How often to pump water off winter cover?

[Pauls234]

How frequently do you all do this? I closed a couple of weeks ago and have pumped (well siphoned actually) off water twice. My concern being that as rain accumulates it adds more and more weight to the cover, and will continue to push water up the walls or eventually tear the cover. I did leave a fair amount of slack to allow for this to some degree, but not sure if I am being overly paranoid. Do I have more of a safety margin than I suspect?

 

[Bama Rambler]

I pump (or siphon) it off whenever it gets a good bit on it. It'll stand a lot more than you think it will.

 

[phonedave]

IF your cover is laying on the pool water - as it should be - then is it not holding much weight. If you were to try and pick it up off of the pool, then it would be under a lot of tension.

I siphon mine off whenever there is water on it, so that any leaves that get on it blow off.

-dave

 

[Speedo]

I just got a leaf net this year

I also decided to try using a pillow, which so far seems to help. Water is only on about 1/3 of the cover, 5" deep. I will siphon a good amount of it off soon since the leaves are about done falling.

The previous two winters without a leaf net or pillow, I didn't siphon any off until spring. The leaf gunk was a HUGE mess.

 

[X-PertPool]

you can keep the cover dry if you'd like with a pump or siphon. If you are in an area that has lots of wind it may benefit you to have an inch of water on the cover to help stop it from parachuting.