that seems to make sense to me nicole..if you're pool is clean going into the close, i'm assuming that you're not facing much risk of algae development. in my case, the pool always needs to be shocked at spring start because a) it's not winter covered) b) i've had no leaf net so i get tons of leaves and such c) i don't raise the pool water level and get things started until may as april in my part of canada while getting warmer, can still bring an occasional blast of cold (sub zero celcius) and snow.

i tried that last year (starting the pump and cleanup in april) got a scare when in late april it dipped to -12 celcius. i called the pool store with a shaky hand and they advised simply running my pump 24/7 until it warmed up.

so, i'm getting a leaf cover to reduce drastically the amount of crap in my pool in spring..i will still do the cleanup in may, but hopefully, less time require cleaning up and shocking will move up my pool use date by a week anyway. (it took about 2 full weeks to get it all going this year so it was swimmable)