Non-Closing, Covering Pool Techniques For Warm Weather TFPers

[GatorPool]

My first post -- please bear with me. Second winter with pool in Florida upcoming. Did not close pool last winter but constantly battled debris due to no cover. We do get a few nights below freezing but I usually just run the pump overnight at a low setting. However, I would like to cover the pool to prevent the current daily battle with staining acorns and the forthcoming leaves. Heating system install for year-round swimming scheduled for next year but we currently swim all but December-February. Between now and December, I'd like a cover system I can remove fairly easily for swimming, and then something a bit more permanent for the three cold months. I've read links to posts all the way back to 2007 but have not seen an effective method for us warm weather, non-deep freeze (FL, CA, AZ, etc) TFPers that does not use an expensive safety cover, which is not in our budget at this time. I'm thinking of placing a leaf net over the pool for now and devising a way to pull it off without dumping the acorns and leaves into the pool when we go swimming. Down the road when we stop swimming, thinking of floating the net on top of a system of floats or tubes or something floating in the pool that will keep the stretchy leaf net out of the pool and allow me to blow the debris off the net. Has anyone devised such a system? Or, has anyone found a leaf net that is not just for laying on top of the heavy winter covers but one that can be stretched over the pool and secured with water tubes or the like? Is a mesh cover the answer? Or a hybrid cover with the mesh "drain" in the center? Looking for an interim, best value solution; or a system that will integrate with the heated pool next year. Yard around pool is fenced, we have no outdoor pets. Help, the little brown tannic stains of the vicious acorns are driving us crazy! Thanks for your ideas. I've also put a call in to my tree guy. :0

 

[Vince-1961]

I'm in a very similar situation as yours, being precisely at the westernmost point of the entire east coast of the USA, just an hour north of Jacksonville, FL and an hour south of Savannah, GA, where we might get a very thin sheet of ice on the dog's water dish a few times in January. The point is that even when it does get below freezing, it doesn't stay that cold long enough to freeze any moving water, but I will nonetheless remove the pump, SWCG, and hoses and bring them inside for those few times we get freeze warnings. This will be my first winter and I do not intend to lower the water level or to remove the intake/outlet valves.

Like you, I'm also fighting leaves and acorns now and intend to put the cover that came with the pool on either this weekend or next. I like the idea of putting floats under the cover to keep it up off the water so as not to get a rotting leaf swamp on top of the cover, but I was also contemplating putting a pole in the middle to create a tent so the leaves and acorns just blow off or roll off onto the ground. Obviously, I will have to devise a flat doohickey for the top of the pole so as not to poke a hole in the cover.

 

[goalie28]

As a new pool owner, I'm interested in any suggestions on this topic also. I live in Austin, and it usually only freezes here a few times per winter and rarely are the freezes that hard. My biggest concern is keeping leaves and acorns (by the hundreds) out of the pool as well along avoiding the yellow Live Oak tree pollen in the spring. I also have a hot tub and would like it to be usable in the winter months as well.