Let’s see your water after removing winter cover!! **RESURRECTED FOR 2025!**

[Homebrewale]

Are they expensive? Do you think it’s worth the extra cost? I’m also wondering if most leave their solar covers on while the pump is off? Or does it not matter? I may need to make a separate post about all my solar cover questions, LOL!

I have not priced above ground pool reels so I wouldn't know. Probably range from low $100s to $500 or more. During the spring (April, May) and fall (September, October), I leave my cover on at night and during cool days. I don't know what your temperature swings are where you live but here they can be quite a lot. For example, today's forecast is low of 51F and high of 78F. The solar cover reduces my need to fire up the gas heater or at least reduces its run time.

 

[wireform]

Solar covers will keep the heat you paid for from disappearing and also keep the evaporation at a minimum.

 

[mickey4paws]

Beautiful water!! I had a whole worm mafia when I removed my cover also haha

Thanks!! I put the cleaner in today and got a whole basket of them. Ewww! I'm sure the birds are having a party where I dumped the basket

 

[DarkRider2k10]

Are they expensive? Do you think it’s worth the extra cost? I’m also wondering if most leave their solar covers on while the pump is off? Or does it not matter? I may need to make a separate post about all my solar cover questions, LOL!

My solar cover definitely helps keep my temps stabilized from night temp drops, although last week we had a large change in temps and so my pool temps dropped significantly from what they were the prior weeks. Here's what my pool temps were overall:

4/15: 60F
4/18: 70F
4/25: 60F
5/1: 76F
5/6: 72F
5/12: 64F

The week of 5/6 to 5/12 the temps dropped around here to around 50F overall daytime and cold night temps so it dropped the temps significantly, but on the warmer days it's helped retain my pool temps and I believe it's given us more days of swimming in the spring days then we would have had without it, especially since the night temps still drop low (like tonight where it'll be a low of 57 even though it was a high of 77).

 

[kne]

Last week I pulled the DE filter out of the pool shack, deep cleaned her body and fingers. Bought a snazzy little Rubbermaid type thing with wheels to store DE powder in the shed.

Sunday took the cover off to open the pool and realized I was not comfortable about the amount of rust on the skimmer screws & faceplate. Is the pool wall rusting the screws, or are the Hayward "stainless steel" screws actually ? Who knows. So decided to do some very minor rust mitigation. My parents wish I was as scared of them as a child as I am of rust on the pool walls.

Fixing the rust means a few days of not being able to fill the water to get everything up and running. No worries, I'll just run the cordless vac until Ithen. Actually, nope robot is dead. This is picture is daily add of a dash of chlorine since Sunday (water level is at the middle of the return). It's windy here today so there are ripples on the water, but the water is clear enough to count how many needles are on the pieces of my neighbors tree that fell into the pool and are slowly decaying. They were there when we took the cover off. I don't remember them being there when we put the winter cover on, but they must of been. Tomorrow I'll go to the store, get 4 more gallons of chlorine to do a what hopefully will be a short opening SLAM process, get the skimmer all put back together, fill the water and fully open Cornelius up.

 

[kne]

My 11th, drama free opening.

Hi liner twin!

 

[kne]

Here’s the sneak peek

The sun & shadows were playing tricks with my camera but I could still clearly see where I wrote my M in the pool with vit C. Looks like a W from this side.
View attachment 562938
Just dipped a quick sample off the top - no mixing has occurred yet.
May throw the bot in for a little while to mix things up until I get running.

Ha! I'm scanning this thread super-fast to catchup on all my forum reading from my time away and didn't realize it was your post. Was thinking, huh ?, @Newdude has purple nails ?

 

[Newdude]

I let the girls paint my nails when they were little, then wore them to work the next day. You don't say no to little girls so long as nobody gets hurt. Period.

But yeah. As a big dude, nobody said boo about it.

 

[wireform]

Guys this is TFP fantastic. Took the picture before the cover is fully removed.

 

[Newdude]

No fair you get to open a bunch of TFPs. I only get *1*.

 

[wireform]

Here's a non TFP close by whomever and became as of this season TFP. Water not pretty. In contrast the large body of water looks good but it ain't.

 

[Saturn94]

Last year at opening. Yikes! Second pic is 24 hrs later. Much better! Apparently, the old tarp cover was on its last leg and acted like a big tea bag letting all the leaf tannins through.

 

[Saturn94]

Last fall we replaced the old tarp cover with a new one, so today’s opening was much better.

 

[ttroglio]

Pulled the cover off on May 4. By May 9th it was clear after SLAM. Pretty much the same situation every year.

 

[Mdragger88]

Pulled the cover off on May 4. By May 9th it was clear after SLAM. Pretty much the same situation every year.

When do you close? (What water temp?)

 

[ttroglio]

When do you close? (What water temp?)

I closed last year in early October. It's about the same time every year for me. I have a heat pump heater but it just can't keep up w/ the cold nights in the fall.

 

[Homebrewale]

I closed last year in early October. It's about the same time every year for me. I have a heat pump heater but it just can't keep up w/ the cold nights in the fall.

Do you basically turn off the heat pump and then do your closing procedures? The water would still be pretty warm. I turn off my heater in October. I wait until the water temperature hits 60F before closing. Usually that is around mid to late November. I cover my pool to keep leaves out until I'm ready to close. I also raise the FC level to almost SLAM. I open in the spring when the water temperature hits 60F. I've never opened to a green pool. I've never done the SLAM process.

 

[ngsm13]

May 9th, right after cover taken off:


Overnight! 15-hours later...

 

[thefloatqueen]

Yes, a pain for sure with the round shape. Don't buy the thickest one out there and understand from the get go it's a consumable and will need to be tossed after maybe 2 years.

Oh I bought a cheap-o for my first one! It’s actually Intex brand lol they made one for an 18’ round AGP and the Amazon reviews were decent enough for the price, so we shall see. Many reviews said not to use it when the FC levels are really high as it can cause it to degrade pretty quickly (makes sense…and their pics confirmed it lol). I have brought my water to SLAM a few times due to some slacking and horrible weather.

No algae to my knowledge, but tons of pollen and dirt stuff on the bottom. Rather be safe than sorry. The solar cover is not very thick at all and I do not expect it to last beyond this summer. I call it glorified bubble wrap. I have not used it yet because of all the rain we have been getting. Looks like lots of swimming weather next week so I’ll be giving it a try.

 

[thefloatqueen]

Do you basically turn off the heat pump and then do your closing procedures? The water would still be pretty warm. I turn off my heater in October. I wait until the water temperature hits 60F before closing. Usually that is around mid to late November. I cover my pool to keep leaves out until I'm ready to close. I also raise the FC level to almost SLAM. I open in the spring when the water temperature hits 60F. I've never opened to a green pool. I've never done the SLAM process.

This is my exact closing process lol except I raise FC up to full SLAM level. I still had 9ppm FC and 0 CC after removing cover and letting the pump run for about 12 hours or so. Maybe I closed a bit above SLAM…who knows.