Hey Mark,
Got the pool covered. Came out pretty good. I went w/ the 8 mil from
www.solarcovers.com. I made some initial liberal cuts, waited about 3 days per the instructions, and then made some final cutting yesterday. The last time I topped off the pool was on Sunday, so this will be good having it. A good test to see how long I can go before having to top off again.
I have still the solar on for 6 hr/day, but I may adjust that as today we are having a 91 degree day and I checked the water temp now at it is already at 83 degrees. I am probably going to cut the cover width wise to make it more manageable, but I am not sure how to do your solar cover idea if I have some areas where my cover is bunched up. I can't seem to get it exactly flat. How do I do that? I was thinking that I need to have it really flat before I tackle your solar cover roller idea. I speculate that if it is not, then when I make it and fasten it to the Charlotte pipe and put it back in the pool, the edges/border/perimeter is going to be off. Would it have been better to do my liberal cut, wait a few days, make the rollers, then put it back in and do the final cutting?
Here are some pics of my cover showing how it is not exactly flat in some areas:
Also, you said you only run your solar about 1 hour. Is that in the midst of the summer or even right now? I am trying to determine how much and when to turn down the amount of time solar is on. Since I don't have a solar controller and/or the MaxFlo is not tied to my solar, I was going to just reprogram the pump so that it runs for X amount of hours for solar operation, then run it at another time/RPM for my Polaris, and continue to have my evening program from 8 pm to 6 am at 800 RPM. Right now I am just using 2 of the 3 programs with one during the day at 2400 RPM for 6 hr for solar and Polaris, and then the night program as mentioned.