Winter Is Not a Vacation for Your Pool

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Hi and welcome to the Pool Vic Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm gonna talkto you about winter and your
pool, and specifically for thoseareas where we don't winterize
our pools.
And I'll go over real quick,briefly at the beginning, what
that means, and some tips forwinter pool care and things that
you really can't ignore in thewinter in those areas where your

(01:25):
pool is open all season long.
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(01:46):
So what does it mean towinterize your pool?
Well basically that's somewherein that's that's in some certain
regions, I should say, where thetemperature gets freezing cold,
and it's safer to winterize yourpool, which means you're
draining the water down past theskimmer, you're getting all of

(02:07):
the water out of the pipes, andyou're getting all the water out
of the equipment, sometimes evenstoring the equipment in a place
where it's not going to getdamaged by the freezing cold
weather.
There's areas that are on theborderline, like parts of Texas,
where there have been deepfreezes that are unusual where
the power goes out and theneverything freezes.

(02:28):
And there was one a few yearsago where all the salt cells and
filters and check valves crackedbecause what happens when things
freeze, they start to thaw out,then they expand.
And if you ever put anything inthe freezer, like for instance,
let's say you had a coke in acan and you put it in the
freezer because you wanted tocool it off, but you forgot all
about it.

(02:48):
Get you open the freezer up thenext day, and I can guarantee
you that can has exploded andthere's frozen soda all over the
place.
Same thing kind of happens withwater in pool parts in those
areas where it gets freezingcold, and so you have to
definitely winterize the pool,cover it, and do these things to
protect the pool from the harshfreezing weather.

(03:11):
But fortunately, in SouthernCalifornia, parts of Texas,
Florida for sure, Arizona,Nevada, these states, we don't
generally close our pools in thewintertime.
Maybe there's some areas ofNorthern California where
closing the pool is appropriate.
But here, and most of the pools,of course, are kind of

congregated in these areas: Florida, California, Arizona, (03:33):
undefined
Nevada, and we keep them openall year round.
So we have what we callyear-round pool service, and
this means that we don'twinterize the pools because it
wouldn't be effective here totake a pool, cover it, and turn
everything off for the winter.

(03:53):
You'd have a pretty good swampwhen you open things up again.
The reason why it works backeast, and in the some parts of
the Midwest and the northernstates, is that the water in the
pool is freezing cold, sometimeseven it turns to ice, and
nothing really can live in thatkind of cold temperature.
If you do pool servers in thesewarmer states, you've noticed

(04:16):
that in the wintertime, even ifthe pool has no chlorine in it,
that the algae doesn't reallyform in it because algae needs
warmer water to operate in, andif the water temperature is you
know 10 or 20 degrees, 30degrees, it's not gonna have
algae in there.
And it's one of those thingswhere winterizing the pools in
those areas does work for thatreason because the water just

(04:39):
gets extremely cold and there'sreally not much activity
happening to that water.
So let me state this kind oflike with some common myths and
some truths here that are partof winter pool service and
winter pool care, I should saytoo.
And one of them is it's cold,algae won't grow.
And the truth is algae can stillform in the cold water.

(05:03):
And if you winterized your pool,or if you've seen these uh pools
that sometimes are opened upwhere maybe the cover had a
problem or they didn't put anyclosing chemicals in, they can
open that pool up and it can begreen as well, especially if
they opened it up and it startedgetting warmer really fast.
There's a certain temperaturewhere algae kind of doesn't grow

(05:24):
that fast, but you can stillhave algae here in Southern
California in January with thewater temperature's in the 50s.
It's not unheard of.
It's just one of those thingswhere you don't get sometimes
the algae bloom, and algae justgrows slower, it just doesn't
stop altogether, and it mayappear like it stopped, but
there are certain times whereI've seen algae in the winter

(05:46):
time.
Not necessarily a full-blowngreen pool, but there has been
algae in the winter, so it iskind of a myth that in the cold
water algae won't grow, period.
It still can grow, but it justgrows slowly, and you may not
have the algae blooms that youhave in the summer.
This one here is another one,and this one's I can turn down

(06:06):
my chlorine to nothing.
Well, you'd still need chlorinein the pool because as I
mentioned, algae can still grow,albeit slowly, but then you can
also lose your water qualitywhere the pool gets cloudy
because there's no chlorine.
And besides that, if you do havean attached spa, you definitely
would want to have some chlorinein it because unlike those
states where they winterizetheir pool here in Southern

(06:29):
California, we can still use ourattached spa in the winter time,
and you certainly don't want toturn on your spa and get in
there with five or six people ifthere's no chlorine in the pool,
because that's of course unsafe.
Bacterian viruses have nothingkilling it.
So you do need to carry or keepsome sanitizer in the pool.
You wouldn't need the chlorinelevel at 10 parts per million,

(06:49):
so to speak, but having a goodresidual chlorine of three to
five parts per million is prettystandard in the wintertime here,
and it does also prevent organicstaining.
Something that you have to thinkabout is that leaf debris is
gonna fall in the pool, deadbugs, dead animals will get in
there, and so having a chlorinelevel in there also protects the
surface from being stained byyou know dead insects or leaf

(07:13):
debris.
Not sure if a dead animal willstain it, probably not, but the
other things definitely couldstain the surface temporarily,
and something also that canstain the surface, and this is
another one that really tiesinto this myth is that I don't
have to clean my pool as oftenin the winter as I do in the
summer.
And the truth is in my servicearea, you're cleaning the pool

(07:34):
probably more in the winter,it's kind of ironic, but in the
summer, people are using theirpool and the pools stay a lot
cleaner in the summer.
Most trees drop their debris inthe wintertime or the
springtime, so the summer isactually ideal and the pools
stay pretty clean.
In the wintertime, we have a lotof windstorms, a lot of leaf
debris, a lot of rain, a lot ofdirt gets washed into the pool.

(07:56):
So, in reality, the truth of thematter in Southern California is
you're doing more poolmaintenance and cleaning than
you are in the summer in mostcases.
And this is of course skimmingthe leaves off the top,
vacuuming the leaves off thebottom of the pool, making sure
that there's some chlorine inthere, like I stated earlier, so
that doesn't there's no stainingfrom the leaf debris.

(08:18):
And more importantly, is thatthe dirt dirt does have a lot of
metals in it, and they can stainthe pool.
So you're gonna be vacuuming thedirt out of the pool in the
winter time as well as in thesummer.
So it's one of those thingswhere there's not really less
maintenance or pool cleaningmaintenance in the winter time,
there's just as much andsometimes even more.

(08:39):
And then here's another one aswell.
PH doesn't change in the winter.
Now, granted, those customers orthose areas I should say where
they close the pool down for thewinter, the water's freezing, so
there really isn't a need tobalance the pH in the pool
because you can't really pouracid on ice and it's not going
to do any good.

(08:59):
But in cold water, the pH doesthe call, I should say it like
this the acid demand or the needto add pH to the pool in cold
water goes down significantlybecause if you use the LSI and
if you go on the red app, youcan see this firsthand that as
the water temperature drops, theamount of the pH does not need

(09:22):
to be down to 7.6 but say whenthe water temperatures in the

(09:46):
40s or 50s, because then you canhave corrosive water.
The pH can easily be at 7.8 oreven 8.0 in a lot of cases in
the winter.
Because of the cold temperature,you really don't need to add a
lot of muriac acid to lower downthe pH.
You're not going to be keepingall your pools at 7.4 in the
winter because that could causethe water to be corrosive.

(10:07):
So the cold water or the watertemperature is a big factor in
the LSI.
And the LSI is primarily justfor the pool surface.
Is it scale form?
Is the balance of the water, thechemistry balance, scale forming
or corrosive?
And in really cold water, thewater can, the acid in there can

(10:27):
make the water very corrosive.
This, however, doesn't mean youshouldn't add murianic acid in
the wintertime.
In fact, you still have to checkthe pH and make small, slight
adjustments when needed in thewintertime.
Other states, maybe likeFlorida, where it doesn't really
get that cold, the water doesn'tget to like 50 degrees or 40 in

(10:49):
the 40 degree mark.
You still have to maintain apretty good balance with the
murific acid so that it's notscale forming.
But again, the cold water canmake adding too much acid to the
pool very corrosive.
So pH doesn't change much in thewinter, true, but also true is
that there is slight adjustmentsthat do need to be made, and the

(11:13):
pH does need to be watched inthe winter as well as in the
summer, of course.
And here's one that I've heardbefore I don't have to run my
pool pump in the winter time.
And the truth is you do have torun your pool pump in the
wintertime, just like thesummer, but you won't run it as
much, so you can't just turn thepump off, that's not gonna work.
And I've had I had this customerone time, I think I don't know

(11:34):
where they came from, somewhereback east, I think, and they
moved to California, and theytold me that back there they
cover the pool the winter andthey leave everything off.
So they they actually boughtthis cover for the pool.
I didn't I don't know how theywere gonna put it on, but they
bought this cover like the coveryou have back east with the
little hooks and everything.
There was no way to put it on,and they were kind of wondering

(11:55):
why there is no attachment inCalifornia for it.
So I had to explain to themagain, we keep the pools open
all year round, and we have tokeep the pump running a certain
amount of time, and they werepretty flabbergasted by this.
But it's the reality is you canrun your pool less, of course,
but you can't run your poolzero.
So basically, if you're runningyour pool 12 hours in the

(12:18):
summer, easily you can go to sixhours.
I don't have any problem withthat.
But the circulation is alsoimportant for cleanliness
cleanliness of the pool.
And if you run the pool for from12 hours down to two hours,
you're gonna have a lot ofproblems with debris going to
the bottom.
The cleaner's not gonna run longenough in the pool, and you may
have you know really poor waterquality, even with the cold

(12:39):
water.
So you're running the pool notjust for circulating the water,
circulating the chemicals, butyou're also running the pool for
cleanliness in the winter time.
So keep that in mind that goingfrom 12 hours down to say five
or six hours in the winter isgoing to make the pool a little
more messy because the automaticcleaner is not running as much,
the skimmer's not running asmuch, and there's probably a

(13:01):
higher debris load in most areasin the winter time.
A brief little side note here ifyou go to my website and scroll
down to the very bottom of thewebpage, you're gonna see pool
guide gear.
And I suggest you go here andyou get my cold weather gloves,
they're gonna be yellow, they'reAtlas Nitrite gloves.
Just click on the Amazon linkand you'll see them here.
And these are gloves that I wearin the winter that are 26 inches

(13:24):
long, they go all the way up toyour armpits basically.
And you could also get the largesize and put if you have if
you're kind of a medium buildlike me, I'm 145 pounds, 5'7.
You can actually put clothgloves and on your hands, and I
put these Atlas gloves over thembecause in those early morning,
the first few pools, it'sfreezing cold, and touching your

(13:47):
pool pole and touching thewater, your hands feel like
they're gonna, you know, falloff, your fingers are gonna fall
off.
But truthfully, these gloves aregonna save you out there.
You can empty out skimmerbaskets, you can vacuum pools,
you can skim with them.
And it sounds like I'm sellingthese things, you know.
And if you order now, you get afree Ginsu knife thrown in.
But I'm not really selling them,I just think they're great as

(14:07):
far as protection from the coldwater.
And you definitely want to get apair of these if you do any kind
of pool service in the winter.
Again, website swimmingpoollearning.com.
At the very bottom, there's poolguy gear.
Click on the gloves, and you'regonna really be thankful to have
these in the winter time.
Now, back to our scheduledprogram.

(14:27):
Anyway, uh basically, winterpool care is much different than
summer pool care.
This is in the time of year,also where the pool service
companies recoup a lot of theirsummer expenses, so it really is
not good and it hurts ourfeelings, I guess I should say,
but it's bad for business when acustomer is like, well, you
know, it's winter time now and Ithink I'm gonna just cancel my

(14:49):
service and do it myself, andI'll call you back in the
summer.
I don't do that.
If the customer doesn't reallywant winter pool service, I
don't keep that customer.
I'll just tell them, well, youknow, this is a year-round pool
service, and I explained to themnicely that you know, in the
summertime we're dealing with alot of algae and chemical
issues, and we're we're using alot more resources on

(15:12):
maintaining the pool.
And in the wintertime, we kindof recoup on our chemical costs
because we're not using as manychemicals.
And if the reason why I cancharge this monthly rate is
because I'm counting summer andwinter together as one whole
year, and it's important theyknow that that you know the
wintertime is when you kind ofrecoup some of your cost from

(15:33):
the chemical usage, andtruthfully, you you recoup some
of your mental capacity becausein the summer you're fighting so
many different things.
The heat, the you know, thechemical usage, I should say
again, the allergy outbreakshere and there, that in the
wintertime you're just skimmingleaves basically and trying to
keep your hands hands warm, andso it's a different mindset.

(15:55):
You're kind of switching fromsummer to winter mode.
I prefer winter over summer,honestly.
I don't mind cleaning pools, Idon't mind the cold as much.
I'd rather be cold than hot.
But then, of course, when it'slike in the morning, 40 degrees
out or 45 degrees out, my handsare freezing.
I'm always thinking, man, I wishit was 80 degrees out or 90

(16:15):
degrees out.
So it's only human nature towish for the opposite season
when it's happening.
But winter pool care isdefinitely a different beast,
and it's something that you haveto be prepared for in this kind
of service outdoor serviceindustry.
If you're new to the businessand you're starting out and
you've just gotten through areally brutal hot summer,
winter's coming, and in someareas it can be extremely cold

(16:39):
and really no fun out there.
So you're dealing with seasons,you know, in the winter we get
rain, we get the wind, in thesummer we get the heat.
And it's one of those thingsthat take it or leave it, you
know, you're gonna either lovepool service being outdoors or
not.
But the wintertime definitelyhas its challenges, and it does
have some advantages, in myopinion, as well.

(16:59):
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find those on
my website,swingprolearning.com.
Again, go to the bottom and getyour gloves there, and you can
find them by clicking on thepodcast icon on the banner, and
there's a drop down menu ofclose to 1800 podcasts there for
you.
If you're interested in thecoaching program, you can learn
more at poolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.

(17:20):
Have the rest of your week.
God bless.

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