To cover or not to cover...

[PoolsideinLA]

This is our first "winter" as pool owners in Louisiana. The previous homeowner did not close her pool, per se, but did have a very expensive year round pool service take care of it. It was sparkling in January. She did not own a pool cover, apparently.

We do not have the luxury of a pool boy, sadly, and my husband has suggested we purchase a cover and close it.

We do have a fair amount of leaf litter that ends up at the bottom of our pool. Manual vacuuming is a real pain when we can't get IN the pool to get to the deep end.

It occurred to me while trying to vacuum today that an actual robotic vacuum might be a better purchase than a cover as it will benefit us (ME!) all year long. Does it make sense to get one over the other? Should we invest in both?

 

[pwrstrk]

Some choose not to cover it up. Some cover them up.
The down side is debris in the pool and having to maintain the water chemistry. Yours is a vinyl liner so you don't have to worry about CH. The main thing would be monitoring the FC level. The FC loss should slow down some with cooler water but the sun will still affect it somewhat. I would also check the PH too from time to time.
If you don't cover it I would suggest to get a robotic cleaner to help keep the debris cleaned up.
You could also look into a leaf net to help with the leaves.
If you cover it up you'll have a lot less debris and the water chemistry should be ok. That's if you went with a solid cover. You could add some polyquat 60 to help curtail algae growth.
I'm sure some others will give there opinions on this and then you'll be able to make a decision. ?