Repairing Leaking PVC Pool Covers

[JakeF]

Hi all, thanks for the forum.

I'm seeking your advice about repairing some leaking pool covers made of PVC.

I've made a collection of 16 solar pool covers. They are 4 X 9 squares made of PVC, with the solar plastic cut to fit inside of the square. I punched grommets around edge of the solar plastic, and attached solar material to the PVC with plastic zip ties. This system works great for us, much much easier to deal with than trying to manage a single 16 X 50 sheet of solar plastic, even with a roller.

But...

It appears I am not a PVC genius and some of the PVC squares are beginning to leak a bit. The only place they can leak of course is at the corner joints. The leaks are few and modest so far, so I'm going to attempt to patch the affected corners with...

With what? I'm reading about various kinds of plumber's tape, but don't really know what I'm doing so I thought I'd seek your advice before blundering forward on my own.

In case I haven''t made it clear, I need something to leak proof the joint where the long piece of straight PVC (sides of panel) meets the corner PVC piece.

Thank you much!

 

[domct203]

This sounds like a neat idea, could you post a picture?

I'm not sure why you have leaks, didn't you use PVC cement on the corner elbows?

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Where are my manners.......

Welcome to TFP!

 

[JakeF]

This sounds like a neat idea, could you post a picture?

Well, it's a 4 X 9 square of white PVC, with the clear solar plastic within the square. Apologies, don't have a camera handy.

I'm not sure why you have leaks, didn't you use PVC cement on the corner elbows?

I'm not sure either, as I thought I was being quite careful with the glue. But then I'm not a plumber. As example, I didn't know about PVC primer at the time, so maybe that's it.

For the moment the best I can think of is to slop some more PVC glue around the outside of the joints, wait for that to dry well, and then apply one of these tapes to the edges of the joins. But I don't know anything about plumbing tape, only that a variety of such things exist.


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As unrelated background while we're on the subject...

The pool is 16 X 36 inground.

First I bought the solar plastic to fit and tried to manhandle it on and off pool. Impossible.

Then I cut solar plastic in half and tried to manhandle the halves. Still impossible.

Then I built two rollers out of PVC, one for each side of pool. The rollers were way nifty but still the process of on and off was more trouble than it's worth. Dismantled rollers, returned the parts.

That's how I arrived at making sixteen 4 X 9 panels of PVC. They're very lightweight and easy to handle (I'm 65). I do have to steer them in to place a bit with a pole, but it's no big deal. They don't fit the pool exactly perfectly, but I'm covering 95% so I figure I'm getting 95% of the benefit, which is close enough for me.

For us in North Florida, mostly shaded pool, the benefit seems to be a couple of degrees. Given that the natural temp is right on the edge of what I like, the couple of degrees from panels pushes it over the edge in to happy land.

I've only had them one year so far so I don't know how long they'll last. The zip ties seem a weak link, but they're very easy to replace, and I'm upgrading to better ones. The leaks are fairly minor so far, but if I don't do something the panels will eventually sink to the bottom of the pool, where I'm guessing they won't work quite as well. Not sure how long the solar plastic will last, but so far so good.

The next step here is tree trimming, but that's getting pretty far off topic, so back over to you.