Solar Cover

[bll]

Can anyone tell me how effective is a solar cover for a pool that has arches on the sides if the cover only covers most of the pool (i.e., not the arches at the edges) so the pool is not 100% covered.

Thanks for sharing, Udi

 

[cubbybeave08]

Can anyone tell me how effective is a solar cover for a pool that has arches on the sides if the cover only covers most of the pool (i.e., not the arches at the edges) so the pool is not 100% covered.

Thanks for sharing, Udi

It will likely lose some of it's effectiveness as there will be some places where the water can evaporate or lose heat at night...I get the picture of what you are saying about the outline of your pool but how wide are the arches. One thing you could do is get a cover that is wider than the outline of your pool and trim it to fit the arches...Or you can just get some remnants and cut pieces to fit your arches. YOu can easily attach your arched pieces to your main cover with cable ties or what most people call zip ties...I hole punch mine and then run the zip ties through the holes and tighten them down leaving about an inch diameter to play with...If you tie it down too tight, you run the risk of tearing your cover. Let me know if this works for you...

 

[PaulR]

My pool is irregular (vaguely triangluar). I bought a cover that was longer than the long side, but not wide enough, then used a scrap to cover the leftover bit. It's not 100%, but I figure if you cover 90% of the pool you get 90% of the benefit. (Evaporation should be relative to the exposed surface area, and that's the major contributor to cooling.)

I don't know if this diagram would help....

+---------+
|    |   /
|    | /
|    /
|  /
|/

One long strip with some cut off at the narrow end, and that becomes the bit used to cover the little leftover part.

Covers usually come as rectangular but sometimes oval, you can play around with a sketch on graph paper to see what would work best.
--paulr

 

[bll]

Thanks Cobby and Paul.

The arches are about 1 feet tall (in the highest spot) and 6 feet long. I have 3 of them from each side of the pool. The pool is 20x40 without the arches. I am just concerned that if I cut a cover to include the arches it will be a hustle to fold / use a reel...

 

[PaulR]

Sounds like the surface area in the arches is relatively small, I just wouldn't bother trying to cover them if it would make it a pain to get the cover on and off.

And the thing is, covers don't last forever; when the first one gives out, you'll know what you want to replace it with. What I have right now works okay, but next time I'm going to get 12' wide instead of 16' so the bigger section won't be so annoying to handle.
--paulr

 

[cubbybeave08]

Thanks Cobby and Paul.

The arches are about 1 feet tall (in the highest spot) and 6 feet long. I have 3 of them from each side of the pool. The pool is 20x40 without the arches. I am just concerned that if I cut a cover to include the arches it will be a hustle to fold / use a reel...

Bill...If you went with something like 22 ft. wide you could easily over lap and cut the shape of the pool into the cover...they are easily cut with scisors. Then you could just fold the arches over as you wound it onto the reel...or you could use my method for cutting and attaching. I will try to find a picture and post here to show you what I did. I don't know if I have them any more. But it was simple to do...this way you could just pic the arches up and fold them over and they are always attached to the main cover section.

 

[bruiser71]

I have a 38ft * 15ft rectangular pool and the largest solar cover I could get was 35ft long so I had for a while a gap at the end of the pool. It still saved a heap of water evaporation and heated the pool by 9F. I found the biggest things with the solar cover was the ease of getting it on and off. In my first season with the pool cover I was too particular about keeping it on correctly and so less time was spent in the pool cos' it was a hassle, so it has to be easy and quick. The cover can be a bit heavy to roll up and get kinks in it so if you have odd shaped bits, I would only use them in the off season to protect your pool. If it takes the kids only 30 secs to roll it up and dive in, they will use it. Hope this helps.

 

[cubbybeave08]

I have a 38ft * 15ft rectangular pool and the largest solar cover I could get was 35ft long so I had for a while a gap at the end of the pool. It still saved a heap of water evaporation and heated the pool by 9F. I found the biggest things with the solar cover was the ease of getting it on and off. In my first season with the pool cover I was too particular about keeping it on correctly and so less time was spent in the pool cos' it was a hassle, so it has to be easy and quick. The cover can be a bit heavy to roll up and get kinks in it so if you have odd shaped bits, I would only use them in the off season to protect your pool. If it takes the kids only 30 secs to roll it up and dive in, they will use it. Hope this helps.

that is why I cut mine in sections...I have four pieces...two full center pieces and two semi circle pieces that are the outside pieces...I can get in the pool and quickly roll them up and put on the side rails and be ready to swim in about 10 minutes...I roll carefully to keep any Crud on the cover from getting in the pool. It takes actually less time to put them back in place...We swam here until Mid September last year, using the solar heater and the solar covers.

 

[cubbybeave08]

I have a 38ft * 15ft rectangular pool and the largest solar cover I could get was 35ft long so I had for a while a gap at the end of the pool. It still saved a heap of water evaporation and heated the pool by 9F. I found the biggest things with the solar cover was the ease of getting it on and off. In my first season with the pool cover I was too particular about keeping it on correctly and so less time was spent in the pool cos' it was a hassle, so it has to be easy and quick. The cover can be a bit heavy to roll up and get kinks in it so if you have odd shaped bits, I would only use them in the off season to protect your pool. If it takes the kids only 30 secs to roll it up and dive in, they will use it. Hope this helps.

Try Doheny's Water Warehouse. www.Doheny.com...They have covers for sale as large as 30X60 rectangular I am sure you could find something that will work for you....

 

[baudilus]

That site is way expensive.

 

[cubbybeave08]

That site is way expensive.

yeah...they are for the most part a commercial pool site...but if you look around or get the catalog...they do have some reasonable deals...ANd there aren't a whole lot of places where you can find a solar cover that big is there?