leave cover off all winter?

[Mighty_P]

I'm in the San Fransisco bay area, California. I have a lot of trees around my pool, and tons of debris ends up on top of the cover, which then turns into nasty dark water and algae on top of the cover. Leaves also still get under the cover and into the pool. Whenever I take off the cover to clean the pool, a lot of that nasty debris on top of the cover ends up in the pool. It'd be easier to go without the cover all winter, and I can just stay on top of skimming the pool without having to deal with the cover every time. Is there any reason not to do this? Do I really need the cover on? ...It's a solar cover, which good enough to warm the pool in the summer, but nobody's going swimming anymore until like May or June.

Cheers,

Patrick

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

There's really no reason to use a solar cover during winter. As you mentioned, all the stuff it keeps out of the pool ends up in the pool when you remove it for maintenance. Evaporation is greatly reduced and you won't be swimming, so no need to worry about warming up the water. Put your cover in storage and break it out in April or May.

 

[thefloatqueen]

I finally got fed up with my mesh winter cover yesterday and took it off entirely and decided I would just scoop daily and test water every week or two. Everything else is winterized I just decided to test out not using a cover this winter. We live in totally different climates but I thought I’d chime in.

 

[thefloatqueen]

I'm in the San Fransisco bay area, California. I have a lot of trees around my pool, and tons of debris ends up on top of the cover, which then turns into nasty dark water and algae on top of the cover. Leaves also still get under the cover and into the pool. Whenever I take off the cover to clean the pool, a lot of that nasty debris on top of the cover ends up in the pool. It'd be easier to go without the cover all winter, and I can just stay on top of skimming the pool without having to deal with the cover every time. Is there any reason not to do this? Do I really need the cover on? ...It's a solar cover, which good enough to warm the pool in the summer, but nobody's going swimming anymore until like May or June.

Cheers,

Patrick

Oh and I would ask a mod to move this to the “closing” section of the forum. I bet you would get more responses there.

 

[Newdude]

I got about 5 years out of my solar cover by storing it in the winter. I cleaned it and dried it well before. Maybe it mattered, maybe I was just lucky. I dunno. But one things for sure, stuff on the cover got nasty quick and would stain the cover. In the off season you’ll end up being less vigilant keeping it clean. Every other day will turn into every other week and anything that is on the cover will get even nastier. You’re probably better off just cleaning that occasional stuff from the pool itself.

 

[sktn77a]

If you don't have any freezing weather in your Bay Area location, I see no reason not to keep the pool open all winter and skim/clean the pool as necessary. Winter covers, and solar pool covers in particular, are a bit of a paint to work with.

 

[Joshii]

Taking care of the pool is painful enough. I couldn't imagine doing it and not even using it.

 

[Mighty_P]

Thanks everybody!

Cheers!