What Happens at a Pool Opening, Step by Step

Most Ontario pool owners remember the first warm week of the season for the wrong reason: the cover is still on, the water under it is a mystery, and the pump has been asleep for months. A pool opening is the visit that turns all of that into a pool you can swim in. If you've never watched one, or you've always wondered what exactly you're paying for, this is the full sequence as Ace Pools runs it.

Step one: the cover comes off, and the leaves go first

Before anything else, the crew scoops out the leaves. A winter cover collects whatever the wind and the maple trees send its way, and if you pull the cover off without dealing with that debris, it all lands in the water. So the leaves come out first, and the cover is dealt with second.

Next the winter cover gets drained. Meltwater and rain pool on top of it, and that water is heavier and dirtier than most people expect. Once it's drained, the cover is cleaned, folded and moved out of the way along with the water bags that were holding it down. A cover that's folded while it's still dirty tends to go back into the shed dirty, and it'll be a worse cover next fall. Cleaning it now is part of looking after the whole system, not just this one visit.

Step two: the scum line and the plugs

Every pool gets a ring at the waterline over the season: oils, pollen and fine dirt that stick to the wall. The crew scrubs that scum line by hand so it doesn't get stirred into the fresh water and cloud it. At the same time, the winterizing plugs come out of the fittings. Those plugs are what kept water out of the lines through the freeze, and they have to be removed before water can move again.

Step three: the accessories go back in

The ladder, the diving board and your other accessories go back in. If they were stored somewhere sensible, this takes a few minutes. If they're buried behind the lawn furniture or in three different corners of the garage, it takes longer, which is why one of the three things we ask of you is to keep them easy to find.

Step four: filling and chemistry

The pool gets filled and the chemicals go in. Water chemistry after a winter is a reset, not a tweak. The goal is water that's balanced so it's comfortable to swim in, doesn't stress the liner or equipment, and lets the sanitizer do its job. We're not going to publish numbers here, because the right amounts depend on your pool's size, surface and starting water, and that's exactly the sort of thing that should be measured on site, not guessed from an article.

Step five: equipment goes back together and gets started

The equipment is reassembled, then the pool is started and the equipment is inspected. This is the moment where a problem that has been sitting quietly all winter shows itself: a pump that won't prime, a fitting that weeps, a heater that doesn't fire. Better to find that during the opening visit, with the crew standing there, than three weeks later on a hot Saturday.

Dave Hamilton, one of our customers, put it this way after his opening: “Sean and Mike were amazing: efficient, professional, and super thorough.” He mentioned they did it in the rain, too. Thorough is the whole point of the visit.

What the crew needs from you

Three things, and they're all small:

• The backyard needs to be accessible. If there's a locked gate, a dog, or a stack of patio furniture across the path, the crew loses time before they've touched the pool.
• Your accessories should be easy to find. Ladder, diving board, rails, anything that goes in or on the pool.
• The water needs to be on, so the pool can be filled and the equipment can be tested properly.

You don't need to be home. If the three things above are taken care of, the visit runs fine without you standing by.

What it costs, and how to save

A pool opening with Ace Pools is $429. If you book the opening and the closing together as a package, you save $50. That's worth knowing in spring, because the closing is the visit people forget to plan for until the leaves are already falling. You can read the full checklist on our opening page, and the matching fall visit is on the closing page.

Why not do it yourself?

Some owners do, and plenty of them do it well. The trade-off is time and risk. Draining and folding a wet cover, rebuilding the equipment line, and balancing a fresh fill is a long afternoon, and one skipped step, like a plug left in a fitting, can mean a repair call later. If you'd rather hand it over, that's what the visit is for.

If you're not sure whether your pool is ready for a regular opening, or something looked off when you closed it last fall, call the store at 647-998-7665 and tell us what you saw. We'd rather hear about it before the crew arrives than after.