Swimming Pool Winterizing Ball for Pool - Winter Pill- Apt for Inground and Aboveground Pools

Reviews seem to be one or the other of two extremes. “My pool was green when I took the cover off.” or “My pool was crystal clear when I took the cover off.” I’m with the “It works.” crowd.I closed my above ground pool in September even though it was still warm enough to swim because I was going out of town for six weeks and I didn’t want to have to deal with it in the cold at the end of October. I followed the instructions, tossed the pill into my pool, 15X4, and put the cover on. I checked it now and then and the water continued to be clear month after month.March 12, about six months after closing the pool, we had a heck of a storm come through. Plenty of rain, but it was the wind that made the news. They said we hadn’t had winds like this for a decade. My cover came off and blew into the pool. This is one of those covers that looks more like a big round tarp with a steel cable that tightens around the side of the pool. (Thank goodness it went in the pool or it would likely have ended up in the next county.) As expected, a LOT of dirt and debris ended up in my pool.March 14 the winds had subsided and I decided I needed to get to work on the pool before all that dirt and debris becomes a permanent part of it. I took the cover out of the water and stared in dismay at all the debris in the pool. That was when I noticed it. If not for the dirt I have no doubt that the water would have been 100% clear. So that’s early September to mid March. Six months. That’s what is claimed by the product and it seems to be what I got. Except for about a three square foot section on one wall of the pool. There I saw a patch of green growth. To be fair, this is the side of the pool that gets the most sun and it has been almost exactly six months since I put the Pool Pill in the water.So, the Pool Pill advertises that it last six months. In my case, it appears that is the far limit. It’s March and I still have a lot of work cleaning out all that dirt, but the Pill does seem to have done it’s job. If I hadn’t had to close my pool early then I probably could have gone until April, but I suspect I still would have seen the beginnings of algae growth.This is the first time I’ve tried the pill and I think it did it’s job well. I didn’t quite get the full six months out of it unscathed, but I think it did a splendid job. No chemicals, except for the pill, and no running the pool filter all this time. In contrast, in the summer I run my filter 24/7 and am always vacuuming and adding chemicals yet I can still get algae blooms and I resort to shocking the water. If I wasn’t doing all this stuff all summer, what would my pool be like? Yet, the Pool Pill kept my water clear for six months all by itself with no help and no intervention from me.Next year I’ll buy two pills so I don’t have to worry as the pool closure nears six months. I’ll toss one in when I close it and toss another in four months later. I intend to close the pool in October this year, but prefer not to open it until end of April or early May. Pushing the limits of a single Pill so I’ll go with the two pill thing.If not for the wind storm I wouldn’t have all this work cleaning out my pool. Normally, to start up my pool, I just vacuum any dirt that made it’s way into the water, drop in a couple of chlorine tabs, a bag of shock and about thirty ounces of Dawn dish soap to kill any tiny wildlife that might take up residence in my pool. (The soap sticks to them and suffocates them.) Another benefit of Dawn is that it breaks the surface tension of the water so flying things like wasps can’t land on the waters surface so they don’t hang around the pool. No coming up from under water to feel a wasp sinking its stinger into your neck. I use Dawn all summer.All I know is that after using the Pool Pill for six months and doing nothing else I’m not having to scrub a pool full of algae. Having that one small patch of green algae simply tells me that six months is the high limit as far as the Pill is concerned. As far as I’m concerned, the Pool Pill worked.Just a thought: I have a couple of small waterfalls in my backyard. They can tend to grow algae pretty fast and clog things up like cholesterol in a coronary artery. I have no fish so I just add a piece of chlorine tablet to them to kill the algae. I only do it a few times in the winter but pretty much weekly in the summer. I wonder what would happen if I tossed Pool Pills into the wells. Yeah, we’re going to find out.

I use this in an 18k gallon pool- it’s a little overkill since it’s for “up to 30k”, but I read many review of people who use it in smaller pools. It works. Clear water every spring.However- it is hot and miss on the condition of delivery: sometimes leaking a little, sometimes open, this year it was opened and missing the pin to pierce it open and the instructions. It wasn’t leaking though, so that’s good.Great product, just needs a little packaging quality control

This will be the 3rd year using here in New England. 18’ x 52” Round above ground.Easy, affordable, and effective.Works every time.Call me crazy, but every spring opener…Pool is absolutely crystal clear sometimes I wonder perhaps clearer than when I closed it. LolI definitely recommend

We purchased this for our pool last year to try it. I was very Leary about the claims of it keeping our pool clean throughout the winter. When we removed the cover to open the pool, the water was clear. No algae. I ordered another one for this winter. Definitely worth the money

I order this every fall to close our pool and love it. BUT..... This time it came without the packaging and was missing the little plug that pokes the hole in it. Not sure what is going on this time but was really disappointed with the packaging and missing piece.