So I completed my DIY Solar Cover Roller and thought I would add/share my experience. First off, many, many THANKS! to Mark (
mas985) for sharing this DIY project.
Summary
-- Cover still requires getting into the water to deploy BUT it is a much better improvement to the alternative, i.e., fighting with an unwieldy bubble cover.
-- Automotive panel clamps worked excellently
-- My very asymmetric free-form pool makes this project a bit more difficult
-- Using two 18' sections is a bit unwieldy; next time I will probably cut the cover into three sections instead
Materials & Costs
(1) 8-mil blue 20'x40' bubble cover (stitched seams) :
$140
(4) 10ft lengths of 1-1/2" Cellular core (foam core) ABS DWV Pipe :
$8.63 per unit, $34.52 total
(2) ABS couplings :
$2
(1) Oakley ABS Pipe Cement :
$3.55
(20) Black Nylon Panel Retainers, 7/16" stem diameter x 13/16" stem length :
$0.30 per piece, $6 total
Process
The total amount of time it took to do all this work was ~6 hours spread over two days. I deployed the rectangular cover onto the pool and cut it out to the shape of the pool as see here -
I left the cover on for 24 hours in order to let it expand and contract as needed and then did some final smaller cuts before splitting it down the mid-point of the pool across it's widest point. This created two 18-ft sections. ABS pipe was cut, glued and holes drilled into it every 24". In order to secure the cover to the ABS pipe, I found automotive panel connectors at my local Ace Hardware which worked perfectly. They look like this -
The panel retainer has exactly the right gap length between the head and the fins for the sch40 ABS pipe. You could hear a very distinct click when the retainer was pressed fully down. I used 8 retainers on each length of pipe.
The final product looked like this -
It's not perfect but it's way better than trying to struggle with an odd shaped cover. Because of the irregular shape of my pool, many of the curves of the pool make the cover difficult to deploy simply by standing at the edge of the pool. Unfortunately, someone has to get into the water to help as the cover unrolls to ensure that it rolls out without getting tangled up. As well, the long 18ft lengths make the roller harder to work with. Weight-wise it is fine, the problem is there's a bit too much flexure to the pipe. If I had to do it over again, I'd either do three, 12-ft sections OR I'd run the pipe the shorter direction of my pool width. The freeform shape really makes it more difficult to get a good axis of symmetry.
Finally, the 8-mil solar cover is cheap and the bubbles are weak. So I think a slightly thicker 12-mil cover would work a little better. I don't expect this cover to last more than 2 years but that's ok. The overall project cost me about $186 plus 6 hours of my time and that's not bad. If it lasts two years and I completely redo everything, it's still a lot cheaper than the alternatives.
Fun project but a little word to the wise - it's best to do it on a COOL day with NO WIND. One reason why we split this over two days was because the winds tend to pick up here around noon and blow all afternoon. Once the wind gets going, the cover flies everywhere and is impossible to hold down.
