Cold water doesn’t just chill your pool—it changes how your salt system works. We break down what really happens when temperatures drop, why most cells throttle or shut off around 50 to 60 degrees, and how to keep water clear without burning through gear or cash. If you’ve ever wondered whether to pull the cell, which sanitizer to lean on, or how to set yourself up for an easy spring, this walkthrough gives you a step-by-step plan.

We start with freeze protection and the simple move that prevents expensive damage: remove the cell and install a dummy cell when hard freezes or power outages are possible. From there, we map out a winter sanitizing strategy built around trichlor tablets in a floater—not the skimmer—to deliver slow, steady chlorine while topping up cyanuric acid. You’ll hear practical tablet dosing for 15,000 to 20,000 gallon pools, why cold water slows dissolution, and how a modest tablet plan can place your CYA near the 70 to 80 ppm sweet spot for salt systems once the sun returns.

When storms zero out your chlorine, we explain why liquid chlorine is the best fast-acting boost for salt pools in winter. Its byproduct is sodium, so you avoid adding calcium that can scale up your cell plates. 

• freeze risk to salt cells and dummy cell use
• why cold water reduces electrolysis and output
• heated pool exception to winter shutdown
• trichlor tablets as winter sanitizer backbone
• avoid skimmer placement and use a floater
• tablet dosing by pool size in cold water
• winter CYA top-up strategy to target 80 ppm
• liquid chlorine boosts without calcium byproduct
• verify salinity with a digital meter in spring
• switch off tablets and reactivate the generator

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