Keep Your Pool Open a Bit Longer-Could Save You Money & Stress

We don't have a long season here in the Capital Region when it comes to summer and swimming. But it is longer than you think if you want to save yourself some money and stress. Experts say that you should keep your swimming pool open long enough to make sure you aren't wasting money in the long run.

Next week, fall begins on the calendar, but for us, our pool will still be open. In fact, we have decided to keep it open until the first week or two of October. Initially, because I have lived in the Capital Region most of my life, I know that we always get one more week of eighty-degree days. But I recently learned that if we do wait to close up, it will save us money down the road.

According to CBS 6, if you leave your pool open later and expect to get those few straggling eighty-degree days, you won't have headaches in the spring when you reopen it. The chemicals that are put into your pool at the end of the season when you close it act as winterizing chemicals. If you close your pool with those chemicals in it and we have warmer days, those chemicals will break down faster and cause you to have a slimy-green pool when you reopen in the spring. It will make algae bloom and spores form inside your pool under the cover. Not only will it be messy but it could cost you hundreds of dollars to clean it out.

Trust me, you don't want to have a slimy-green pool to tend to. We had a muddy mess at the beginning of the season to no fault of our own and it was a huge headache and expensive.

So experts say the best time to close your pool is late September, early October in the Capital Region. Ideally, the temperature should be around 65 degrees.