November 25, 2025 • 22 mins
Cold water changes everything. As temperatures slide, algae take a back seat, chlorine demand dips, and the Langelier Saturation Index tilts toward corrosive—quiet shifts that can quietly chew through plaster and equipment if you are not paying attention. We sit down with industry legend Bob Lowry to map a simple, reliable winter playbook that protects the vessel, extends gear life, and saves money when demand is low.
We start with the biology: algae reproduction slows around 55°F, which means you can safely run lower free chlorine. But that win comes with a catch—temperature drags LSI downward, so water gets hungrier for calcium. Bob explains how a small bump to pH and total alkalinity can stabilize balance without chasing numbers, and why calcium hardness targets still matter even in the off-season. We talk through the practical side, from long gauntlet gloves that make cold work bearable to smarter run-time choices. If you are tempted to run the pump two hours “just because,” hear why that middle ground is worse than a proper turnover.
Cyanuric acid gets special attention. After a summer of tabs, winter is the perfect time to lower CYA with a partial drain and refill. Bob also shares why CYA may drift down on its own—and in rare cases crash—due to specific bacteria when chlorine is low. The takeaway is simple: even in winter, test with intent, keep CYA in the 30–50 ppm sweet spot, and nudge LSI back to balanced as temperatures fall.
• Cold water reduces chlorine demand and slows algae growth
• LSI drops with temperature, raising corrosion risk
• Open vs closed pool choices by climate and power reliability
• Salt generators underperform below about 60°F
• Effective winter circulation strategies and freeze protect
• Partial drain to reduce high CYA from summer tabs
• Rare bacteria can consume cyanuric acid in low-chlorine pools
• Preventing stains, rings, and surface damage during dormancy
• Practical tweaks: raise alkalinity with bicarb, monitor pH and calcium
• Cost control in winter with lower chemical usage
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
And this is Besta Bob Lowry.
I'm gonna talk to Bob Lowryabout the cold weather months
and winter pool care.
He'll give you tips and, ofcourse, some strategies for
taking care of those pools thatare open all year round and for
those pools that you closeduring the wintertime.
Are you a pool service prolooking to take your business to
(01:23):
the next level?
Join the Pool Guy CoachingProgram.
Get expert advice, businesstips, exclusive content, and get
direct support from me.
I'm a 35-year veteran in theindustry.
Whether you're starting out orscaling up, I've got the tools
to help you succeed.
Learn more at SwimmingPoolLearning.com.
You know, you've been livingwith this lung disease now for
(01:43):
five years, over five years now.
SPEAKER_02 (01:46):
Yeah.
So you know, and and I feelfortunate anyway because when I
was diagnosed with the diseaseand went to UCLA for the first
time, they told me that that Ihad the statistics were that
everybody lives somewherebetween two and five years, and
(02:09):
that you know, very few peoplelive beyond uh five years with
this disease.
In a couple of weeks, it well,about ten days, it will be uh
six years since the diagnosis.
Amazing.
Uh it is kind of I feelfortunate in to be here at all
(02:31):
and and to be able to continuemy my life's work and passion is
is even better.
So and maybe that's what keepsme going, you know.
If I were sitting on the sofa,you know, waiting for the
disease to overtake me, itprobably would have.
So even today, if I feel likeI'm out of breath, I'll have to
(02:53):
turn on my uh oxygen machine andsupplement my breathing a little
bit.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Let's tell the listeners a little bit about
your history in the industry.
I mean, you've you're prettymuch a pillar of the industry.
I I I only say this to a fewpeople as far as being a pillar,
and you've you've done so muchwith your literature and with
your your teaching.
You've been in the industry forover forty what is it, how many
(03:22):
years now?
SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
Uh this is forty-eight.
It'll be forty forty-nine nextyear.
SPEAKER_00 (03:28):
So it's it's pretty amazing the the legacy that
you've created with yourteachings and your your
background.
And I first found your yourIpsiv book um many, many years
ago, and that was your firstpublication to them.
That was I would say whattwelve, fourteen years ago.
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
Oh, that was probably yeah, that was um 15
years ago, maybe.
Um I think it's copyrighted in2006, and it took me uh a year,
a little over a year to writeit.
SPEAKER_00 (04:07):
So Yeah, that's that to me, that was a a big leap in
knowledge.
I mean, that was something thethings that you wrote in that
book 16 years ago are not dated.
You know, there's some newdiscoveries, of course, but as
far as the basic principles thatyou wrote back then, and so
that's what you do is chemistryprinciples and they evolve and
(04:28):
you've discovered new things.
We talked about those in otherpodcasts.
And today we're gonna, sinceyou're wearing a jacket, we'll
talk about cold weather andwe'll talk about uh cold water
and different things they haveto be aware of.
And just before I start, I'dlike to let the the pros out
there know that there's a pairof gloves that I wear in the
(04:48):
winter time, and they're calledAtlas Gloves, WG772M, and
they're 26 inch long, so they goup to your your armpits, and
they use them in butchers usethem in the meat lockers, you
know.
And so these things are greatfor the pool water because and
in your pool pool, you know, itkind of freezes to your hand
when your hands are wet.
(05:08):
So those gloves are just awesomeout there in the cold weather.
And I just put them on mydashboard and have the heater
come on in between stops to warmthem up again.
And they get me through thewinter months here in
California, which is kind ofwimpy because California
probably isn't as cold as youknow other states get out there.
So as far as cold water, let'sstart with the first one.
(05:32):
The chemical usage in a poolwhen the temperature is below
60, what happens with the amountof chemicals that the pool
needs?
SPEAKER_02 (05:41):
Well, the the needs are down just because things
slow down with coldertemperatures.
The fact is that algae doesn'tgrow in I I've heard people say
algae doesn't grow below 55degrees.
And for the most part, that'strue.
And for swimming pools, it'strue.
(06:03):
But there are algae not found inswimming pools that grow below
55 degrees.
Garden variety algae that we getin swimming pools, it doesn't
grow below 55 degrees.
So when we get to 55, we don'tneed as much chlorine or as much
uh disinfectant in the waterbecause there's not an the algae
(06:27):
isn't gonna uh reproduce.
The cold water doesn't kill thealgae, but it makes it so it
doesn't produce or reproduce.
You'll need less disinfectant,less algacides, and people say
I'm gonna put a winter algacidein.
I think that's a waste of moneybecause if the water's gonna be
(06:48):
55 or less, you don't need analgacide.
SPEAKER_00 (06:52):
Yeah, and in our area here, we don't close our
pools down.
I'm kind of skipping some of thequestions here and moving them a
little bit now that it makesmore sense in this order.
We don't close our pools here,we keep them open.
So we're always adding muraticacid to keep the pH in balance
and things like that still.
What about those areas?
And I know I've I get a lot ofemails at the beginning of the
season, people open their poolsup and there's all kinds of
(07:14):
different problems withstaining, with you know,
sometimes there's even algae inthere if they open later in the
season.
Now, if we're here year-roundbalancing the chemicals, but in
other states they just cover thepools, drain them down below the
return lines.
How does what's the difference?
Why don't we do that?
I mean, I know why we don't doit here because the pools don't
(07:36):
get that cold.
But is there a major differencebetween those areas like New
York, you know, some parts ofthe Midwest where they winter
wise their pools and California,Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas,
where we don't do that?
SPEAKER_02 (07:51):
If it were possible, they'd probably drain the water
out of the pools in the northand and fill them back up when
it when it got to be warmer, butthey just want to keep the water
in there.
You know, they want to keep itfrom freezing and they need to
protect the shell.
And the best way, of course, toprotect the the vessel is to
(08:12):
have some water in it, even ifit freezes.
Um many times they they actuallyplug the lines and and put uh
antifreeze in the lines and thenremove the equipment and put it
inside and then you know put theequipment back.
So they're just dealing with adealing with a a small body of
(08:37):
water that doesn't have any anycirculation other than what they
you know stir up during thewinter, and most of them are too
lazy to go out when there'sthree feet of snow on the ground
and go burst the pool orcirculate things around.
Who wants to do that?
They sometimes uh drop a pump inthere and pump the water around
(08:58):
a little bit for a while, butfor the most part, it's just a
stagnant body of water for a fewmonths until it warms up.
SPEAKER_00 (09:06):
And that doesn't affect, I mean, does it affect
the surface at all?
I mean, I've probably never didany kind of saw any kind of
studies about that versus areas.
SPEAKER_02 (09:15):
It it doesn't really.
Um of course, if the if the ifthe water is out of balance when
you when you shut it down,there's a good chance that
whichever way it's out ofbalance is going to have a
problem before you open it backup.
SPEAKER_00 (09:32):
I guess the main reason we don't do it in
California, Nevada, Arizona,Florida is that the water
temperature doesn't get coldenough to where it would
interfere with the LSI.
SPEAKER_02 (09:43):
Because I I know that in the LSI As the water
temperature goes down, the thethe water actually gets
corrosive.
Um and it affects the LSI.
Um in general terms, it's about15 degrees for each 0.1 on the
(10:04):
saturation index.
So if you're gonna lower thewater temperature from, say, 80
degrees down to 50 or 90 down to60, um, you need to account for
the fact that it's gonna be 0.2less.
Sometimes that's a good thing,sometimes that's a bad thing,
depending on where you started.
(10:25):
But if you were slightlycorrosive to begin with, you can
be really corrosive uh uh if youif you don't raise pH or
alkalinity back up, um, you'regonna have a problem with um the
water being corrosive in thatvessel.
Um, it just slowly literallydissolves some of the vessel.
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
Yeah, so it's important to keep the water
balance even in the winter whenyou have the pool open.
I know a lot of people figure,hey, it's cold out there, I'm
not gonna even bother with much,but that's not the case.
What about a salt watergenerator?
I know that most of the cellswon't produce after a certain
temperature, is that correct?
SPEAKER_02 (11:08):
Right.
Yeah, most of them, I think it'sabout 60 degrees, it might be
55.
But once you get the watertemperature that low, um you
can't use electrolysis very wellto make to make uh chlorine.
So um they're pretty uselessonce you get below about 60
degrees, they're pretty prettywell useful.
SPEAKER_00 (11:30):
You don't need all that chlorine anyway that it
would produce in any way becauseas we said at the beginning, the
chemical usage is really low.
So it's really not a dealbreaker if you were going with a
salt generator.
SPEAKER_02 (11:43):
Yeah, the the only thing that you may want to do is
maybe even remove the chlorinegenerator if you can.
Um depending on how it's it's uhplumbed, you may be able to take
it out and store it someplace sothat it just doesn't have water
sitting in it for months on endwith with no because I'm sure
(12:03):
there's still uh a little leakof electricity in there anyway.
You know, you there's it may beonly a small amount, but there
is a leak of electricity, andyou know, you're gonna wear the
cell out even more if you leaveit plugged in.
SPEAKER_00 (12:19):
So, what I do with mine is I have uh I have an
extra cell that's no good, and Iswap it out with the good one in
the winter, and I turn my systemoff, and that way the good cell
hopefully will last longer.
I just started doing thisbecause uh one of my cells
burned out, died earlier than Iexpected.
And I suspect it's because theyleft it in there all winter
(12:40):
without removing it, uh, even ifeven if it was unproducing.
And another thing that a lot ofpeople will do in the winter is
they'll tell the pool guy, well,since the water is cold, I don't
need to circulate the pool much,so let's have it run two hours a
day.
Now, is there any logic behindsomething like that?
SPEAKER_02 (12:57):
My bottom line advice is either don't run it at
all or or run it for a turnover.
But um don't don't just run itfor a couple hours.
That's that's probably worsethan running it for for no time
or for a turnover.
So a couple hours probablyprobably is no good.
SPEAKER_00 (13:17):
There's a lot of the pumps have the freeze protect
mode where if the sensor cutsnotices that the water is
getting to where it's going tobe freezing, it'll turn the pump
on by itself.
Right.
And what's you know, we we kindof know the reason behind that
because if the water freezes inthe pipes and then it thaws out,
it could crack him.
SPEAKER_02 (13:36):
Yeah, and of course we had that in in Texas this
past year, yeah.
Where they had a freeze whennobody was expecting it, and and
it ruined a lot of equipment andplumbing lines and and
everything, because once thewater freezes, it expands.
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
So that's in an area where they didn't really
winterize their pools like here,because it doesn't it never
really got to that point in mostmost of those areas that froze.
I don't think the customers orthe pool pros you know drained
out the pumps and nobodyanticipated that.
SPEAKER_02 (14:07):
Yeah.
And and even though they heardthat the cold weather was
coming, I think they didn'tthink it was gonna be that long.
And and you know, because it'slike when you put a a cube of of
a tray of uh ice cubes in the inthe freezer, you know, you put
it in there and and it doesn'tmake ice five minutes after you
(14:29):
put it in.
You know, it makes ice fourhours from now or whatever.
So uh they I'm sure they werethinking, well, you know, it's
just barely below freezing, andyou know, it's only gonna be
overnight, so you know, thennothing's gonna happen.
But you know, once you get intodays of it being that long, the
water freezes everywhere.
SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
Yeah.
And I think the power lossdidn't help either, because then
the systems that had the freezeprotect shut down.
Right.
Yeah.
So it was kind of like a doubledouble hit.
And what do you think aboutdraining the pool in the winter
to lower the cyaneric acidlevel?
Because a lot of people usetablets all summer.
For me, I think in thewintertime it'd be ideal to
drain the pool down partially tolower the cyaneric acid level in
(15:14):
certain areas.
SPEAKER_02 (15:16):
Well, you know, I'm an advocate of a lower cyaneric
acid anyway, so anything that wecan do to keep the cyanuric acid
down around 30 to 50 ppm is isis a great idea.
So um, you know, drain drain ofyou know some of the water out
in the wintertime, and and whenyou fill it back up, the
(15:36):
cyaneric acid will be less.
Um cyanic acid does degrade um alittle bit, just biodegradation,
if you will.
Uh it decomposes and uh itdoesn't decompose very very
quickly, but over the few monthsof winter you can probably drop
it.
Maybe about 5 ppm a month, itwill drop just due to
(16:01):
degradation.
Um and also there with thechlorine level low, you may get
some bacteria in the pool.
And we have had pools thatduring the winter time have a
significant loss of cyanuricacid.
And for a while we didn'tunderstand that, but um there is
(16:23):
a certain type of bacteria thatlike to eat cyanuric acid.
And and uh it's not too common,but sometimes it happens that it
gets in the pool, and during thewintertime, since there's a low
chlorine level, the cyan thecyaneric acid level drops down
to zero because it's food forthe the bacteria.
SPEAKER_00 (16:47):
I wonder if that's the same bacteria they use in
the bioactive hydrogen.
SPEAKER_02 (16:52):
But the bioactive is uh is an engineered bacteria
along with an enzyme.
And the enzyme makes it gofaster, uh the catalyst.
And so the enzyme makes it gofaster.
But we've had pools where peoplesay, you know, I opened my pool
and my cyanuric acid level waszero.
(17:14):
Um that's it it is possible, andit it is possible if uh the
right bacteria gets in the pool.
SPEAKER_00 (17:23):
Yeah, that's interesting.
And so basically in the in thewinter, when it gets cold,
either you're in the area whereyou would winterize the pools,
or you're in the area where youwould just keep them open and
try to keep the water balanced.
And there's I mean, there's someareas that are kind of in
between because I've gottenpeople that say they're in parts
of Georgia, and some neighborsclose their pools, others don't.
(17:45):
And so there is that gray areain some areas where you can keep
them open or you can close them.
SPEAKER_02 (17:50):
Yeah, there are, and I don't know what parallel it
might be north of, but you'reyou're right.
You know, once you get kind ofabove the the the pool belt of
the of the US, uh there's anarea where you know you close it
or you don't, you flip a coin.
SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
And I guess the only harm of not closing it would be
that freeze damage, you know, ifyou do get that freezing weather
and you're not running the pump.
SPEAKER_02 (18:18):
Yeah, you run that risk.
You know, I I lived in NorthGeorgia, which was where I
lived, was up in the mountainsand and it wasn't actually too
far from Tennessee.
Some people tried to run theirpools year-round, and and just
from year to year with thedifferent weather, uh, one year
it would be okay, the next yearit wouldn't be.
You know, so it was kind of a ahit or miss type of thing anyway
(18:43):
in those areas.
SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
Yeah, and I think for most of the the people that
are in the sun belt, umCalifornia, Arizona, Nevada,
Texas, Florida, once in a whilewe'll get a customer that says,
Hey, you know, can I close mypool and cover it for the
winter?
And we try to explain to themthat it doesn't get quite that
cold to do something like that,that you know, for five months
(19:04):
to have it covered.
Can't really do that.
SPEAKER_02 (19:07):
It's it's probably better to run it.
Um, you know, water that sitsfor a long time like that,
unless you are in a freezingcondition, it just ends up
causing problems.
You you know yourself if you'vegot if you've seen a clear
vessel that you've had water inand let it evaporate down to
where you know you got uh a fewinches off, it it it kind of
(19:33):
stains the glass, or that stainsthe cup or whatever.
And and and it's difficult toeven wash it.
It doesn't come off very well,you know, and it usually ends up
using some vinegar or somethingtrying to to get the glass clear
again.
Same thing happens in your pool.
You know, you get you get thatring around the top, and as more
(19:55):
and more water evaporates andthe level gets lower, you get
that ring.
And and it may cause a permanenta permanent stain on some uh on
some plaster pools.
SPEAKER_00 (20:06):
Yeah, I guess another selling point would be
the fact that the cold water canmake it the water corrosive.
And so as a pool tech you haveto balance that water, even in
the wintertime.
So those those are all good andgood points for the the pool pro
when they run it if they run toa customer that that wants them
to win a rise of pool in an areawhere it's not typically done.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
And probably the easiest thing to do is just
throw in some some bicarb andget the alkalinity up a little
bit.
You know, so it's it's probablybetter to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (20:38):
And that's and that's in the areas like my
area, a lot of the poolcompanies actually recover a lot
of their chemical costs in thewinter time because in the
summertime, well, this yearwe're gonna talk about that in a
minute, but this year thechemical cost is extremely high.
So in the winter, when you'renot adding a lot of chemicals to
the customer's pool, you're kindof recruiting.
(21:23):
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find those by
going to my website, swing forlearning.com.
On my website, I have a podcasticon at the top.
Click on that, and there'll be amenu of over eighteen hundred
podcasts to choose from.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atprogramcoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have the rest of your week, andGod bless.
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
And this is Besta Bob Lowry.
I'm gonna talk to Bob Lowryabout the cold weather months
and winter pool care.
He'll give you tips and, ofcourse, some strategies for
taking care of those pools thatare open all year round and for
those pools that you closeduring the wintertime.
Are you a pool service prolooking to take your business to
(01:23):
the next level?
Join the Pool Guy CoachingProgram.
Get expert advice, businesstips, exclusive content, and get
direct support from me.
I'm a 35-year veteran in theindustry.
Whether you're starting out orscaling up, I've got the tools
to help you succeed.
Learn more at SwimmingPoolLearning.com.
You know, you've been livingwith this lung disease now for
(01:43):
five years, over five years now.
SPEAKER_02 (01:46):
Yeah.
So you know, and and I feelfortunate anyway because when I
was diagnosed with the diseaseand went to UCLA for the first
time, they told me that that Ihad the statistics were that
everybody lives somewherebetween two and five years, and
(02:09):
that you know, very few peoplelive beyond uh five years with
this disease.
In a couple of weeks, it well,about ten days, it will be uh
six years since the diagnosis.
Amazing.
Uh it is kind of I feelfortunate in to be here at all
(02:31):
and and to be able to continuemy my life's work and passion is
is even better.
So and maybe that's what keepsme going, you know.
If I were sitting on the sofa,you know, waiting for the
disease to overtake me, itprobably would have.
So even today, if I feel likeI'm out of breath, I'll have to
(02:53):
turn on my uh oxygen machine andsupplement my breathing a little
bit.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Let's tell the listeners a little bit about
your history in the industry.
I mean, you've you're prettymuch a pillar of the industry.
I I I only say this to a fewpeople as far as being a pillar,
and you've you've done so muchwith your literature and with
your your teaching.
You've been in the industry forover forty what is it, how many
(03:22):
years now?
SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
Uh this is forty-eight.
It'll be forty forty-nine nextyear.
SPEAKER_00 (03:28):
So it's it's pretty amazing the the legacy that
you've created with yourteachings and your your
background.
And I first found your yourIpsiv book um many, many years
ago, and that was your firstpublication to them.
That was I would say whattwelve, fourteen years ago.
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
Oh, that was probably yeah, that was um 15
years ago, maybe.
Um I think it's copyrighted in2006, and it took me uh a year,
a little over a year to writeit.
SPEAKER_00 (04:07):
So Yeah, that's that to me, that was a a big leap in
knowledge.
I mean, that was something thethings that you wrote in that
book 16 years ago are not dated.
You know, there's some newdiscoveries, of course, but as
far as the basic principles thatyou wrote back then, and so
that's what you do is chemistryprinciples and they evolve and
(04:28):
you've discovered new things.
We talked about those in otherpodcasts.
And today we're gonna, sinceyou're wearing a jacket, we'll
talk about cold weather andwe'll talk about uh cold water
and different things they haveto be aware of.
And just before I start, I'dlike to let the the pros out
there know that there's a pairof gloves that I wear in the
(04:48):
winter time, and they're calledAtlas Gloves, WG772M, and
they're 26 inch long, so they goup to your your armpits, and
they use them in butchers usethem in the meat lockers, you
know.
And so these things are greatfor the pool water because and
in your pool pool, you know, itkind of freezes to your hand
when your hands are wet.
(05:08):
So those gloves are just awesomeout there in the cold weather.
And I just put them on mydashboard and have the heater
come on in between stops to warmthem up again.
And they get me through thewinter months here in
California, which is kind ofwimpy because California
probably isn't as cold as youknow other states get out there.
So as far as cold water, let'sstart with the first one.
(05:32):
The chemical usage in a poolwhen the temperature is below
60, what happens with the amountof chemicals that the pool
needs?
SPEAKER_02 (05:41):
Well, the the needs are down just because things
slow down with coldertemperatures.
The fact is that algae doesn'tgrow in I I've heard people say
algae doesn't grow below 55degrees.
And for the most part, that'strue.
And for swimming pools, it'strue.
(06:03):
But there are algae not found inswimming pools that grow below
55 degrees.
Garden variety algae that we getin swimming pools, it doesn't
grow below 55 degrees.
So when we get to 55, we don'tneed as much chlorine or as much
uh disinfectant in the waterbecause there's not an the algae
(06:27):
isn't gonna uh reproduce.
The cold water doesn't kill thealgae, but it makes it so it
doesn't produce or reproduce.
You'll need less disinfectant,less algacides, and people say
I'm gonna put a winter algacidein.
I think that's a waste of moneybecause if the water's gonna be
(06:48):
55 or less, you don't need analgacide.
SPEAKER_00 (06:52):
Yeah, and in our area here, we don't close our
pools down.
I'm kind of skipping some of thequestions here and moving them a
little bit now that it makesmore sense in this order.
We don't close our pools here,we keep them open.
So we're always adding muraticacid to keep the pH in balance
and things like that still.
What about those areas?
And I know I've I get a lot ofemails at the beginning of the
season, people open their poolsup and there's all kinds of
(07:14):
different problems withstaining, with you know,
sometimes there's even algae inthere if they open later in the
season.
Now, if we're here year-roundbalancing the chemicals, but in
other states they just cover thepools, drain them down below the
return lines.
How does what's the difference?
Why don't we do that?
I mean, I know why we don't doit here because the pools don't
(07:36):
get that cold.
But is there a major differencebetween those areas like New
York, you know, some parts ofthe Midwest where they winter
wise their pools and California,Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas,
where we don't do that?
SPEAKER_02 (07:51):
If it were possible, they'd probably drain the water
out of the pools in the northand and fill them back up when
it when it got to be warmer, butthey just want to keep the water
in there.
You know, they want to keep itfrom freezing and they need to
protect the shell.
And the best way, of course, toprotect the the vessel is to
(08:12):
have some water in it, even ifit freezes.
Um many times they they actuallyplug the lines and and put uh
antifreeze in the lines and thenremove the equipment and put it
inside and then you know put theequipment back.
So they're just dealing with adealing with a a small body of
(08:37):
water that doesn't have any anycirculation other than what they
you know stir up during thewinter, and most of them are too
lazy to go out when there'sthree feet of snow on the ground
and go burst the pool orcirculate things around.
Who wants to do that?
They sometimes uh drop a pump inthere and pump the water around
(08:58):
a little bit for a while, butfor the most part, it's just a
stagnant body of water for a fewmonths until it warms up.
SPEAKER_00 (09:06):
And that doesn't affect, I mean, does it affect
the surface at all?
I mean, I've probably never didany kind of saw any kind of
studies about that versus areas.
SPEAKER_02 (09:15):
It it doesn't really.
Um of course, if the if the ifthe water is out of balance when
you when you shut it down,there's a good chance that
whichever way it's out ofbalance is going to have a
problem before you open it backup.
SPEAKER_00 (09:32):
I guess the main reason we don't do it in
California, Nevada, Arizona,Florida is that the water
temperature doesn't get coldenough to where it would
interfere with the LSI.
SPEAKER_02 (09:43):
Because I I know that in the LSI As the water
temperature goes down, the thethe water actually gets
corrosive.
Um and it affects the LSI.
Um in general terms, it's about15 degrees for each 0.1 on the
(10:04):
saturation index.
So if you're gonna lower thewater temperature from, say, 80
degrees down to 50 or 90 down to60, um, you need to account for
the fact that it's gonna be 0.2less.
Sometimes that's a good thing,sometimes that's a bad thing,
depending on where you started.
(10:25):
But if you were slightlycorrosive to begin with, you can
be really corrosive uh uh if youif you don't raise pH or
alkalinity back up, um, you'regonna have a problem with um the
water being corrosive in thatvessel.
Um, it just slowly literallydissolves some of the vessel.
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
Yeah, so it's important to keep the water
balance even in the winter whenyou have the pool open.
I know a lot of people figure,hey, it's cold out there, I'm
not gonna even bother with much,but that's not the case.
What about a salt watergenerator?
I know that most of the cellswon't produce after a certain
temperature, is that correct?
SPEAKER_02 (11:08):
Right.
Yeah, most of them, I think it'sabout 60 degrees, it might be
55.
But once you get the watertemperature that low, um you
can't use electrolysis very wellto make to make uh chlorine.
So um they're pretty uselessonce you get below about 60
degrees, they're pretty prettywell useful.
SPEAKER_00 (11:30):
You don't need all that chlorine anyway that it
would produce in any way becauseas we said at the beginning, the
chemical usage is really low.
So it's really not a dealbreaker if you were going with a
salt generator.
SPEAKER_02 (11:43):
Yeah, the the only thing that you may want to do is
maybe even remove the chlorinegenerator if you can.
Um depending on how it's it's uhplumbed, you may be able to take
it out and store it someplace sothat it just doesn't have water
sitting in it for months on endwith with no because I'm sure
(12:03):
there's still uh a little leakof electricity in there anyway.
You know, you there's it may beonly a small amount, but there
is a leak of electricity, andyou know, you're gonna wear the
cell out even more if you leaveit plugged in.
SPEAKER_00 (12:19):
So, what I do with mine is I have uh I have an
extra cell that's no good, and Iswap it out with the good one in
the winter, and I turn my systemoff, and that way the good cell
hopefully will last longer.
I just started doing thisbecause uh one of my cells
burned out, died earlier than Iexpected.
And I suspect it's because theyleft it in there all winter
(12:40):
without removing it, uh, even ifeven if it was unproducing.
And another thing that a lot ofpeople will do in the winter is
they'll tell the pool guy, well,since the water is cold, I don't
need to circulate the pool much,so let's have it run two hours a
day.
Now, is there any logic behindsomething like that?
SPEAKER_02 (12:57):
My bottom line advice is either don't run it at
all or or run it for a turnover.
But um don't don't just run itfor a couple hours.
That's that's probably worsethan running it for for no time
or for a turnover.
So a couple hours probablyprobably is no good.
SPEAKER_00 (13:17):
There's a lot of the pumps have the freeze protect
mode where if the sensor cutsnotices that the water is
getting to where it's going tobe freezing, it'll turn the pump
on by itself.
Right.
And what's you know, we we kindof know the reason behind that
because if the water freezes inthe pipes and then it thaws out,
it could crack him.
SPEAKER_02 (13:36):
Yeah, and of course we had that in in Texas this
past year, yeah.
Where they had a freeze whennobody was expecting it, and and
it ruined a lot of equipment andplumbing lines and and
everything, because once thewater freezes, it expands.
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
So that's in an area where they didn't really
winterize their pools like here,because it doesn't it never
really got to that point in mostmost of those areas that froze.
I don't think the customers orthe pool pros you know drained
out the pumps and nobodyanticipated that.
SPEAKER_02 (14:07):
Yeah.
And and even though they heardthat the cold weather was
coming, I think they didn'tthink it was gonna be that long.
And and you know, because it'slike when you put a a cube of of
a tray of uh ice cubes in the inthe freezer, you know, you put
it in there and and it doesn'tmake ice five minutes after you
(14:29):
put it in.
You know, it makes ice fourhours from now or whatever.
So uh they I'm sure they werethinking, well, you know, it's
just barely below freezing, andyou know, it's only gonna be
overnight, so you know, thennothing's gonna happen.
But you know, once you get intodays of it being that long, the
water freezes everywhere.
SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
Yeah.
And I think the power lossdidn't help either, because then
the systems that had the freezeprotect shut down.
Right.
Yeah.
So it was kind of like a doubledouble hit.
And what do you think aboutdraining the pool in the winter
to lower the cyaneric acidlevel?
Because a lot of people usetablets all summer.
For me, I think in thewintertime it'd be ideal to
drain the pool down partially tolower the cyaneric acid level in
(15:14):
certain areas.
SPEAKER_02 (15:16):
Well, you know, I'm an advocate of a lower cyaneric
acid anyway, so anything that wecan do to keep the cyanuric acid
down around 30 to 50 ppm is isis a great idea.
So um, you know, drain drain ofyou know some of the water out
in the wintertime, and and whenyou fill it back up, the
(15:36):
cyaneric acid will be less.
Um cyanic acid does degrade um alittle bit, just biodegradation,
if you will.
Uh it decomposes and uh itdoesn't decompose very very
quickly, but over the few monthsof winter you can probably drop
it.
Maybe about 5 ppm a month, itwill drop just due to
(16:01):
degradation.
Um and also there with thechlorine level low, you may get
some bacteria in the pool.
And we have had pools thatduring the winter time have a
significant loss of cyanuricacid.
And for a while we didn'tunderstand that, but um there is
(16:23):
a certain type of bacteria thatlike to eat cyanuric acid.
And and uh it's not too common,but sometimes it happens that it
gets in the pool, and during thewintertime, since there's a low
chlorine level, the cyan thecyaneric acid level drops down
to zero because it's food forthe the bacteria.
SPEAKER_00 (16:47):
I wonder if that's the same bacteria they use in
the bioactive hydrogen.
SPEAKER_02 (16:52):
But the bioactive is uh is an engineered bacteria
along with an enzyme.
And the enzyme makes it gofaster, uh the catalyst.
And so the enzyme makes it gofaster.
But we've had pools where peoplesay, you know, I opened my pool
and my cyanuric acid level waszero.
(17:14):
Um that's it it is possible, andit it is possible if uh the
right bacteria gets in the pool.
SPEAKER_00 (17:23):
Yeah, that's interesting.
And so basically in the in thewinter, when it gets cold,
either you're in the area whereyou would winterize the pools,
or you're in the area where youwould just keep them open and
try to keep the water balanced.
And there's I mean, there's someareas that are kind of in
between because I've gottenpeople that say they're in parts
of Georgia, and some neighborsclose their pools, others don't.
(17:45):
And so there is that gray areain some areas where you can keep
them open or you can close them.
SPEAKER_02 (17:50):
Yeah, there are, and I don't know what parallel it
might be north of, but you'reyou're right.
You know, once you get kind ofabove the the the pool belt of
the of the US, uh there's anarea where you know you close it
or you don't, you flip a coin.
SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
And I guess the only harm of not closing it would be
that freeze damage, you know, ifyou do get that freezing weather
and you're not running the pump.
SPEAKER_02 (18:18):
Yeah, you run that risk.
You know, I I lived in NorthGeorgia, which was where I
lived, was up in the mountainsand and it wasn't actually too
far from Tennessee.
Some people tried to run theirpools year-round, and and just
from year to year with thedifferent weather, uh, one year
it would be okay, the next yearit wouldn't be.
You know, so it was kind of a ahit or miss type of thing anyway
(18:43):
in those areas.
SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
Yeah, and I think for most of the the people that
are in the sun belt, umCalifornia, Arizona, Nevada,
Texas, Florida, once in a whilewe'll get a customer that says,
Hey, you know, can I close mypool and cover it for the
winter?
And we try to explain to themthat it doesn't get quite that
cold to do something like that,that you know, for five months
(19:04):
to have it covered.
Can't really do that.
SPEAKER_02 (19:07):
It's it's probably better to run it.
Um, you know, water that sitsfor a long time like that,
unless you are in a freezingcondition, it just ends up
causing problems.
You you know yourself if you'vegot if you've seen a clear
vessel that you've had water inand let it evaporate down to
where you know you got uh a fewinches off, it it it kind of
(19:33):
stains the glass, or that stainsthe cup or whatever.
And and and it's difficult toeven wash it.
It doesn't come off very well,you know, and it usually ends up
using some vinegar or somethingtrying to to get the glass clear
again.
Same thing happens in your pool.
You know, you get you get thatring around the top, and as more
(19:55):
and more water evaporates andthe level gets lower, you get
that ring.
And and it may cause a permanenta permanent stain on some uh on
some plaster pools.
SPEAKER_00 (20:06):
Yeah, I guess another selling point would be
the fact that the cold water canmake it the water corrosive.
And so as a pool tech you haveto balance that water, even in
the wintertime.
So those those are all good andgood points for the the pool pro
when they run it if they run toa customer that that wants them
to win a rise of pool in an areawhere it's not typically done.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
And probably the easiest thing to do is just
throw in some some bicarb andget the alkalinity up a little
bit.
You know, so it's it's probablybetter to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (20:38):
And that's and that's in the areas like my
area, a lot of the poolcompanies actually recover a lot
of their chemical costs in thewinter time because in the
summertime, well, this yearwe're gonna talk about that in a
minute, but this year thechemical cost is extremely high.
So in the winter, when you'renot adding a lot of chemicals to
the customer's pool, you're kindof recruiting.
(21:23):
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find those by
going to my website, swing forlearning.com.
On my website, I have a podcasticon at the top.
Click on that, and there'll be amenu of over eighteen hundred
podcasts to choose from.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atprogramcoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have the rest of your week, andGod bless.
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