Cover or no cover

[Anemone]

Thanks plucky!

Hey, I would love to hear what you decide to do. No cover may not work for everyone but it works just fine for me. I'd rather deal with the swamp than the cover and bags, any day. Good luck with whatever you choose.

 

[plucky71]

Just wanted to get back with you. I did buy that mesh non-safety cover. I used it with water bags. It was okay. I still needed to pump off the water from the top of it like you would with a solid cover. I'm not sure if I will use it next winter. I might try a winter with no cover and see how that goes.

 

[DWSPool]

After our mesh loop-lock cover rotted away, I was looking for an economical (read, "cheap" ) way to keep leaves, branches, etc. out of our pool. Use a leaf net - it worked to some extent, but enough "stuff" worked its way down into the pool, that I had a week's worth of work to clear the greeen out, even with an algaecide at the end of the season. I'm going to go with a solid cover with a pump this coming winter. Keep in mind, our pool is right up against a heavily wooded area, so our country pool gets more than the typical amount of tree rubbish.

 

[Rebecca]

I've been reading through dozens of threads on the issue of covering strategies and just wanted to make an observation. BBB seems to be about doing things the simple, least-expensive, least-chemical intensive way possible. I am finding it ironic that the dominant idea with covers is just the opposite: high expense and high complexity: heavy duty covers with pumps.

I live in NW Arkansas in a yard with a fair amount of trees. I winterize my pool each year but have never covered in 20 years. I deal with leaves largely by running the pump on windy fall days when the leaves are falling and catching them in the skimmer. Before a freeze, I drain the pump. It's easy to prime again. I don't drain the pool below tile level until deep into the winter, when temperatures are much lower and leaf fall is past. It seems to me that amount of pool cleaning in the spring is modest compared to installing and removing covers, replacing covers, dealing with leaves and water on top of covers. Not to mention the costs.

 

[DWSPool]

Rebecca - I would agree that simplest is best (and generally less expensive). Our pool's skimmer must not be as efficient as yours - we only have 1 skimmer and a deep end drain for a 25 K gallon pool. Lots of leaves get caught in the skimmer, but more eventually fall to the bottom and accumulate until it becomes a breeding ground for algae the following spring - that is, without a cover.

 

[Rebecca]

I find that leaves are a temporary issue. I also use a pole with net and sometimes vac during the winter.