Cold weather!!!

[mas985]

In Northern California, no one does a winter pool closing. We simply decrease the pump run time significantly, drain/isolate any solar system, and let freeze protection work occasionally. Well folks, this is a weird winter so far. The freeze protection has gone on every night for at least the last two months.

It is almost 9 am and the air temp is still low enough for freeze protection. All of my hose bibs are frozen. Water poured onto the concrete patio freezes on contact. It feels like NY, where I grew up.

I checked the water temp and the Jandy says it is 40 degrees. Is this high enough for the freeze protection to be effective? In a normal winter, the water rarely goes below 50 degrees. The run from my pool to my equipment is somewhat long and I don't know how deep the piping is buried because I didn't build this pool.

The cold weather is not expected to break soon. Should I be adding something to the water to lower freeze temperature? My pool is a salt pool, so that should lower the freezing temperature slightly already.

Maybe I should just relax and let nature take its course....

I had the same problem so I decided to risk it and just turn off the freeze protection. Actually, it is not that much of a risk since it takes a long time, probably more than 9 hours, for water to freeze in a 2" PVC pipe so the temps here have not been below freezing for more than 9 hours at a time. Even 2" of water in the dog dish does not completely freeze (my test monitor).

CORRECTION Just checked Yahoo weather and found out that it was below zero for 9 hours last night so I now know it takes longer than 9 hours for water to freeze (and burst) in a 2" PVC pipe. I have solar panels so some air does get into the system after the panels which probably helps some.