How to avoid swamp on top of cover of IG pool in Spring?

[PondScum]

I have an 18x36 in-ground pool at my home in Las Vegas.

For the past several years I've put both a solid cover and a leaf cover on the pool for winter closing, the idea being that I can pull all the leaves off at once with the leaf cover, and then pump off whatever water that remains on the solid cover. I can never pump all of the water off though, and that combined with whatever crud passes through the leaf cover makes a big mess that usually winds up in the pool.

I had this crazy idea that maybe I could put some winterizing pillows on the pool, and make it so that water actually drained off of the pool cover rather than onto it. I could also just hose it down in the spring and the water would sweep away any accumulated leaves and debris, rather than having to use the leaf cover.

Would this work, and is it worth doing? Or is there some other solution to avoiding that mess when I open the pool in the spring?

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

no advice, but wanted to say welcome!

 

[AnnaK]

I have no experience with IG pool covers but I know what works for me on tarpaulins. No matter how tightly I stretch and tie down a tarp there'll always be a little pool of water collecting on it. To kill mosquito larvae and to keep it from turning green with algae I pour a small amount of bleach in the puddles. No bugs, no growth.

Might be worth a try with your pool cover.

Anna

 

[Butterfly]

Welcome, to the site! Can't give any advice either since we do not cover/close our pool. Good luck!

Joyce

 

[Guest]

winterise with out cover and only use the leaf net.

 

[crazycanuck]

When the pool guys opened my pool this past spring, it had lots of leaves, dead bugs, green algae and crud on top of the winter cover. What they did first was to pump off as much water as they could get off. Then 2 guys started rolling up the winter cover from the deep end while one guy had a brush and brushed the remaining water and crud to the shallow end where the intake was sitting. It sucked out the remaining junk and since the 2 guys were carefully rolling the cover up none of the stuff went into the pool, it was actually pretty incredible. The pool looked as clean as the day it was closed.

But it is a 3 man operation to do this. By yourself would be tricky, especially if you had a bigger pool.

 

[TizMe]

We had the same trouble this spring Pond. It was an incredible task not to get any of that nasty water in the pool that was so sparkly after being covered and closed for 5 months. We have purchased a leaf cover fo this year because we have some rather large Oak trees that we were going to try to cut down this fall when the cooler weather came but I had a heart attack end of Aug and now since I feel better our neighbors are to busy to help. Not sure where you live but one of the members here suggested not closing it this year and another recommended the leaf cover. So ... this year we are going to try leaving it open and running the filter a little each day to keep the water circulated and covering it with the leaf net to try to keep the debris out of the water. Once water gets cold enough you wont have to worry about algea growth (60 degrees i think it is)

Good luck !

 

[kirbinster]

I just bought a winter cover from InTheSwim. It is a solid cover that can hold something like 2,000 pounds and attaches to the decking with brass anchors and springs. The neat thing about this one is it has a panel in the middle of the cover that has a super fine mesh filter. The cover keeps all the Crud out of the pool but water will drain into the pool through this panel. Thus, when I take it off there won't be any water on the cover and I can just use a leaf blower to blow away any junk that may be on the cover before I remove it in the spring.