Your Pool's Been Sitting There All Winter. Now What?

Look, we know. Nobody in Pensacola really "closes" their pool the way folks up north do. There's no winterizing cover getting dramatically yanked off on the first warm Saturday. But let's be real — somewhere around November, you stopped swimming. The pool kept running, you maybe tossed some chlorine in every now and then, and then one day in February, you walked outside with your coffee, looked at the water, and thought… yeah, we should probably deal with that.

Welcome to pool opening season, Gulf Coast style.

Whether your pool's been on autopilot for a few months or you fully shut things down over the winter, there's a process to getting it swim-ready again. And doing it right now saves you from scrambling in May when the kids are already in their suits, and your water looks like a swamp.

Here's how we'd do it — and how we do it for every customer before the season kicks off.

Start With What You Can See

Before you touch a single chemical, just look at the pool. Walk around it. Check the deck for cracks. Look at your coping (that's the edging around the top of the pool), see if anything shifted over the winter. Peek at the skimmer baskets and pull out whatever collection of leaves, acorns (always acorns), and mystery debris has been building up since October.

If you've got a screen enclosure, check for tears or sagging. If you don't have one, well, you already know what oak trees and wind do to an uncovered pool around here. No judgment. Just grab a skimmer net and get to work.

While you're at it, look at the water level. Pensacola winters can be surprisingly dry some years, and evaporation doesn't stop just because it's cold. If your water level dropped below the skimmer line, you'll want to fill it back up before you start running the pump. Running a pump without enough water is a fast way to burn it out, and that's a repair bill nobody wants in February.

Check Your Equipment (All of It)

This is the part most people skip, and it's the part that matters most. Your pump, filter, heater, salt cell, chlorinator, whatever you've got back there behind the fence, it all needs a once-over before you start asking it to work hard again.

Turn the pump on and listen. You're listening for anything that sounds off: grinding, humming without turning over, or that lovely high-pitched whine that means bearings are going. If it starts up smooth and water's moving, great. If not, don't force it. Call somebody before a small fix becomes a big one.

Check your filter pressure. If you've got a cartridge filter, pull the cartridges out and inspect them. If they're looking rough (frayed, flattened, or discolored), it might be time for new ones. For sand or DE filters, a good backwash is a solid starting point. Your filter's been sitting with whatever was in it all winter, and it deserves a fresh start, too.

If you've got a salt system, inspect the cell. Salt cells build up calcium deposits over the off-season, and a scaled-up cell can't generate chlorine properly. A quick acid wash usually does the trick. If you're not comfortable doing that yourself, that's exactly the kind of thing we handle during a Shipshape service (wink).

And check your o-rings and gaskets while you're at it. The Gulf Coast salt air is not kind to rubber. A cracked pump lid o-ring is a $5 part that can cause a $500 headache if it starts sucking air into your system.

Now, the Chemistry

Here's where people usually want to jump straight to dumping chlorine in the pool and calling it a day. We get it. But pool chemistry is like baking — the order matters, and you can't just eyeball it and hope for the best.

Start by testing your water. Not with a strip you've had in the garage since 2019. Get a fresh test kit or take a sample to your local pool supply store. You're looking at a few key numbers: free chlorine, pH, total alkalinity, cyanuric acid (stabilizer), and calcium hardness.

Here's the thing about Pensacola water: it tends to run a little hard, and our warm temperatures mean chlorine burns off fast. If your CYA (stabilizer) is low, you're basically throwing chlorine money into the sun. Literally.

Balance your alkalinity first (80–120 ppm is the sweet spot), then pH (7.4–7.6), then worry about chlorine. This order matters because alkalinity acts as a buffer for pH. Get it backwards, and you'll be chasing your numbers all afternoon.

If the pool's green (no shame if it is!), you're looking at a shock treatment. That means hitting the water with a heavy dose of chlorine to kill off algae and bacteria that moved in while nobody was watching. Run the pump 24 hours straight after shocking and brush the walls and floor to break up anything clinging to the surface. You might need to vacuum the waste if there's a lot of settled debris.

One more thing: if you haven't drained and refilled in a few years, your total dissolved solids (TDS) might be high. That makes everything harder to balance. Sometimes the best move is a partial drain and refill with fresh water. It's not exciting, but it works.

Don't Forget the Stuff Around the Pool

Your pool equipment isn't the only thing that needs attention. Check your pool light, turn it on at night and make sure it's working and the fixture isn't taking on water. Look at ladders, handrails, and diving boards for loose bolts or corrosion. If you've got an automatic pool cleaner, inspect the hoses, wheels, and brushes before you toss it in.

And if you've got a pool heater you haven't run since last fall, fire it up now. Critters love to nest in heater cabinets over the winter. (We've found everything from wasps to lizards to one very confused frog.) Better to discover a problem in February than during spring break when the grandkids are visiting and everyone expects the hot tub to work.

The Short Version

If you want the quick-and-dirty checklist, here it is: skim and clean out debris, check your water level, inspect and start up your equipment, deep clean your filter, test and balance your water chemistry in the right order, shock if needed, and check everything around the pool that isn't the pool itself.

Or, and we're a little biased here, you can let us handle it. That's exactly what our Shipshape service is built for. We come out, do the full inspection, get your chemistry dialed in, clean everything up, and hand it back to you swim-ready. It's the starting point for all our regular service customers, and it's available as a one-time service too.

Either way, don't wait until Memorial Day weekend. The earlier you get ahead of it, the easier the rest of the season goes. And trust us, in Pensacola, pool season starts earlier than you think.

Got questions? Give us a call.

Local Livin' Pool & Co. is a Pensacola-based pool service company serving Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, and Pensacola Beach. We show up when we say we will, do the work right, and keep your pool ready for whatever the Gulf Coast throws at it. Learn more at locallivin850.com.