It’s the time of year again! Don’t wait until its 100 degrees outside to prep your pool for summer. Houlihan Lawrence provides you with seven steps to achieve perfect pool preparation.

Clear debris surrounding pool. Clear away plant debris from your pool’s deck or patio. Clip hedges, plants or trees that hang near or over your pool.

Remove and clean pool cover. You never know when you’ll need a cover, so it’s important to give it a good clean the first time you remove it from your pool. For solid pool covers, use a small cover pump or leaf blower to remove rain and snow melt. For mesh pool covers, use a broom or brush to remove winter’s debris.

Remove freeze plugs and reassemble/reinstall equipment. Remove expansion or freeze plugs and put them in a small Ziploc baggie to store with your pool cover. Examine the pump, filter and heater before re-installation—if you observe no cracks or problems, proceed with reassembling any safety rails, diving boards and pool ladders (and spray bolts with a metal lubricant.) Now you can pump it up!

Clean pool walls and bottom. Once it’s filled with water, take a garden hose and bring your pool’s water level to the middle of its waterline tiles. Now you can skim the surface, clean the bottom and walls with a long-handled brush, and run a pool vacuum to decrease the load of your filter. Clean regularly to avoid algae and debris build up.

Power on. Now that you’ve cleaned and inspected your pool, power it on. This will be a tell-tale sign of whether or not you missed any cracks, leaks or split hoses that you may not have seen upon first inspection.

Let the filter run and preform a water chemistry test. Run the filter for at least 12 hours to mix up new and old water. Afterward, use a pool testing kit to check the water’s pH level, alkalinity, calcium hardiness and chlorine content. Add chlorine or shock treatment and let the pool run for another 24 hours. Check the chemistry again before anyone enters the pool.

Enjoy!