The Joys of Opening Your Swimming Pool

For many of us, closing a swimming pool is a somewhat somber and sad time of year. Conversely, opening the pool up in the spring is a joyous occasion, right? Only if you closed the pool yourself and knew what you were doing. Let me explain:

May 23rd, 2010 marks the 2nd time I opened my own swimming pool and I've learned to always expect the unexpected. If you didn't close your own swimming pool in the fall, you might run into a few obstacles when you open it yourself in the Spring. For instance, last year, the pool closer used some type of contraption as a gizmo in my vacuum line. It was a plastic piece of PVC pipe that was so tightly screwed into the vacuum line that I was afraid to remove it.  After a couple of days, I finally was able to wrench it loose with a huge pair of channel locks.  Next, I was unable to locate all of the plugs, specifically the one that went on the bottom of my sand filter! Fortunately, I was able to seal it shut with one of the return jet plugs. The good news with the pool last year was that the guy who closed the pool did an excellent job with the chemicals. Aside from an ongoing metal stain problem, the pool water looked clear and nearly ready to swim in. This year came with a completely different set of circumstances altogether which made me question whether or not I should continue to have someone else close the pool for me.

My concern with closing the pool myself is the uncertainty that all the pipes are drained and properly winterized. I figure it is better to be safe than sorry, so I let the experienced, so-called experts close the swimming pool for me, figuring I can open it myself. One thing about opening a swimming pool has become very obvious to me: A clean, successful pool opening begins with a clean, successful pool closing. If you did it yourself and did the job right, you will have no problem getting your pool opened in the spring. In fact, if nothing is damaged or lost, you should be able to get your pool pump running in less than 30 minutes. It's only a matter of removing the winter plugs and replacing them with return jet eye-balls, cleaning debris from your pump basket, replacing all of the valves and screws, then priming the pump. Finally, it gets down to the cleaning, testing and chemicals. The Pool Testing, of course, is the fun part, which is why I created this website. Contrarily, priming my own pool pump is a particularly difficult task because my skimmer is a good 120 feet away from the pump and down hill, to boot. This makes it tricky to prime and the process of turning the system on and off can not be a good thing for my pump which was confirmed by the $450 repair bill I paid to replace it last year. The other pump was only 4-5 years old, according to the previous owner's pool guy.Since, I've gotten quite a bit of practice priming my pump, I thought I had gotten the process down to either an art or a science, and I was looking forward to a quick, easy, hassle-free and joyous pool opening on this very beautiful spring day of May 23, 2010.  Not so fast...

For starters, the pool water looked nothing like it did last year. Peeling off the cover revealed a scummy, green colored, algae infested pool of water in which even a pond fish or frog would too proud to reside. (See Picture) I was left undaunted by the color and slimy texture of the pool water. This is nothing that massive doses of chlorine bleach couldn't fix. Next, I looked inside the skimmer basket and removed the skimmer plug. Next, I felt inside the vacuum line for a plug, but instead my fingers went about 3  inches deep into leaves and debris, but no plug. How odd, I thought. Didn't the pool guy plug the vacuum line? I remembered him telling me an interesting way he had of winterizing that area. No gizmos; he just fills the lines up with antifreeze, including the skim basket and plugs them up. Maybe I misunderstood how he did this. Not thinking too much of it, I proceeded by cleaning the leaves and debris from the skimmer basket, removing all of the plugs from the returns and replacing them with the eye ball jets. Finally, I went back to the pump room and re-assembled the pipes and replaced and tightened all of the plugs on the pump, filter and heat exchanger.  Rather than unplug the filter to drain it, this particular pool guy disassembles a few pipes. Last fall, he claimed this would make it easier for me. Not so. One of the pipes was fastened with a clamp that required tightening of some small bolts which I couldn't seem to find a proper wrench for. I managed to get them fairly tight with a pair of pliers. I was ready to prime.

Next, I went to the fuse box and turned all of my fuses back to the on position. I filled the clean pump basket full of water. Checked the seal on the lid and tightened it.  I turned the pump on, moved the valve to skim and looked inside for signs of  water. It is to be expected that the water wouldn't catch on the first try, so I repeated the process; again, and again and again and again. I tightened pipes and checked for air from the filter and kept trying. After about 114 attempts, it was obvious there was something going on here that I had never dealt with before. I put my tools aside, got up and headed up to the kitchen to meat some family and friends for dinner. On the way up, I felt my back go out of place. I grabbed an aleve and a beer and tried unsuccessfully to forget about the pump and the pool for a few hours. Later that evening, with my back somewhat relieved from the aleve and my mind somewhat numbed from the 3 or 4 beers I had, I was ready for more. My brother-in-law, the engineer, was with me this time and immediately spotted a small leak from the pipe which I mentioned I had trouble tightening earlier. I got a good grip on the clamp with the channel locks and made it good and tight - no more leak! So, I repeated the process of filling the pump basket with water, turning the pump on and moving the valve to the on position at least 12 more times with the same result. The pump was not going to prime. Well, something - either between the 3 or 4 beers or dinner I had made me decide to get smart and think outside the box. Something was different about the pool between this year and last year. I suddenly remembered the vacuum line and the leaves covering the opening. I went over to the skimmer basket with my pliers and reached down; this time further than I did before. I felt something like a ridge that could have either been one of the wing nuts on a winter plug or something else. Whatever it was, I was able to grip it and began turning it with my pliers, when suddenly the plug went through down through the hole! While I did not like the idea of a plug making it's way through the plumbing system and pipes of my pool, I had a funny feeling that I would be able to prime the pump. I was right. After my third try and a pile full of leaves made it's way into the pump basket, I was finally primed. The pool pump was running exactly as it should. The only problem left was my fear of where, when or if that darn plug might find it's way to a bend in my vacuum line and shut down the whole darn pump!

Now, all I had to do was dump a ton or so of chlorine bleach into the pool and in days (as the picture to the right, taken two days later proves), I should have sparkling clean pool water again. Normally, I wouldn't shock a swimming pool without using my FAS Chlorine test kit first, but it was pretty obvious that a good shocking would be necessary to kill and stop the algae from going back. I dumped 3ea, 182 ounce containers of liquid bleach into the pool over a period of about 3 hours and as the picture shows, it did the job. My goal was to get the free chlorine number up to about 25PPM. 2 Days later, my Free Chlorine was still hovering around 17ppm, my PH Balance was only slightly low at 7PPM. Total Alkalinity was 100PPM and CYA (Stabilizer) 60PPM. The next big challenge was getting the 58 degree icy temperature up. Time to put on the solar blanket and crank up the heater. We're supposed to get some warm weather for the Memorial Weekend. I'll let you know whether or not we were able to swim. It looks very promising, indeed!