How to Avoid Pool Damage Caused by Ice and Snow

Even if you never had winter ice damage to your pool it can happen to you! It strikes about 5% off all above ground pools in colder climates of the United States.

This can happen to a brand new pool as well as a 20 years young swimming pool. Although having this happen to a 20 year old pool is not to hard to take its when it happens to a brand new pool that it gets the most attention.

Around April every season insurance companies get swamped with claims form homeowners who loose their pools to ice and snow. We will suggest what homeowners in cold weather climates can do to protect their pools.

Follow these Important Off Season Tips to help prevent Winter Ice Damage from claiming your summer fun.

• It is important to keep about 1-3 inches of water on top of the cover to prevent damaged caused by wind. You can help secure your liner in place by using quick clips as there called to hold your cover to the pool frame..

• During the fall make sure to remove excess water from the top of your pool cover with a small electric pool cover pump. You can use a Frisbee to keep the pump from sucking up leaves and other junk. Its also a good Idea to keep leaves and other debris from adding weight to your cover. Remove when necessary.
  
  

• Pool Damage will occur when weight is added and allowing this to happen can displace water and thus giving you non chemically treated water in your pool. Damage to your cover can occurs as snow and ice is allowed to weigh on the pools cover it becomes stretched. As most pool covers are kept on by a cord that runs around the pool gets taught. Try your best to keep snow weight to a minimum..

• If your pool gets to a point where it might look to heavy for the cord to hold. Simply cut the cord and let the cover fall. This is a last step senario of course. But cleaning the pool from debris is easier than dealing with Insurance companies..

Never Touch a Frozen Pool!

Oval Pool Installation

Base Materials-What To Do

With a shovel spread the base material all around the inside floor making sure to place between the patios blocks you just leveled in the previous step. Your final compacted height will be level with the top of the patio blocks. The whole inside radius should be initially spread about an inch higher than the patio blocks so that when the base gets packed it becomes level to the blocks and the bottom track.

Take the leftover base materials and place in a pile on the outside of the pool area. You’ll use this extra when it becomes time to set the coves after the wall is in place. With the back end of a metal rake smooth the surface area throughout the area. Once raked again you’ll want to use a water hose and soak the floor almost to the point of creating mud.

Too much water and it becomes mud. You cannot pack mud and will need to wait until it dries a bit. Not enough water and it won’t pack properly. You want it to be soaked enough to pack tight; the wetter the better.

Floor work, how to tamp and trowel the base material

After soaking the floor base material next, you use a tamping tool and tamp the entire floor so that when packed it’s at the height of the patio blocks which are already set to bottom of the pools final base height. Do this throughout the entire area. Then you will give the whole area another quick spray with the garden water hose.

Then take your pool trowels and spread any lines and imperfections and make as smooth as possible. The last step before starting the wall construction process is to take a soft ended push broom and gently brush any imperfections after using trowels. At this point you’ll have a nicely perfected base in which to build on. Now it is on to the wall and liner construction.

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Wall Construction

Place a 4’x4’ piece of plywood into the middle of the pool area and place the wall with skimmer cut out at the top. When the wall is just sitting in the middle of the pool area you’ll want to loosen the coil.

This shouldn’t be too hard since the factory coiled wall is now loosely rolled by you and some friends when you took it down. All together spin out the wall and place into the track at an upright location. As you spin and place track in take Landscaping sticks on the outside and support the wall via these stakes. When all the wall is spun out all you have do to attach the wall bolts and you did it.

Liner installation

You will want to unfold the liner outside the pool and let the sun warm it up for a little while about a half hour should do. Roll back up carefully and place inside the pool with the help of another strong person.

Carefully spread out the liner being careful not to damage the floor you just packed. You will find it helpful to be barefoot and walk on the liner itself as much as possible. Climb out using a ladder. Be careful not to make any big creators. You will make small ones once you remove the ladder. Simply take the back of a push broom and smooth the surface where the ladder was. The broom will also come in handy when you are attaching the liner and need to lift it up to you.

Use the back of the broom and lift liner up and hold liner as not to drop it back into the pool. You will need one to three people to help set the liner in place. Find the liners seam at the bottom of the pool where the floor meets the wall.

This seam is the largest and stretches around the entire pool bottom. Locate another seam that will run from the large seam upward to the top of the liner. That is where you will start installing. Do not start near the skimmer area with the smaller seam. You don’t want to cut through this seam when attaching the skimmer later on.

Place shop vacuum hose through the return opening so the end is about 4 inches above the bottom cove. Hold the hose close to the wall and straight for accuracy. Use duct tape to secure the opening around the hose and place strips to cover the skimmer opening on the outside of the pool. This will create a somewhat air tight suction set-up for installing the new liner.

Place liner over the top of the pool wall and make sure that the larger seam at the bottom is traveling along the bottom cove were the wall meets the cove. You will set the liner over the top for about a 6-8 foot span and then make sure that the rest of the liner matches the length of liner hanging on the outside.

Just use plastic coping strips to set liner in place. You may use a hold down plate here or there to keep wall upright or other people can help during this process. It is possible that when you get to the end, you may have to stretch liner to fit properly. Do not be alarmed if the wall bends and seems as if it is going to fall in on you.

Once the liner is over the top it will be easier to handle. When the liner is on all the way, start securing the hold down plates. The vacuum can be turned on. As air gets sucked out the liner will tighten and you will again use the back of the broom to gently tap liner into place as the vacuum is running.

When the liner becomes taut adds a water hose and start filling. Once your top rails and caps are, on someone gets in the middle of the pool and to push any wrinkles out toward the pools wall. Be careful with the floors finish as you push wrinkles outward. Water will help this process tremendously. Don’t let too much water cover the wrinkles because it will make it more difficult to push out the wrinkles.

The water weight will help you push the wrinkles. When installed correctly you should have no wrinkles. That’s your oval pool installationplease call Dave with any questions regarding your oval pool installation at 781-927-9110.

During the lifetime of your above-ground pool, you will probably have a leak at some point.The longer you wait to fix a leak, the more expensive solving the problem will become.

The most common reason for a leak is your pool’s plumbing system.

You can easily test this as a factor if you pressure test the piping into your pool. Block off the end of the pipe and pressurize it to 20 psi, and mark down where you see any leaks.If you find a leak at a joint, then u

se some good Teflon tape on the threads of the pipe to seal it. If you find a crack or corrosion in a pipe, replace that section.

If you don’t find a leak within the plumbing of your pool, then the water is leaking out of the pool itself.

You need to inspect the interior of your liner to find any cracks.Do not drain the pool to accomplish this; rather, get as close as you can to the liner and feel out any cracks, holes or sharp bumps in it.

If you think you may have found a leak (or more than one), simply squirt some food coloring into the water near it. If the food coloring disappears into the crack, then you have found the cause of your leak.

If you’ve found a break in your vinyl liner, you can try to use a patching kit to re-seal it, however, often pool owners find that repairing the crack may not go well and cause the whole liner to need replacing.

If the tear is large or you are not comfortable with patching the leak yourself, contact Dave and let him take care of the leak for you.

How to winterize and close your pool

1. Before you even begin winterizing your pool you need to ensure that the pool water is chemically balanced. The main reason for this step is to ensure that you are protecting your pool from damage. Water that isn’t properly balanced can cause corrosion and buildup while your pool is not in use.

pH: 7.2 to 7.6

Alkalinity: 80 to 120 ppm

Calcium: approx. 175 to 250 ppm

Chlorine: 1 to 3 ppm

2. If you have any ladders, rails or any other above ground pool accessories you will want to remove them and store them safely.

3. Take the time to careful brush the sides of the pool as well as the floor. Be sure to vacuum afterwards. This is an important step in preventing stains.

4. Add in the winterizing chemical of your choice into the deep end of your pool. These chemicals will help protect your water while your pool isn’t being used in the winter.

5. Next you will want to completely clean out the filter, skimmer as well as the pump basket. Take the time to clean out any chlorine product from your chlorinator. You should also remove all cartridge filter components and D.E. grids for storage. If your pool has a sand filter then you will want to backwash it.

6. Place a skimmer guard into your skimmer and plug in your return line. You may also lower the water level until it is below the return line. Just be sure you do not completely drain your pool. Otherwise it is simply personal preference.

7. You will need to remove any detachable hosing. This will include those used for plumbing, pumps, filters and any other equipment you may be using. Just be careful that you consult the manufacturers guide before doing so. Make sure you keep all of these important tubes in a safe place until the next swimming season.

8. If you are someone who uses an air pillow then now is the time to inflate it. You can do this with a shop vac. Be sure the air pillow is properly positioned in the middle of the pool before tying off the final straps.

9. Prepare your chosen above ground pool cover for use. The style you purchase depends on your own preferences. If your pool does not have a deck around it simply tie it off on the grommets. If your pool does have a deck then you will need to use bags to weight it down.

10. Place your cover pump in the center of the cover on your pool. This is important in draining off water to prevent damage to your cover. This is especially important during the rainy months and months in which snow is melting.

Dave’ Above Ground Pools