How do you get a pool ready for the season in Marrakech?

There is nothing excessive about the countdown below: each stage depends on the one before.

Week 1 — the assessment. The pool observed as it stands, nothing touched. It determines everything that follows.

Week 2 — the decision. Drain, or keep the water. This is the turning point, covered further down.

Week 3 — draining, if decided. Carried out by the owner or their pool engineer, never rushed, and never after a spell of rain.

Week 4 — mechanical cleaning. Floor, walls, steps, waterline, coping, on an empty pool. Allow from half a day to two days depending on surface area and condition.

Week 5 — any repairs. Grout, a loose tile, a fitting to reseal, lighting: the faults found during cleaning are dealt with now, on a dry, accessible pool.

Week 6 — refilling and recommissioning. Filling, starting the filtration, balancing the water. This stage belongs to the owner or their pool engineer.

Two reasons to keep to this calendar: in April, contractors are still available, which is no longer true in June; and above all, a bad surprise found six weeks out is a repair, whereas the same surprise found three days out is a lost season.

This stage costs nothing and prevents bad decisions. It is done with the pool as it stands, before any work begins.

On the water, if the pool still holds any

• clarity: can you make out the floor, the outline of the steps, the drain?
• colour: translucent green, opaque green, brown, milky;
• level: an unusual drop since autumn points to a leak, not to evaporation;
• surface: a greasy film, pollen, leaves, insects.

On the pool

• the waterline and the exact height of the marked band;
• the finish: a loose tile, a hollowed grout line, blistering or chalking paint, a fold or lifted section of liner, chipped mosaic;
• fittings to reseal: skimmers, drain, return jets, lights, the ladder and its fixings.

Around the pool

• coping that is loose, cracked or stained;
• the surround: joints, green deposits on the shaded side, sand built up in corners;
• the plant room: standing water, damp marks, the visible condition of the filter.

Three photos are enough to discuss the pool remotely: an overall view, a shot of the waterline, and one of the plant room. They are worth sending to the pool engineer before the first visit.

This is made at the end of week 2, on criteria, not on the impression the colour gives.

Keeping the water is sensible when the pool was maintained through the winter, the water stays translucent, the filtration kept running intermittently, and no fault requires dry access. In that case, preparation is a water-treatment job, which belongs to the owner or their pool engineer, with no dry cleaning needed.

Draining is called for instead when:

• the pool has been at a standstill for several months, which is common in a house that is little used in winter;
• the water is opaque and the floor cannot be seen;
• the deposit on the floor is thick — sand, decomposed leaves, silt;
• a fault in the finish needs to be dealt with;
• the water is saturated after months of repeated correction. The case is developed in our article on water that has turned green.

The precaution that is not negotiable: a pool is never drained after heavy rain, on waterlogged ground, or close to a working irrigation channel or ditch. An empty pool loses the counter-pressure the water exerted against the surrounding earth, and it can lift or crack. That is a structural incident. The draining method is therefore chosen with the pool engineer, who knows the structure and the ground.

An empty pool is accessible for only a few days a year. Anything not done in that window waits for the next drain, often several years away.

The order of work is dictated by the end-of-winter state, where deposits have had time to dry and harden:

1. Removing residual standing water with a wet-and-dry vacuum.
2. Clearing debris before any brushing: sand, leaves, silt, rubble, small animals that have fallen in. A dry crust lifts off and is cleared away; brushing it directly wears out the tool and scratches the surface without removing anything.
3. Brushing the floor, walls and steps, with the pad or brush matched to the finish. The vertical stroke needed on a wall is not the one used on a floor, and the waterline needs a method of its own, set out in the next section.
4. Treating the corners, the steps and underneath the ladder, where water never circulated and the deposit is always thicker.
5. A full rinse and clearing away.

This is also the moment to treat the areas that swimming makes inaccessible the rest of the year: the underside of the coping, around the light fittings, the bottom of the skimmers. Check that they appear on the quotation of whoever cleans the pool.

This is the hardest band on the pool to treat, and the only one that cannot be treated correctly any other way.

What settles on it is a mix that neither water nor a single product dissolves on its own:

• limescale, precipitated on contact with air as the level varies;
• fatty matter — sun cream, organic residue — which floats and settles at exactly this height;
• dust and sand brought in by the wind, trapped in the greasy film;
• biofilm, which binds it all together.

Two classic mistakes, to be avoided absolutely:

• strong acid from the shops. On mosaic, zellige — the hand-cut glazed terracotta tile — or a lime-based grout, it dulls the glaze permanently and hollows out the joint. On a liner, there is no chemical option in any case;
• abrasive mechanical action applied directly, which scratches the finish visibly and permanently, exactly at eye height.

The method that works is the same as for traditional floors: identifying the finish, a test on a hidden area in a low-visibility corner, mechanical action dosed in successive passes, low concentration, a full rinse. And an honest caveat: a waterline left for ten years does not come back like new. A good professional greatly reduces the mark; they do not promise to erase it.

A spotless pool ringed by a grey surround and stained coping does not give the impression of a clean pool. And it soils again faster.

What is treated in the same pass:

• the coping, the one surface people touch barefoot, with a treatment matched to the material — stone, reconstituted concrete, timber;
• the surround, where sand builds up in the joints and green settles on the shaded band. If it comes out of building work — paving laid or joints redone over the winter —, cleaning it falls under terrace cleaning after building work, which does not include the pool;
• surround drains and outlets, to be cleared before the season;
• the plant room, where permanent standing water breeds mosquitoes and brings damp to the equipment.

One point of method: the surround is treated before the pool, not after. Everything lifted off the surround runs down into the pool. Doing it the other way round means going over it again.

A dry clean almost always reveals something. The useful rule: note it, photograph it, and hand each fault to the right trade.

What turns up most often:

• a loose tile or lifting mosaic, often low on a wall;
• a hollowed grout line over several linear metres;
• chalking or blistering paint;
• a folded, hardened or lifted liner at a corner;
• a hairline crack in render, that a wet finish had been masking;
• a tired joint around a fitting near a light or a return jet.

These faults are for a pool engineer, a builder or a tiler, depending on the case. Ask whoever cleans the pool for a written record with photos: it is better read in April than in July.

The cleaning leaves a pool that is clean and dry. What follows is organised beforehand, not on the day.

The usual sequence:

1. Any repairs, on a dry pool — this is the only window available.
2. Refilling, carried out by the owner. In Marrakech, filling a pool takes a considerable volume of water and sometimes a permit or a delivery: this needs planning, not improvising on a Saturday.
3. Starting the filtration and balancing the water, which is for the pool engineer or an equipped owner.
4. The first filtration-time setting, adjusted to the water temperature rather than to habit.

One last piece of advice, the one that saves the most: never leave a pool empty longer than necessary. A pool drained and left in the sun for weeks works against itself — the paint chalks, the liner hardens, render develops hairline cracks, and the structural risk remains until the counter-pressure is restored. Cleaning is scheduled as close as possible to refilling.