Don’t Let Your Pool Ruin the Best Part of Your Holiday: The Exact Checklist I Give Every Customer (and the stories behind why each step matters)
I’ve been running Pool Scouts crews in the DFW area for eight years now, and every single December I get the same panicked call at least a dozen times: “We just got home, and the pool is green.” Or “The pump is making a horrible noise.” Or the absolute worst one: silence on the other end of the line when I ask them to go check the equipment pad because a pipe decided to split at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning.
I don’t want that to be you. So here’s the real-world, battle-tested checklist I personally hand out (or text) to every customer before they leave town. It’s what we follow when we watch hundreds of pools every holiday season, and it’s what I do on my own pool before I load the family up to head to my in-laws in Oklahoma.
1. Clean it like you’re never coming back
Empty the skimmer baskets and pump basket twice in one day. Do it once in the morning, go run your errands, come back in the afternoon, and do it again. You will pull out another handful of leaves, I promise. Pecan hulls and live-oak tassels are the silent killers this time of year.
While you’re there, brush the walls and steps hard—especially the shady north side and the bench nobody ever sits on. Algae doesn’t read the calendar. We’ve pulled bright green samples in December from pools that were perfect the week after Thanksgiving.
Vacuum or run the robot all the way to the bottom. That layer of tan dust you keep ignoring? It’s organic, and it will eat every ounce of chlorine you have while you’re gone. I had one customer in Southlake last year who skipped this step and came home to zero chlorine and a pool that looked like split-pea soup. Cost him $380 and two extra service calls to fix.
Backwash the filter or hose off the cartridges. A dirty filter plus freeze cycles equals sky-high pressure and blown spider gaskets. Ask me how I know.
2. Freeze protection is non-negotiable (and most people have it set wrong)
If you have automation—Pentair, Hayward, Jandy, whatever—open the app right now and actually look. I can’t tell you how many times a customer has sworn up and down that freeze protect was on… until we realized the last power blink turned it off.
Set it to trigger at 38 °F, not the factory default of 34 °F. You’d rather the pump run a few extra hours than gamble on a cracked heat exchanger. And make sure it’s running the main circulation pump for at least 20–30 minutes each cycle, not just the booster.
No automation? Go to Home Depot or Amazon and buy a simple outdoor smart plug that reads local weather (they’re $25–$35). Program it to turn the pump on any night the low is 34 °F or below. I’ve got one on my own pool, and it’s saved me twice already.
Extra credit: leave one pool light on during the freeze. The 100–300 watts of heat it puts out keep a surprising circle of water from icing over, and it looks cool from the kitchen window.
3. Chemistry: cheat high on purpose
I want your chlorine at 4.5–5 ppm the day you lock the door, not 2–3. It’s going to burn off or get eaten by organics while you’re gone, and coming home to 1 ppm is way better than 0.2 ppm.
pH at 7.4, maybe even 7.3 if it likes to creep up on you. High pH in cold water is the fastest way to scale up a brand-new salt cell or heater.
Stabilizer (cyanuric acid) below 30? Raise it now. We get those random 70–75 degree days in December, and the sun will still cook unprotected chlorine in 48 hours.
Throw an extra puck in the chlorinator and turn the feed rate up one notch. If you’re gone two weeks, add a second floater with two extra tabs. Yes, you might come home to 7–8 ppm chlorine. That’s fine. You can let it drift down naturally.
4. Water level—check the 10-day forecast like it’s your job
If there’s more than an inch of rain predicted while you’re gone, lower the water 3–4 inches below the middle of the skimmer mouth today. I’ve pumped out more decks the day after Christmas than I care to remember.
If you have an automatic cover and we’re expecting ice, leave the level normal or slightly high so the pump stays primed even if the top inch freezes solid.
5. The little things that save thousands
- Crack the equipment pad doors 2–3 inches so air can move. Closed cabinets trap cold air and freeze valves faster.
- Unplug the booster pump for the pressure-side cleaner—freeze protect usually doesn’t run it, and those little motors hate ice.
- Take a quick cell phone picture of your filter pressure gauge and automation screen while everything is running normally. If you ever have to call me from the ski slopes, I can see exactly what “good” looked like.
- If you have a heater, turn the gas valve to “pilot” or flip the breaker off. One less thing that can malfunction while you’re gone.
Or just let us do it (the option 90% of our customers now choose)
Here’s the honest truth: most people used to do this checklist themselves. Now they just forward me their flight itinerary and say, “Keep it alive until January 3rd.”
We come out once or twice (your choice), do every single thing above, send you a couple of photos of blue water and a text that says “all good,” and you get to drink eggnog without wondering if your pump is currently destroying itself.
Last December we watched 487 pools over the holidays. Exactly zero came home to problems. Several owners told me it was the first vacation in a decade, and they didn’t check the pool camera every single night.
We still have a few holiday slots left, but they disappear faster than tamales on Christmas Eve—especially that dead week between Christmas and New Year’s when half of Plano leaves town.
Call or text us at 469-352-9191, or hit “Request a Quote” on the website and tell us your exact travel dates. I’ll take care of the rest.
Enjoy the family, the food, the zero-responsibility feeling of being somewhere else. Your pool will be happier when you get back than when you left—I guarantee it.
Safe travels, Merry Christmas, and see you and your sparkling water soon.
— Your local Pool Scouts crew