What's Included in the Winterization That Comes With Your Safety Cover

"Winterizing the pool" can mean a lot of things depending on who you hire. Some folks throw a tarp over the water and call it done. That is not a winterization — that is a recipe for a cracked pump in January. A real Oklahoma winterization gets every drop of water out of anything that can freeze, protects the water you leave behind, and seals the pool up tight for winter. Every safety cover we install includes it. Here is exactly what that covers.

What a professional inground winterization includes

Before the cover goes on, we work through the same checklist every time. Nothing gets skipped because skipping a step is how pipes crack.

• Blow out the plumbing lines — we force the water out of every line so nothing is sitting in a pipe waiting to freeze and split.
• Plug the returns and skimmers — once the lines are clear, we seal them off so water can't work its way back in.
• Drain the equipment — pump, filter, and heater all get drained down so nothing on the pad freezes and cracks.
• Install winter plugs and gizmos — these go in the skimmers and lines to give freezing water somewhere to expand instead of cracking the wall.
• Add winter chemicals — dosed so the water stays protected through the off-season.
• Install the safety cover — your custom-measured safety cover goes on and gets anchored and tensioned so the pool stays sealed and clean all winter.

We look over the equipment while we're there

Here is the part most companies don't do. While we're at your pad draining everything down, we're already looking at your gear — so we look at all of it, for free. We check the pump, the filter, the heater, and the plumbing, and we tell you straight what we find.

If your pump is on its last legs or a fitting is weeping, you want to know in the fall — not when you open in the spring and find out it died over winter. We don't sell equipment, so there's no upsell here. We just tell you what we see so you can plan ahead.

What is NOT included

Honesty up front saves everybody a headache. The winterization covers a pool that's in normal end-of-season shape. A few things fall outside that and get quoted separately so you know the number before we start:

• Green-pool cleanup — if the water has gone green or swampy, it needs to be cleared up before it can be closed properly. That's extra work and gets its own quote.
• Repairs — if the inspection turns up something that needs fixing, we'll quote the repair separately. You decide whether to do it now or later.
• Water features — waterfalls, sheer descents, deck jets, and bubblers get quoted on site. One sheer descent off the main pump takes minutes; deck jets on separate runs can take most of an hour, and we can't tell which from a phone call.
• Heavy debris removal — a normal amount of leaves is part of the job. A pool buried in branches and muck after a storm is not, and we'll quote that too.

What it costs

Nothing extra.Professional winterization is included with every safety cover installation. That covers the full checklist above and the winter plugs, gizmos and line antifreeze — we supply those, they are not an add-on. We don't sell standalone pool closings; the cover is how the pool gets protected, and the winterization comes with it. The only add-ons are the situations listed above, and you'll always get the number before we touch anything.

Get it done before the first hard freeze

Timing is everything in Oklahoma. Water expands when it freezes, and water left in your lines and equipment can crack them overnight — turning a routine winterization into a several-thousand-dollar repair. The first hard freeze usually hits in early-to-mid November, but it can sneak in early, so the safe move is to be closed by late October. Don't wait for the freeze warning, because that's when everyone calls at once. For more on the deadline, read our piece on closing your pool before the Oklahoma freeze.

Get on the install schedule

Want it done right and done early? See our inground safety covers for the full rundown, then call Kenny at (405) 384-9660 to get measured before the first freeze hits.