Loop Loc under ICE

[Tazam77]

Hi,

I have a 18x36 in ground pool. I live in the northeast USA. With all of the warm temperatures this fall the pool took on a lot of water. I noticed the cover Loop-loc was partially submerged in one spot because I could not loosen two locks (one on the 18 and one on the 36) side. I noticed last week that will all the rain the water, it was too high and the cover was submerged more. I pumped the water out to back below the skimmer and added more antifreeze to the skimmer. The cover drooped more and now it is completely under ice. We decided to pump more out to save the skimmer and let the loop-loc go. The loop-loc is 20-25 years old.

Do you think I will be replacing the loop-loc? If an elephant can stand on it so can ice right??

 

[JVTrain]

Mine usually ends up partially this way every winter. Sometimes a bit of ice on top of the cover, sometimes quite a bit. This happens especially when you:
A. Get a lot of rain after closing, which raises the water level.
B. Get some heavy snow falls that melt, freeze, melt freeze, etc.

Not much you can do and not much you need to do if you think about it. The ice on top of and below the cover is all freezing at the same time. In the spring or if you get some warm spells, all the ice will thaw at relatively the same time, maybe more ice above the cover will thaw quicker. This is good, meaning that before the ice below the cover thaws, some of the melted ice will drain through the cover. No matter what you do, this always happens and isn't really a big issue since the ice is fairly neutral weight on the cover at all times. If your cover is solid and not a mesh cover that allows water to pass through slowly, just get a cover pump on there in the spring or during a prolonged thaw.

That's a long time for a loop-loc cover to last and I'm sure it's seen a similar winter and ice cycle to this before. I'd start squirreling away some money for a replacement, but this specific situation won't cause any problems.

 

[Patrick_B]

Good post JVT!

I wanted to say it was fine, but your post with real life experience lends much more credence than mine.

 

[JVTrain]

The only thing I could suggest for next year is to tighten your spring belts just a little more to provide more tension on the cover. I install mine so that the cover isn't touching the water and if we get a light early snowfall, much of it blows off the cover or I can sweep some of it off. This usually doesn't work out though because those early winter snowfalls tend to be very wet, sticky, heavy snows that won't go anywhere without a shovel. I'd keep the shovel away from the cover to prevent accidental damage.

I never looks good with the cover sagging as much as they can some years, but that's just the nature of the beast.