Opening your pool for the season in six steps

Clean before you fill

Remove and clean the cover before it goes anywhere near the water, then brush and vacuum the shell. Everything that overwinters under a cover is what feeds the first algae bloom.

Then, in order

Top up to the middle of the skimmer, restart and prime the pump, backwash and rinse the filter, balance alkalinity before pH before chlorine, shock the pool, and only then run a full 24 hour filtration cycle before anyone swims.

The step people skip

Alkalinity first. Correct pH into an unbalanced alkalinity and it will drift back within days, which is why so many pools cannot hold a chlorine reading in April.