When should I buy a safety cover and winterize my pool?
Order early, cover before the leaves fall, and winterize the equipment later than you’d think.
When to buy the cover
Order from late August to mid-September. Custom covers take 4–6 weeks from order to install. By late October, leaves can stain the surface of a plaster, concrete, fiberglass or vinyl pool with tannins.
Choosing a cover
- Mesh: the most common cover in North Carolina.
- Aqua-Xtreme mesh: blocks sunlight and still drains.
- Solid: blocks all sunlight and needs a pump to drain. Most professionals charge more to remove it, and most pool-surface manufacturers frown on solid covers because of outgassing and the bathtub-ring effect.
When to winterize the equipment
Install the cover before leaves fall, but don’t winterize the equipment until the water temperature drops below 65 degrees. In the Raleigh–Durham–Cary area that’s typically late November or December.
Until then, keep the chemistry balanced and run the filter pumps overnight, from midnight to 6 a.m. Set automation freeze protection to no lower than 37 degrees.
We recommend a professional winterize: freeze damage to equipment and plumbing can be expensive to repair.