Liquid Pool Cover (Heat Retention)

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I don't know if you are in Peoria, IL or Peoria, MS since there is no state listed in your location. But that liquid cover is very weak at best. I tried it a few times when we first got our pool and did not even make it through a 16 oz bottle before giving up. If you are in MS you might get a little help. If you are in IL then I would order an 8mil solar cover.
 
Thanks for the help. I'm in Peoria, AZ (Phoenix). Looking to reduce evaporation and extend the useful season of the pool. I'm in the process of building a pool and am considering a bubble cover or other options to heat and save water.
 
Even more reason to use an 8 mil solar cover being in AZ, with high evaporation rates and high CH the less evaporation the better. The solar cover will help a lot with both and keep in the heat overnight. As bobo says they only last 2-3 years so you might as well get a cheap, thin one because they work fine and are a lot easier to handle. You can add your state to your location so it shows up over there <----- and then we can quit asking. :)
 
Spoon man, i am one of the few here that use CoverFree, a similar product. IME, it does reduce evaporation and to some extent reduce heat loss -- but nowhere near what a cover would.

We don't use a cover due to tight footprint and a lot of night-swimming, accessibility, etc.
 
I'm in central Minnesota and did a little test on this type of product a few years ago in my little Intex pool. I took temperature measurements in the evening and then in the morning before going to work. Started with no cover, then a good solar cover, then a "Turbo Fish" liquid. The liquid helped about half as much as the solar cover, but the total loss was only a couple degrees overnight anyway, so not worth it for me. But I'd qualify that with the fact that it was during late June through early August. Maybe it would help more in Spring and Fall.
 
I'm down in Tucson....get a bubble cover, or, if you're still building, consider an auto-cover if your pool design allows for it (most people build freeform pools around here so it's not going to be an option in that case). The problem with CoverFree and other types of liquid products is that they don't work well with high wind. Where you are and where I am, we get lots of good afternoon desert winds blowing. The minute the wind is strong enough to create even tiny ripples on the surface of the pool water then the product completely fails as the liquid surface tension is broken. As well, being in the desert, your biggest enemy for your pool (if you don't have a lot of trees around) will be dust! Dust blows around like crazy here and settles in pools nicely. The liquid cover products will trap the dust and you'll get these nice, ugly bathtub scum rings right at your tile on the water line.

A bubble cover helps greatly to reduce evaporation and hold the chemical levels more stable. The downside, especially where you are, is that you can't really use one during the hot season (unless you're really good about putting it on every night after sunset and taking it off before sunrise). I left mine on for too many days in a row a few weeks back and I shot my water up to 97F by the end of the day even after I took it off in the morning. Heat builds up in the water here fast and it takes a long time for it come back down (mostly by evaporative cooling :( ).
 
JoyfulNoise said:
I'm down in Tucson....get a bubble cover, or, if you're still building, consider an auto-cover if your pool design allows for it (most people build freeform pools around here so it's not going to be an option in that case). The problem with CoverFree and other types of liquid products is that they don't work well with high wind. Where you are and where I am, we get lots of good afternoon desert winds blowing. The minute the wind is strong enough to create even tiny ripples on the surface of the pool water then the product completely fails as the liquid surface tension is broken. As well, being in the desert, your biggest enemy for your pool (if you don't have a lot of trees around) will be dust! Dust blows around like crazy here and settles in pools nicely. The liquid cover products will trap the dust and you'll get these nice, ugly bathtub scum rings right at your tile on the water line.

A bubble cover helps greatly to reduce evaporation and hold the chemical levels more stable. The downside, especially where you are, is that you can't really use one during the hot season (unless you're really good about putting it on every night after sunset and taking it off before sunrise). I left mine on for too many days in a row a few weeks back and I shot my water up to 97F by the end of the day even after I took it off in the morning. Heat builds up in the water here fast and it takes a long time for it come back down (mostly by evaporative cooling :( ).
Click to expand...

This is a good argument against the liquid cover -- if it did actually work well you'd have the issue of not being able to remove it when you want to let the water cool a bit.

In my climate (not quite Arizona, but hot and sunny) I don't find that it makes much difference if the cover is on during a sunny day or not (a cold windy one it might); I get a 4-5 degree rise over the course of the day regardless. So I don't worry about taking it off each day unless we're swimming. Where it does its magic is at night, reducing the temperature loss by about a degree F. That 4-5 degree rise then adds to that, and over the course of a week or so the temperature can be 10 degrees higher than it would have been without.

When the temp gets to the max range we like (around 89-90), I just don't put the cover on for a night or two (leaving it off during the day then, of course).

The hassle factor partially depends on the layout of your pool and the deck around. I cut my cover into two sections (17x35ish pool) and am able to put it on or take it off by myself in under 4 minutes total each way, no reel, by pulling it onto the deck into an accordion fold, then getting it to slide onto the water as I unfold it back out. I plan to post a GoPro video one of these days. Other configurations could make it almost impossible for one person to manage.
 

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