

Having fired them last year and successfully maintained the pool myself in the interim, I now have the opportunity to open the pool to suit my schedule and based on a more rational set of reasons.

The most logical approach seems to me to base the opening time on water temperature and I have seen suggestions ranging between 50 and 60 degrees F.

Is there any consensus on the right temperature?
Is it based on data on the rate of algae growth at different temperatures?
Are there other considerations such as the amount of debris in the pool after winter, the amout of CYA and FC remaining, the opacity of the pool cover etc. etc.

Or is it all just about experience?

Thanks to the recent cold weather in the NE our pool hasn't even reached 50F, so the question so far remains moot, but I would like to hear what members of the forum think is the best time and why.
Thanks

To me, the primary considerations are pretty simple:
1) Is there ANY chance of freezing? If yes, don't open.
2) When can you reasonably expect your water to be warm enough to swim? I use solar heating so a good patch of sunshine and we can swim in early May in N-Central NJ.
3) If it's too cold to swim, and going to be, then you'll want to delay opening as long as possible--why burn electric and chlorine if you don't have to?
4) OTOH, if you are seeing algae growth, you may want to open so you can filter and shock heavily.

Thanks Carl,

Excellent suggestions.

I started my opening today--with removing the winter cover and tossing in the Blue Diamond.

While the water was very clear, and the B/D worked great, each time the cleaning cycle ended the filter bag was BLACK!

The water is super cold but once the solar panels are hooked up it should rise 8-10 deg every sunny day.

Those "BLUE's" sure do a nice job. I threw my Blue Pearl in today for about 6 hours. The bag was a little grey, but hardly black. Chemicals are looking good, just waiting for the pool to get a little warmer. Was 44 on Friday at noon, have run the heat pump for a total of 24 hours since then and it is up to 63 degrees as of 5pm Sunday. Hope to be swimming maybe weds or thurs with any luck.

Hi,

What's Blue Diamond and what does it do?

CoffeeBean

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CoffeeBean

Hi,

What's Blue Diamond and what does it do?

CoffeeBean

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Robot cleaner.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarlD

I started my opening today--with removing the winter cover and tossing in the Blue Diamond.

While the water was very clear, and the B/D worked great, each time the cleaning cycle ended the filter bag was BLACK!

The water is super cold but once the solar panels are hooked up it should rise 8-10 deg every sunny day.

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Carl,
Do you mind sharing info on your solar panel setup? I am in Central NJ (Somerset) and was thinking about using solar panels. It probably won't happen this spring, since I need to repair spa seat jets, replace the main drain's ball valve, and install my SWG (which will likely require a fair amount of re-plumbing).

TIA for any info or photos you can share.

SteveK

Opened the pool about 10 days ago. As usual, and despite a new cover, there was a fair amount of leaves and organic matter in the pool. The water was greenish.

In the past the pool company would take the cover off, reveal green water, dump $300 worth of chemicals in the water,turn it cloudy, vacuum for 4 hours or more and put 12 pucks in the skimmers (about $1000). The new guys on the crew would shake their heads and say I would have to drain and refill. The old hands would say that the neighbors down the hill complained of flooding in the past when 30K gallons were pumped out of the pool; so be patient and give it a week. Amazingly after a week it was indeed OK.

This year it was my turn! On opening the results were as follows:
temp 52F, TC=0 FC=0 cc=0 ph7.2 Alk=20 Ca=30 cya=0. Pretty dreadful.
Some hours after a total of 10lbs Borax, 10 lbs NaHCO3, 12 gallons of 6% bleach and 2Ilbs calcium hypochlorite and 12 pucks the results were pH7.5 TC=1(?) FC=0.5 CC=6: I had visions of burning 80 gallons of bleach as Ben has hypothesized and began to wonder of I should drain and refill (takes 5+ days since well runs dry)!

I remembered what the old hands had said and put my faith in the large sand filter (7sqft), a 2HP hayward pump, aggressive leaf removal and more bleach.
48 hrs later the water was still murky and pH=7.2 FC4.5 CC1.
8 gallons of bleach, 10lbs borax and 2 days later the water was essentially clear. After 1 week results were; crystal clear water at 60F, pH7.5 Tc2 FC1.5 CC0 Ca 100 cya <20. A quite amazing triumph for Ben's approach and for the collective wisdom of the forum, although I have to admit to a grudging respect for my former pool guys instincts.

I have lots of pucks left over from before my conversion to the BBB method so I plan to keep the pucks going until I get the cya into the 40-50 range. Any idea how many I will need for a 30K pool and assuming there is no longer any consumption of the cya by algae?
Thank you