Weekly Pool Closing

Started by BenA2 • 17 replies • 643 views

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BenA2 (Texas)
Posts: 1,273

Posted:

Do other HOAs close their pool weekly for maintenance? We've had the same pool company for years. They are now recommending that we close the pool one day every week to do maintenance. They claim all the other HOAs in the area close one day every week.

The reasoning is that the pool needs to be closed after adding chemicals, which makes sense, but this was never an issue before with this company or the last. What do you guys do?

Our pool is open year round.

MarkM19 (Texas)
Posts: 1,459

Posted:

Ben,
It is funny that you bring up this point. Our Pool has been serviced by the same company for more than 3 years and we are very happy with the services they provide. Late this past Summer they requested that we do the same thing Close on Mondays. When I heard this and they basically had the same message that you stated. In the past they would service us early in the morning between 6 and 7am. They recently changed the tech and he comes in mid morning. They said that this causes problems when we have people in and around the Pool area. I pushed back and said that they have provided early morning cleaning in the past and we now expect it in the future. We ended up meeting in the middle and open the pool after 11am on Mondays during Pool Season. We close from We close from Mid October to Spring Break every year. We are located in the middle of the State and they weather does not entice anyone to swim during those months.

The Vendor works for the HOA and if they are not able to provide the service you need tell them you will have to look for another. I am assuming your members would be jumping up and down about paying dues and not getting access to the Pool every day of the week.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

I am very surprised you don't close the pool for maintenance more often. In normal conditions if you use chemicals you have to wait a certain period of time for them to work or not be a danger. For us if we had to "shock" the pool after an "accident" it had to be closed for 24 hours. So how are you keeping a pool open while adding and mixing chemicals necessary for it to be safe?

Former HOA President

MarkM19 (Texas)
Posts: 1,459

Posted:

Melissa,
I believe that All pools must close during a Fecal Contamination issue while the pool gets treated and shocked. We actually have a large pool and we had 4 days we shut down for that type of event. I do not want to speak for Ben but I thought he was talking about Scheduled Pool closures one day a week.

Our board took a lot of Crap (LOL) for closing our pool when these events happened last year. We have 1450 homeowner families and I guess they expect us to police bowel movements prior to entering our pool. In stead of getting upset with the owners they choose to blame the board.

KellyM3 (North Carolina)
Posts: 2,239

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BenA2 on 02/11/2021 3:04 PM
Do other HOAs close their pool weekly for maintenance? We've had the same pool company for years. They are now recommending that we close the pool one day every week to do maintenance. They claim all the other HOAs in the area close one day every week.

The reasoning is that the pool needs to be closed after adding chemicals, which makes sense, but this was never an issue before with this company or the last. What do you guys do?

Our pool is open year round.

I recommend auditing the existing down-time for your pool over a six month period. If your pool is closed for chemicals or closed for random maintenance more than 14% of the days, you can argue in favor of scheduled down-time in order to provide predictability in operations and lessen surprise pool closures.

One day closed = 14% of your week. That's a lot of downtime.

DaveP8 (Oklahoma)
Posts: 47

Posted:

Our pool season is only from Memorial Day to Labor Day but still closes every Monday, unless that Monday is a holiday, then it's Tuesday.

Not to hijack this thread but how many HOAs have lifeguards at their pool?

AugustinD
Posts: 5,144

Posted:

From BenA2's post and MarkM19's post, I wonder if the entity that licenses/certifies pool maintenance companies may have, at a minimum, put out guidance recommending that the companies tell their clients to close their pools for a day so that _____ (relating to chemicals?). Or maybe the companies' insurers have had incidents, and the insurers have added tihs requirement. Liability?

MarkM19 (Texas)
Posts: 1,459

Posted:

Augustine,
Your comment above was what I had considered as well. The problem is our Pool gets serviced 3 times a week so if that was the case why would they only want to close it 1 day a week. Some may suggest for deep cleaning but they really did not make the case very clear yet. Once we get back to opening for the Spring we will have them explain their case and the board will have to decide how we handle it.

DaveP,
After being on boards for 11 years and 2 sperate HOAs in 2 States I have always been told that Lifeguard if not a good thing to call any attendant working at your Pools. Owners swim at their own risk. Lifeguards are on duty to save life's. We have always call them Pool attendants and they take care of who enters the pool and monitors things. During the last season we had a registration system we used that would only allow 10 families and then 20 families at a time towards the end of the season.

DaveP8 (Oklahoma)
Posts: 47

Posted:

MarkM:

We have certified lifeguards, not pool attendants. The largest portion of the expense for operating the pool is for lifeguards.

JaniceM7 (Maryland)
Posts: 16

Posted:

We have lifeguards at our three pools and we had a board member bring up an interesting point. Lifeguards do not need to be paid minimum wage. They are classified as seasonal workers but since they do lifesaving work, we have it in our contract what the pool service is allowed to pay them minimally. We think that is only fair with the responsibility they have. Most (75% or so) of our guards are foreigners from Europe.

BenA2 (Texas)
Posts: 1,273

Posted:

Thank you all for the responses. I know we shouldn't have people in the pool immediately after adding chemicals but haven't gotten a straight answer on how long we should wait. In my experience, pools have always been open seven days a week (with obvious exceptions as necessary).

My guess is that closing the pool makes life easier for the pool company which is not our priority. I think I'm going to recommend to the board asking the company to service the pool either early in the morning or late in the day to minimize disruptions.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

You are putting the reason why the pool company is doing this. Have you asked? It may be that proper maintenance requires a 24 shut down period. I know for our pool when it got "shocked" it was atleast 12 to 24 hours. So I suspect your pool company isn't doing this for their own personal convenience. It is more like the proper care of a pool may require a 1 day shut down.

Plus in our HOA a late evening maintenance would never work. That is when most people are at our pool. It's the south and it is not unusual in the summer months to be at the pool till 9 or 10 pm at night.

Former HOA President

ChadH3 (Alabama)
Posts: 50

Posted:

We do not close our pool unless there's an "accident" that occurs in the water, then we'll close it for 24 hours. Thankfully that's only happened twice. During the summer our pool service company services both in the morning and night before and after close and runs a level test mid-day as well. They'll only shock at night. Our pool hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and our service provider has not complained about working around those hours.

BenA2 (Texas)
Posts: 1,273

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MelissaP1 on 02/13/2021 9:06 AM
You are putting the reason why the pool company is doing this. Have you asked? It may be that proper maintenance requires a 24 shut down period. I know for our pool when it got "shocked" it was atleast 12 to 24 hours. So I suspect your pool company isn't doing this for their own personal convenience. It is more like the proper care of a pool may require a 1 day shut down.

Plus in our HOA a late evening maintenance would never work. That is when most people are at our pool. It's the south and it is not unusual in the summer months to be at the pool till 9 or 10 pm at night.

If proper maintenance required a 1-day shutdown every week, wouldn't every pool be closed for a full day every week? The fact that I had never heard of a pool doing so is why I was skeptical and posed the question here. It seems my skepticism was justified as I haven't found any other HOA that follows our pool service's recommendation.

MarshallT (New York)
Posts: 414

Posted:

Hi Ben,

This isn't an uncommon practice. While it may ruffle some feathers, explain to owners the reasons why the pool will be closed for one day each week. It may also present the HOA with more opportunities to ensure the pool is in a state of good repair.

DB8 (Washington)
Posts: 15

Posted:

We don't have a lifeguard but we have warning signs stating that people swim at their own risk and release the HOA from liability. Such signage is legal in our state.

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