New to the forum

[Sheila2e]

I'm from NE Ohio. We've been experiencing amazing weather here for it only being March. The past week has been in the 80's. So were are thinking about opening our pool already this weekend... Is it too soon to open it for my area?

[Watermom]

Hi Sheila,
Only you can answer that. I'm in WV and it is hot here, too. I typically open my pool in March so I can start circulating and chlorinating, but we can't usually swim until early May. Even with solar panels, it usually takes that long until the water is warm enough. Each year is different though. If we continue to have mid to upper 80s, we may swim earlier this year.

Welcome to the Pool Forum, by the way!

[aylad]

Wanted to add my welcome, too.

If you're finished with the freezing temps in your area, then if you're in the mood to open the pool up, go for it!

[Sheila2e]

Ok, that was one of my fears (water temperture) We just bought our pool July of last year & it was installed 2 weeks later. So we didn't get much swim time last summer. This will be our first pool opening ever! That's why I am a little unsure on when to actually open it.

[aylad]

The only real reason that I can see to delay opening(others will correct me if I'm wrong--I live in a part of the country where we don't close pools at all) is to make sure that there's no chance of freezing water in the pipes and pump. I suppose if you have it covered, and have large quantities of trees that shed at this time of year, you might also want to wait until most of that shedding is complete. But the flip-side to that is that the earlier you open, the less green water you're going to have to deal with, since the water has to warm up a good bit to sustain fast algae growth. By opening early, with the water temps still low, if you have green to clean up it should take less chlorine than it will if you have green AND warm water.

Janet

[Sheila2e]

Janet, that was exactly my boyfriend's thought... Open it soon so we have less algae clean up! Right before closing the pool for the season, we had a major algae outbreak! Which was no fun clearing out. So now we are both fearful of ever having to do that again! by the way, are there preventative measures we should be taking to prevent algae?

[PoolDoc]

I'd wait.

It's still March, and even here in Tennessee, we've had heavy snows in March. Since I've been in the pool business, we've had some really warm Aprils followed by cold Mays . . . and taking care of an uncovered pool that's too cold to swim in will get old fast!

You may not know yet, but a pool catches everything that's blowing around: bugs, leaves, pollen . . . pollen, pollen (the air here is LITERALLY yellow fogged right now from unbelievable amounts of pollen). And all that debris has to be cleaned up.

[Sheila2e]

Yeah, We're trying to figure out the pros & cons.... We didn't get much swim time last summer because our pool wasn't installed til late July.... So everyone is trying to get as much in as possible this summer!

[AnnaK]

We plan to hook up the equipment this weekend. We're in east central PA and probably have temps similar to yours. I want to be able to run the pump and mix in bleach to stay ahead of the greening that begins at around 54F water temperature and I definitely want to catch the pollen when it starts dropping on the pool. Most likely the pump won't be on every day yet though if we get a freeze, I'll run it at night. It won't be ready for people to swim in until mid-May (if you're very brave) but the dogs can get in now, the sooner, the better, they say.

[Sheila2e]

That's what we're thinking! Luckily we have no trees around our house. We chopped our pear tree down because we were gonna put the pool in that location, but it was too close to our neighbor's property line. My kids are determined to swim soon, I'm hoping by letting them feel the water, it'll change their minds.

Over the weekend we plan on hooking up the pump, cleaning the winter cover off, start to fill it, then bleach it. (which I learned from this forum! Thanks for that) Swimming is not in the plans for a few more weeks. I'm just really fearful of algae. So when want to get a start on it all soon.