Seasonal service
Pool opening and closing on the Outer Banks
Jeff Cox and his certified techs open pools in spring with a four-day process, winterize them in the fall, and keep watch over the winter.
Chapter 01
Spring opening: four days, and alum doing the slow work
Four Seasons describes its pool opening as a four-day process. The reason it takes days and not an afternoon is the water. A pool that sat under a cover all winter comes out cloudy, full of particles too fine for the filter to catch, and the step that gives the opening its length is alum flocculation.
Flocculation is worth understanding because it is the whole craft of clearing a green or cloudy pool. Alum is added to the water, and it binds those tiny suspended particles into clumps heavy enough to sink. The clumps settle on the floor and get vacuumed out, so the water clears because the dirt is gone and not because the filter is straining against it. It needs time to work, which is why a proper opening runs for days.
Technician with a clipboard beside a covered spa.
Fall closing and winterization
Closing is the other bookend, and in the trade it is a winterization, not just a cover pulled across the water. The aim is to leave the pool and its equipment in a state that can sit for months with nobody looking at it: water chemistry balanced so it does not stain or scale while it rests, and plumbing and equipment protected from water that freezes, because ice expands and splits pipe, pumps and heaters.
Four Seasons is a Sta-Rite & Hayward Certified Service Center, so the person winterizing the equipment pad is also a person who repairs what is on it. That is a good reason to have one company handle both ends of the season.
Chapter 03
Winter Watch, for the months in between
Winter Watch is home-watch for the pool in the off-season, with photos sent to your email.
It is priced at $800 or $125 a month, as published on their service site. A pool is easy to forget in January, and the value of a photo is that a problem such as a slipped cover or low water can be seen early, by someone who knows what a closed pool should look like.
Jeff Cox runs Four Seasons pool service from Point Harbor, NC. The techs are Certified Pool Operators, and the company is a Sta-Rite & Hayward Certified Service Center. Call (252) 207-6986.
What happens between opening and closing
Once the water is clear in spring, the weekly visit is what keeps it that way. The weekly pool service page covers the water analysis and the report that comes with every visit.
If a heater, pump or spa cover needs attention before the season turns, the spa and equipment repair page lists what Jeff's techs work on, and the service plans show what each kind of pool costs per week.