How tight should a safety cover be?

[Adamphotoman]

This will be the 4th season for my safety cover. The previous owner used it twice.

How tight should the cover be stretched? We get a lot of rain and snow here, and even though I lowered the level below the returns, in under 3 weeks rain has already covered them 5-6 inches of rain.
It snowed 1/2 inch and the cover was laying on the surface. When the snow melted
it went up again, but I suspect I should tighten all the straps. I suspect it has never been done since the first safety cover install.

I pulled back the cover and I will pump the level back down with a sump pump.
There are already more leaves in the pool than when I covered it 3 weeks ago,
however, most of the leaves have fallen and I cleaned and bagged the pool area yesterday.

I wonder if water filled logs could be used to keep leaves from getting under the cover?

 

[Griswald]

Mine is really tight. There is no possible way for leaves to go under my cover.

The springs should be half compressed. It takes 2 people to get the springs over the anchors, one pulls back on the installation rod and one steps down on the spring until it snaps on to the anchor.

 

[Adamphotoman]

If the cover is too tight, it could rip with a 4 foot dump of wet snow. The cover needs to stretch down to the pool water level so that the snow load is supported by the pool water and not by the safety cover.

 

[Adamphotoman]

So there must be a happy balance. The sewn in straps on mine are not lined up in a nice grid pattern. They are wonky. So I think I could take part of a day to adjust them and tighten them at the same time. Another issue is if the spring covers are too cold, they will crack when the springs snap into place.

 

[jimim]

That seems pretty tight. Myself and my builder and his guys can easily do the springs on our own. Even if it was really right it should be a 1 person job with ur body weight doingctje work.

Mine is tight. Gets rained on and there is very very very slight give. When it gets snowed on it is again very slight tillcthere is an inch or so then the water does it’s job to keep it up. I keep my water about 7 inches off the tile line.

My builder also also said we want them as tight as to no be able to pull them off ourselves. U have to use the tool woth pressure to wrap around and grab.

Mine is really tight. There is no possible way for leaves to go under my cover.

The springs should be half compressed. It takes 2 people to get the springs over the anchors, one pulls back on the installation rod and one steps down on the spring until it snaps on to the anchor.