How to Close an Inground Pool for Winter

Published April 17, 2023

Pools can bring a lot of joy to the family during hot days, especially during summer. But as soon as the cold days come, particularly winter, it’s the pool owner’s turn to care for their beloved oasis.

Otherwise, the pool may freeze solid before you know it. In fact, it would only take a few days of outside temperatures of below zero for pools, or at least the water surface, to freeze completely.

The rate at which the water may freeze can be much higher if you aren’t using the pool, which is highly likely since it’s too cold. Of course, there’s not much to do to avoid cold temperatures since even the best heaters can’t save your pool from freezing. The best solution is to simply close it.

But then again, why not just let the water freeze and let it defrost once temperatures rise again? 

Why Should You Close an Inground Pool for Winter?

The obvious reason is to prevent the pool water from freezing, but if it’s going to defrost anyway once the summer season comes again, why bother? Interestingly enough, freezing isn’t the only problem that winter can bring to your oasis. Another issue is the potential damage to equipment.

As you may already know, a swimming pool consists of a bunch of equipment like filters, pumps, heaters, cleaners, and the like. If they freeze, naturally, they may sustain minor to major damage.

Of course, you don’t want that to happen, hence why you must close the pool. So, even though frozen water will inevitably melt, it’s not advisable to leave them be, especially for a long time.

Many homeowners have had this happen to them in that they’ll neglect their pools only to realize the next year that some of their equipment isn’t working, or at least not functionally as well as before.

Now that you understand the crux of the matter, it’s time to find out how to close an inground swimming pool for winter.

How To Close an Inground Pool for Winter

You’d assume that closing an inground pool for winter is as simple as taking a large piece of tarp and covering the entire pool with it. But surprisingly enough, there’s much more to the process than that.

Let’s start by going over what you need.

• Cleaning equipment (e.g., brush, cleaner, vacuum, etc.)
• pH strip tester
• Pool cover
• Algaecide
• Pool stain and scale remover
• pH level materials (e.g., baking soda, soda ash, muriatic acid, etc.

Once you have all the aforementioned tools and materials, you have to follow these steps:

1. Deep Clean Your Pool

First off, you need to get rid of anything that may be a hindrance to the process, which we’ll refer to as winterizing from now on. These include silt, leaves, and other floating debris on the water’s surface.

You should also get rid of any algae and dirt stuck on the walls. To do so, use a brush and vacuum afterward. Not only will this eliminate hindrances to the winterizing process, but it also makes balancing the water chemistry, a particular step you’ll eventually have to take in this process, much easier.

2. Balance the Water Chemistry

As you probably already know, it’s crucial that a pool has the proper chemical balance. Water chemistry is denoted by the pH level and alkalinity. Ideally, you want the pH level to be around 7.2 to 7.8 and the alkalinity to be roughly 100 ppm. You can easily check this by dipping a pH strip tester.