7 Common Winter Pool Problems

Posted on: January 27th, 2025 by

It’s easy to forget about your pool in the winter. Once you go through the pool winterization steps, you might think that you don’t need to do anything with your pool until you’re ready to open it again in the spring. However, it’s important to think about your pool sometimes and check on its overall health.

Here are seven potential winter pool problems that can come up if you neglect your pool over the winter.

Damaged Pool Cover

Your pool cover is supposed to protect the pool against many potential issues. Depending on the cover, it might protect from debris, water, animals, or people.

However, in its role as a protective cover, it can be exposed to numerous potential damages. The pool cover can get caught in the wind and torn. Blown down branches can fall onto the cover, breaking or tearing it. Animals might tear at the edges or even step or fall through it. In addition, water buildup on the pool cover can damage it.

Make sure your pool cover is properly installed and monitor it regularly for damage. Minor damage can often be repaired, but if left alone for too long, the cover might need to be replaced. Make sure it isn’t building up too much water on it. Also, make sure that the water level isn’t too low, as this can put more strain on the pool cover.

Water Level Gets Too High

As part of winterizing your pool, you drained the water to a safe level to avoid damage. However, over the winter months, your pool’s water level can fluctuate. In Atlanta, the winter months, including December, January, February, and March, tend to get the most moisture – only July gets more precipitation on average. Depending on the type of pool cover that you have, this moisture can get into the pool, causing the water level to rise.

Check the water level in your pool regularly to make sure it isn’t rising over the winter.

Frozen Water Damaged Equipment

frozen pool equipmentOne of the reasons why you drain your water as part of winterization is to keep water out of pool equipment like pipes, pumps, and filters. When water freezes, it expands, and if you have water in these components, it can damage them. Letting water freeze in pool equipment can mean that you will have to replace a lot of it in the spring.

Make sure water stays at the recommended levels all winter long.

Liner Damage from Low Water

Vinyl pool liners should be kept wet at all times. The material is resilient against water, and it needs water to maintain its properties. If allowed to dry out, vinyl liners can shrink and crack. Sometimes these cracks will be immediately visible, but other times they might not become apparent until you try to refill the pool and discover leaks.

Pool Cracks and Leaks

Over the winter, there are several potential threats that can lead to leaks in the liner or the pool itself. These can be due to freezing water or low water.

Freezing water expands, and this can create pressure. When the surface of the water freezes, it creates a cap that reduces the ability of water below it to expand. To make room for expansion, the pool water will push on the pool walls, which can crack it, causing leaks. This is especially true of fiberglass pools.

On the other hand, water pressure from the outside is also constantly pushing on your pool. If there’s not water on the inside to resist the pressure, this can also lead to cracking. Again, fiberglass pools are more vulnerable to this.  In addition, vinyl pool liners can crack if allowed to dry out, which can potentially lead to leaks as well.

Pool Lifting from Low Water

Among the more extreme risks of having a low water level in your pool is pool lifting. When full, your pool is held in the ground by the weight of concrete and water. However, if the water level in the pool is too low, the pressure from water on the outside of the pool might cause the pool to float, rather than cracking it.

Normal winter rain levels aren’t likely to cause your pool to heave significantly out of the ground, that is most likely to occur with hurricane or major thunderstorm rains. However, even a slight lift can be damaging to a pool. When the pool lifts, it creates a void underneath it. When you refill the pool with water then, there’s nothing to support the weight of the water, which can cause the pool to crack as it resettles unevenly into the voids.

Algae Growth and Staining

algae growth in poolAs part of winterization, you should create conditions in the pool that aren’t favorable toward the growth of algae. But if you don’t properly winterize your pool or don’t monitor the condition over the winter, you might see a lot of algae growing in your pool.

Algae can make your pool look disgusting and can make it hard to open your pool in the spring. In addition, the presence of algae can lead to staining of your pool, including concrete, vinyl, fiberglass, and other materials.

To avoid algae growth, you should not only winterize your pool in the fall, but you also need to monitor the conditions periodically over the winter.

Let Us Help You Avoid Pool Problems Year Round

Pool maintenance is required year-round. If you’re not capable of performing this maintenance or you don’t want the hassle, there are other options.

Since 1972, Allen Pool Service has been providing reliable pool maintenance to residential and commercial pool owners in the northern Atlanta region. We believe in simplifying your life: letting you enjoy the maximum benefit from your pool with minimum effort.

We are a family business, and we live on our reputation. We maintain that reputation by always providing the best service to our customers. Ask around to neighbors and friends with pools. The odds are good that one of them has worked with us, and they will happily recommend us for any type of pool work, whether it’s renovation, repair, or simple maintenance.

To learn how Allen Pool Service can make your pool trouble-free and easy to maintain, please contact us today. We serve customers in the Atlanta area.

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Please call (770) 451-1621 to request pool winterization by Allen Pool Service in Atlanta.

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