Cover or No cover for Winter

[11chussey]

We live in Southern Ontario and we do get real Winter here!!! We ripped our original winter cover this spring during pool opening. The original cover was a Vinyl Lock-in style cover. I believe it was the original cover to the pool , which we guess is from the mid 1970's !!! We have only lived in this house 4 years and this is our first pool. The cover did not fit well, always had an extra 6 inches of material left over when installing , I would normally fold the extra over and secure it. It also had several pin holes in it and by the spring there would be A lot of water on top of it!!! Now we are looking at replacement covers and ideas. It is a right hand L shaped pool 16 x32 deep end (long part of the L) and 12x12 shallow end (small part of the L) We are looking at either getting a new Lock-in Vinyl Cover ($$$$) , using 2 tarps 16x32 and 12x24 with some type of bridge across the shallow end ($$) or not covering it at all (free) . I would still blow out the lines and do everything else to prepare the pool for winter. I am looking for the pro and con of the Tarp technique as well as the pro and con of not covering it at all!!!
Thanks for a great Forum
Looking forward to all the opinions

 

[rajung]

I used a cover for 3 years and totally quite using it.But not many trees 60 feet or so away.
tired of the snow removal from pool after clearing snow around house.
Especially since mine is above ground, like digging for a foundation with a spoon.
If trees are present I would cover until leaves all dropped and remove.Maybe a little more clean up in spring but the dirt I put back in pool that was on top of cover when removing in spring was almost the same.I think a cover with an above ground is worse since all the weight transfers to the side walls once it starts to get weight in the center on cover.Another idea would be to use a mesh cover until the leaves have fallen, much easier to handle.I have never used one so I don't know if the snow needs removed if left on all winter.I would like to know this myself since I do get some pine cones after a high wind thanks to my neighbors.