When the good ole winter comes into town you will have to hire a professional pool service tech to come and close your above ground pool. 

With these pictures below and the story you are about to hear, you will have a full sense of what is involved.

Step one

The first thing that should be done when getting ready to close the pool is to make sure that you have all the things that you will need.

Things you will need are pool cover, pool cover cable, pool cover cable winch, winter skimmer plate, #8 rubber plug, and some closing chemicals.

Step Two

The next step will be making sure that you have all the tools that you will need to close the pool. You will need the following tools to close an above ground swimming pool: Slotted screwdriver, Philips screwdriver, garden hose, channel locks, twine, and a pair of scissors.

Step Three

You will now want to install the skimmer winder plate on the the front of the skimmer by removing the screw that are on the from of the skimmer plate,  you can easily just match the wholes that are on the skimmer plate with the screws on the skimmer, these are the screws that you will have to remove.

Now that you have installed the winter plate on the skimmer you will have to know plug up the return of  the pool. and to do so you will want to spin out the return fitting by turning it counter clockwise. Once you have removed the fitting you will want to insert your #8 winter plug into the fitting on the pool and then tighten up the wingnut so that the plug will now fall out during the winter.

( Remaining steps under gallery )

Step Five

The next thing you will want to do is to remove all the water from the pool pump and the pool filter. This can be done by removing the drain plugs from the bottom of each. You will want to use your channel locks / screw driver to remove the plugs. Once the plugs are removed, Please allow a few minutes for all the water to drain before moving or storing the pump and filter, that way water will not leak or drip where you decide to store the filter equipment.

Step Six

So now that you have your water intake , pool return and pool filter system ready to go and winterized you will want to inflate your air pillow about three quarters of the way. Once you have inflated the air pillow you will want to tie string or twine to each end of the air pillow and then attach those ends to the side walls of the pool.

Step Seven

Once you have attached your air pillow to the side walls of the pool you will now want to put in your favorite mix of winter pool chemicals that fits you and your pool best and off course what brands you like to use as well.

Step Eight

Now installing the pool cover usually takes two people to do, and it also can be done with one person but having that second person makes a huge difference, so that’s why most professionals have crews of at least to people.

To install the pool cover make sure you and your helper keep the cover taught and walk the pool cover across the pool covering the whole entire pool and making sure that the areas that need to be tucked around things get tucked in and also try to make the overlapping or extra pool cover is even around the entire pool.

Step Nine ( YAY, Last Step )

After you have your pool cover laying on top of the pool water, over the air pillow and tucked in your deck if you have one, you will now want to install your cable and tighten your winch.

Take the cable and insert it into every eyelet that the cover has and when you go around the whole pool you should wind up with two ends that meet and this is where the winch comes into play.

Take the two ends of the cable and insert them into the two ends of the cable winch and turn the winch handle or gear clockwise and you will see the cable start to tighten up. Repeat this until the cable is super tight and will be string enough to hold on the cover throughout the winter.

There of course is a few more things that can be done, like making sure you wash your cover before installing it if its a used cover, and you also might want to get yourself a cover pump to keep control of the water on top of your pool cover if you live in a rainy are or an area that gets a lot of snow.

One Last Tip

If you notice the pictures above you will see that right after the cover was installed there was a bit of water on it and this was not us being sloppy but we intentionally added some water to the cover because this pool was in a yard with lots of wind, and having that little bit of water on the cover gives you that extra protection and prevents the cover from being blown off as well.