Most freeze damage is discovered at the opening, and that timing is the reason this post exists.
A cracked pump volute or a split heat exchanger does not announce itself in a drained system. It shows up when the pool is full and the system is pressurised — which is to say, after you have paid to fill the pool and after a technician has spent the morning putting it back together.
So the same crack costs one of two things: a part, or a part plus a refill plus a second visit.
What A Pre-Opening Inspection Is Looking For
It is a dry visit, before the water goes in, and it is looking at four things.
Freeze damage, in the places it actually happens
Water left in something over the winter expands as it freezes and cracks the housing around it. That destroys the component rather than injuring it — and it is not a warranty matter, because it follows from how the pool was closed.
Where it shows: the pump volute, the strainer pot and its lid flange, the threaded boss where a drain plug sits, the heat exchanger, and — the one you cannot see — an underground return line.
Those are inspectable dry, and a hairline in a pump housing is a great deal easier to find with the light on it than under pressure with water coming out. The mechanism is on freeze damage and the close.
What was already tired in September
Winter does not improve anything. A weeping pump seal, a filter that never came back to its clean pressure, a heater that was slow last autumn, a controller that lost its schedule.
All of those were problems in October and are still problems in March, and every one of them is cheaper to deal with before the pool is in use.
The cover, while it is off and spread out
The only time in the year the whole cover is visible — dry, in daylight, flat. Straps, springs, grommets, seams, and whether the anchors still turn freely.
All repairable, and all cheaper to find now than in October with a closing already booked.
Whether anything moved
Ohio ground moves. A deck section that has heaved, coping that has lifted, a liner that has wrinkled or pulled at its bead. None of it is urgent in March and all of it is worth knowing about — a liner in particular, because it is one of the few pool costs you can genuinely see coming. See pool liners.
When It Is Worth It, And When It Is Not
Being straight about this, because not every pool needs one.
Worth it if: the pool was closed by someone else or by nobody, you have just bought the house, something looked wrong last autumn, or the pool has been sitting unopened for a season or more.
Probably not worth it if: we closed the pool properly in October, nothing looked wrong then, and the opening is already booked. In that case the opening visit does the looking anyway, and paying separately for both is paying twice.
We will tell you which of those you are in if you ask, and the honest answer is often the second one.
What It Costs
Pool inspections are quoted rather than priced from a list, because what an inspection covers depends on what is there — one pump and a filter is a different visit from a pad with a heater, a salt cell, automation and a booster pump.
Where the question is narrower than a full inspection, a $150 service call covers up to the first hour of diagnosis on site, with parts and any further labour quoted before we do them. That is often the right shape when you have one specific worry rather than a general one. See pool equipment repair.
Openings themselves start from $495 plus chemicals. See pool opening service and, for the part that is yours, the opening checklist.
Two Things An Inspection Will Not Do
It will not find a leak in a buried line. We do not offer leak detection — that is a specialist service and not one of ours. If the evidence points underground, we will say so at the start rather than after the visit.
And it will not make the pool ready. An inspection tells you what you are dealing with; an opening is a separate visit that puts the pool back into service.
The Version That Costs Least Of All
A pool that was looked after through the season does not need a pre-opening inspection, because the problems were caught while they were small.
A weeping pump seal noted on a service sheet in September is a parts job. The same seal ignored takes the motor with it, and you find that out in July. A chemical and equipment check is from $72 per visit plus chemicals, with a written sheet every visit — and the sheet is the point as much as the visit.
See pool inspections for the full service.
