The step list is on our pool opening service page, itemised, so this post does something more useful: it separates the parts of an opening that are genuinely difficult from the parts that are not.
Because some of it is straightforward, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
Three Parts That Are Not Hard
Said first, so the rest of the post is credible.
Taking the cover off. It is awkward and it is a two-person job on a large cover, but it is not technical.
Refitting baskets and putting drain plugs back. Fiddly, not difficult — provided you know where all of them are, which is the actual catch.
Reassembling the filter. Bolting a filter back together is mechanical work.
If those were the whole job, an opening would be a Saturday morning.
Four Parts That Are
1. The purge, and why getting it wrong costs a pump
This is the one that matters most, and it is the least visible.
A pool that has been closed has air throughout the system — in the pump pot, in the lines, in the filter. Starting it up is not switching the pump on. It is filling the pot, closing it up, and letting the system push the air out through the filter's air relief in the right order.
A pump asked to lift water with a pot full of air runs dry. And running dry is what scores the shaft seal — the one component keeping pool water out of the motor. A scored seal weeps, the water it lets past runs down the shaft into the motor bearing, the grease is displaced, the metal corrodes, and some months later you are buying a motor.
The failure does not happen at the opening. It happens in July, and by then nobody connects the two.
That is the honest case for someone doing it who has done it a thousand times — not that the pool will be greener, but that the pump will still be alive in August.
2. Knowing every plug and fitting on your particular pool
A closing removes and plugs things. An opening puts them back. The problem is that the list is specific to your pool: how many returns, whether there is a main drain, where the low points are, what came off the pad in October.
A missed plug is a leak. A missed fitting is a system that will not prime. Neither is complicated once you know; both are guesswork if you do not.
And if we closed the pool, we already have the list.
3. Chemistry from a measurement rather than a colour
Bringing water back after five months is not shocking it and hoping.
We titrate a full panel rather than reading a strip — a drop-based test resolves an actual number, a strip gives you a colour and an impression. On water that has been standing since October, the difference decides whether you are balancing a pool or chasing it for a fortnight.
And water that came through the winter well needs materially less than water that did not — one of the quieter arguments for a good closing.
4. Noticing what is wrong while it is still small
An opening is the one visit of the year where every piece of equipment is looked at with fresh eyes.
What we find, in rough order of frequency: freeze damage from water left in something over the winter, a weeping pump seal that was already weeping in September, a filter that will not come back to its clean pressure, a heater that was slow last autumn, a cover strap that has stretched, an anchor that will not turn.
All of those are cheaper found now. You get told before anything is done — a $150 service call applies where something needs diagnosing rather than opening, with parts and further labour quoted first. See pool equipment repair.
What An Opening Does Not Include
Being clear, because "professional opening" gets used to mean everything.
It is not a clean. We do not vacuum, brush or skim pools — not as part of an opening and not as a weekly service. Our work is water chemistry, baskets, filtration and equipment. Most of our service customers run a robotic cleaner for the surfaces.
It is not a repair. If the opening finds a cracked pump housing or a torn cover strap, that is a part and a quote rather than part of the visit.
It is not leak detection. If the evidence points at a buried line, that is a specialist service and not one of ours.
It is not chemicals. Openings start from $495 plus chemicals, and the chemical quantity depends on your pool's volume and the state of the water when we arrive. What moves the number is on the cost guide.
And it does not include the water. Getting the level up before we arrive is your job — the most common reason an opening cannot be finished on the day. That, and the rest of the homeowner's side, is on the opening checklist.
If You Are Deciding Whether To Do It Yourself
A fair way to think about it: the cover, the baskets and the filter are yours if you want them. The purge, the plug list and the chemistry are where an opening is either done properly or quietly stores up a bill.
And if you have just bought the house, an opening is not the visit that tells you what you have — a pool inspection is.
Either way, the pool that opens easily is the one that was looked after last season. A chemical and equipment check is from $72 per visit plus chemicals, with a written sheet each time.
See pool openings and closings for both seasonal visits.
