I am in the bay area and I don't winterize at all except that I reduce pump run time to about 2 hours/day when the water temp gets below 60 degrees (algae grows much slower when water temp drops).

Also, at one point I used freeze protection but then realized that it would take many hours of below freezing temperature before the pipes froze so I don't use it anymore. We get less than 6 hours of below freezing temps at night and that is not long enough to freeze water in 2" pipes.

You may still need freeze protection but with a simple test you can determine if it is really needed.

I use my dog's water bowl (2" water depth) to determine if I ever need freeze protection. That will freeze solid well before the pipes will since the pipes have much more water in them and will required much lower temperatures or much longer time to remove the latent heat.

Again, you have to make the choice on freeze protection for your conditions.

Thank you. That's a good idea with the dog's bowl. I'm in the San Joaquin valley so you guys get a little colder than we do. Thanks for the info. I'm going to try to bowl trick. I wasn't sure about the pump time, so thank you for that information too. I had heard that you need to run it less, so I wasn't sure how long. I have a two speed pump, so maybe I'll just run it 2 hours on low and 1 hour on high.

Thank You
Dawna