It may be winter in Australia and depending on which state you are in as to what sort of winter you are having. Regardless of if you are using the pool or not in winter you should still be looking after it. Why you ask? Or that is just what the pool shops tell us to make more money. The bottom line is if we dont look after our pool all year round damage will be caused to either the pool equipment and the pool itself. Let’s look into that a bit closer. In summer your usage is high as a hot summer means more time cooling off in our little spot of paradise. Also if your up north we have a rain season during summer which means more dilution of chemicals. Along with heat evaporating water as well, so compare this to winter we are seeing less or no swimming, typically less rain and less water loss. So this means that the pool will require less chemicals to help keep it balanced. A test once a month through the year in general will help to keep all your chemicals in check and means we have less issues. SO lets look at the issues we can see Low salt - salt chlorinator need salt to make chlorine gas. Majority of chlorinators on the Australian market need a minimum of 3,000 ppm to be able to make chlorine gas. If below this level we will see no chlorine gas coming off the salt cell and then also damage can start to happen. To much salt in a pool will also cause damage to your chlorinator. There are a few that have a cut off if salt level is to high and will turn the cell off. Constant high PH level will also cause damage to your salt cell causing corrosion of the central plate in the cell. Once this starts the plate will get thinner until it brakes apart. This will result in a new salt cell purchase. Calcium scale- this happens on concrete pools. This will be shown by white lines going down the wall and or white calcium patches around the pool. This is due to a lack of calcium in the water. Water needs the calcium like we need oxygen and it will go look forward to it. Concrete has calcium in it and the water is bale to draw this out and leaves the white scale. Also can eat away the grout around tiles and resulting tiles of popping off. Lack of calcium will also damage your pool pump, the mech seal that has a job of stopping the salt water getting into the pump will get damaged and fail. This in turn will corrode the motor until it seizes, you will typically hear your pool pump sound loud and will get worse and worse before pump fail. Keeping the pool in check over the winter months will help your pool look great but will make sure your investments of pool equipment last longer. This is a quick glance over this topic but leave your comments to discuss. Happy Pools all