Winterize Intex 15 Ft Dia Round Metal Frame Pool - Video

Here I describe how to winterize an Intex 15 ft metal frame above ground pool. Intex pool instruction manuals advise that these pools be taken down in cold freezing winters because they can't handle freezing temperatures.

I have developed a technique to leave them alone through the winter. There are two main advantages to doing this:
1) I have discovered that the less you handle a pool liner year after year the longer it will last. As pool liner's age they become brittle and get cracks and leaks easily. So when you take a pool liner down fold it up and then unfold it in the spring and put it back up, ... that process creates cracks and leaks in the liner.

Each time I would put my pool liner back in the spring I would have to patch all by the cracks holes. So now I just leave my Index pool installed for the upstate New York winters. I never have taken this pool down.

2) Another advantage to this method is that the carefully smoothed & levelled soil or sand underneath the pool doesn't get disturbed during the winter and then reassembly. You don't have to worry about re-leveling the sand or soil.

This video describes how you remove the hoses and plug the holes for the winter. It requires a pipe dope joint compound and a wet application sealant commonly available at Lowe's, Home Depot and other hardware stores.

One important step I forgot in the video is those black hose nipples on the pool liner may be too cold and inflexible to receive the wooden plug. You may have to use a hair dryer to warm them up so that the wood plug will go in easier.

This video also describes how you put on an Intex pool cover and then use a edge shrink wrap material from Amazon to seal the Intex pool cover from winds.

The pool featured in this video is on its third winter in upstate New York --- Albany New York USA.. It is a 15 ft diameter Intex metal frame pool above ground. The pool was first installed in summer 2020. It has never been disassembled since then. In the past two winters I have winterized it leaving it fully installed filled with water and then prepared for winter following instructions provided in this video.

When warm weather arrives in May, I remove the edge wrap and pool cover, , I pull out the plugs on the smaller hose holes and attach hoses. And I have to cut a new opening for the larger 2-in diameter pump filter water return hose fitting. Then install the plastic hose fitting. It goes really quickly and then I'm ready to swim. No need to reassemble an entire pool. Yay!!! ????????