Is chemical balance importance in winter or off-season?

[CarlD]

How cold does it get there? And how long does it stay cold? If your water is below 60 deg, or, better, below 50 or even freezing during most or all of your closed season, shocking before you close should be enough.

I'm in NJ and once I close my pool I peek under the cover about once a month and usually, there's nothing to see. The water will either be clear or frozen, and that's fine. If you have ice on top of the water, algae's probably not growing underneath the ice. Too cold.

[reacherAZ]

We're in the Salt River Valley of AZ, east of Phoenix. Pool temp is 58 now. Don't use a cover, and just check pH & add a gallon of chlorine every week or so during winter. I have a fairly high CYA (160) so not too much drift. I've heard a rule of thumb for summer to run filter pump 1 hour for every 10 degrees of high temp...if this is somewhat accurate for summer, does it apply for winter too? I think I'm set to run 10pm to 4am now...is this overkill?

Thanks, KC

[CarlD]

I cannot answer you because we are SO much colder here that filter and pump need to be removed and drained and pipes either drained or filled with antifreeze. So clearly there's no filtering during the winter.