Pool service plans: what is worth paying for

Pool service in Ohio usually comes in a few shapes, and companies mix them into packages:

• Opening only: removing the cover, restarting the equipment, balancing the water.
• Closing only: balancing, blowing out lines, draining equipment, covering the pool.
• Opening and closing together: the most common seasonal package.
• Weekly full service: a technician visits on a schedule to test and balance, skim, brush, vacuum, empty baskets and check the equipment.
• Chemical only: someone tests and adds chemicals, and you do the cleaning.
• On-call repairs and inspections: paid by the visit when something breaks or before you buy a home with a pool.

Which ones are worth it depends on how much the mistake would cost if you got the job wrong, and how much your time is worth to you in July.

Because the mistakes are expensive and invisible until spring. In Northeast Ohio, the National Weather Service puts the average first fall freeze at October 19 for Akron-Canton and October 14 for Youngstown, and winters bring weeks of hard freezes after that. Water left in a return line under the deck, in a pump housing or in a heater's heat exchanger freezes and cracks it. You will not know until you open the pool in May and find a leak.

Pentair's winterizing guide describes the pro's job as blowing out the equipment lines so no water is left, and plugging the skimmer to protect the pipes. Doing that well takes the right blower, knowing which valves to set, and patience to clear every return, drain, spa jet and cleaner line. Fiberglass pools also need the water left at the right level, not drained. A closing done by someone who does dozens a year is cheap insurance against a repair under the deck.

If you want to learn it yourself, have it done professionally the first year and watch.

In the first year or two, usually yes. After that, it depends on your comfort with the equipment.

An opening is not hard, but there are traps. Pentair notes that cracks in frozen lines do not leak until they thaw, and its opening advice is to have a pool professional prep the equipment, removing winter plugs and replacing drain plugs, before anything is run. Its spring checklist recommends a pre-season check by a local pool service. A technician will spot a hairline crack in a fitting, a failing pump seal or a filter that needs its grids cleaned. If your pool was closed by someone else, a professional opening also tells you whether the closing was done right.

After you have watched a couple of openings, many owners do their own. The value of the pro opening shifts to the equipment inspection, which some companies sell on its own.

Yes, for both ends of the season. Because nearly every pool in Northeast Ohio opens in the same few weeks of May and closes between mid-September and the end of October, service companies fill their calendars fast. If you want an opening in time for Memorial Day, book in March or April. For closings, book by late summer and pick a date well ahead of the first hard freeze. A closing pushed into November by a full schedule is a risk to your equipment, and it is the one date you should not leave to chance.

Weekly service makes sense if one of these is true:

• You travel in summer, or you have a second home and are away for stretches.
• Your schedule does not leave a free hour each week in the season.
• You have a lot of equipment, such as a heater, a spa, automation or a salt system, and want someone checking it regularly.
• Your yard has heavy tree cover, so leaves and pollen are a constant chore.
• You would rather spend your summer time in the pool.

It makes less sense if you enjoy the routine, are home most weeks and have a pool that is easy to care for. A fiberglass pool with a variable-speed pump and a robotic cleaner is about as low maintenance as a pool gets. The CDC's recommendation to test chlorine and pH at least twice a day when the pool is in use also shows a limit of weekly service. A once-a-week visit cannot do that for you. Even with a service, someone at home should be dipping a test strip on heavy-use days.

• Daily skimming and a quick chlorine and pH test.
• Emptying skimmer and pump baskets.
• Brushing and running a robotic cleaner.
• Topping up the water.
• Backwashing a DE filter when the gauge says so. Pentair's guidance for the FNS Plus is about 10 psi above the clean starting pressure.
• Adding chemicals to keep the numbers in range.

These are the tasks a weekly service charges for, and they are learnable in a few weeks. The tasks worth leaving to a professional are the ones that involve pressurized equipment, electrical parts, gas heaters, plumbing repairs and winterizing.

Get it in writing, even for a seasonal package. The Ohio Attorney General's home improvement tips apply here as well: have the work, the timeframe, the total cost and the payment terms written down and signed. Look for:

• Visit frequency and day: weekly, every other week, or on call.
• What each visit includes: test and balance, skim, brush, vacuum, baskets, filter check, equipment look-over.
• Chemicals: included in the price, or billed as used? If billed, at what rate?
• Filter cleaning: is a full grid or cartridge cleaning included, and how often?
• Parts and repairs: quoted and approved before the work, or done and billed?
• Storms and green water: is an extra visit after a storm or an algae cleanup included, or extra?
• Reporting: will you get the test readings after each visit?
• Opening and closing dates: especially important in fall, when every service company is booked.
• Cancellation: how to end the agreement and what you owe if you do.

If a salesperson signs you up at your home, Ohio's Home Solicitation Sales Act gives you until midnight of the third business day after signing to cancel, and the contract must say so.

• No test results left after visits.
• Water that keeps going cloudy or green between visits.
• Filter pressure that keeps climbing without anyone cleaning the filter.
• Chemical charges that rise every month without explanation.
• Repairs done without a quote first.
• A closing booked so late that the first hard freeze arrives before it.

A good service tech explains what they did and why, and tells you about problems they see coming, like a pump bearing getting noisy or a crack at the coping.

Pay for an inspection by someone who works on pools. A general home inspector may note that a pool exists and not much more. A pool technician will run the equipment, look at the filter and pump, check the heater, test the lights and their GFCI protection, look at the drain covers and check the barrier fence and gates against what the town requires. If the sale happens in winter with the pool closed, ask for a holdback or a spring inspection clause, because a lot can hide under a winter cover. We do repairs and inspections, and we can tell you what we would budget for in the first couple of seasons.

It can help. A builder knows how the plumbing was laid out, where every line runs and what equipment went in, which makes closings and repairs faster. It also keeps one company accountable for how the pool performs. That is not a reason to rule out an independent service company, especially one with a good local track record, but it is worth asking your builder whether they offer service.

We do. Our pool service covers openings, weekly cleaning, maintenance with equipment checks, water testing and chemical balancing, repairs and inspections, and closings and winterizing. Many of our customers have us do the openings and closings and handle weekly care themselves. Others want the full season. Both are fine.

For a typical Northeast Ohio family with a newer pool:

1. Pay for the closing every year, or until you are confident you can do it perfectly.
2. Pay for the opening in the first year or two, and consider an equipment inspection after that.
3. Pay for weekly service if your summers are busy or you travel. Otherwise, learn the routine.
4. Pay for repairs to pressurized, electrical and gas equipment rather than improvising.

Skip the add-ons that do not match your pool. If you have no heater, you do not need a heater check. If you run a robotic cleaner, you may not need vacuuming in a weekly plan. Match the plan to the pool you actually own.