About 2 weeks before I opened my "deck on deck" inground pool (fiberglass - 18,000 gal, Chlorine), I had a contractor clean the seal the concrete. The contractor advised me, then used a non-water based sealant. I let it dry twice as long as was told, then prepared & opened the pool for the summer. About a week later, my automatic pool cover started sticking to the lower deck. I pulled up on the cover near the deep end (motor cover end) to loosen, then the cover would open & close. My wife & I gave our regular 2 week swimming lessons in July, and ocassionally the cover would stick, & I would repeat the process of loosening it.
Lately it has been sticking more frequently, so I made it a point to not close it all the the way, so I could operate the motor both ways to loosen the stickiness. 2 weeks ago, I had to have surgery, and was not able to mess with the pool for a week. Then 3 days ago, I tried to open the cover, and it was stuck again, and I could not get it unstuck (as I am only allowed to use my R arm to pull or lift 5lbs or more, for the next 5 weeks. The next day, I had a dream to try using plungers to pull the cover up off of the lower deck. That worked well & I got all the area near the cover motor unstuck, but the cover would still not open. I then called a pool cover contractor, & they came by today. They originally thought after they pulled up the sticky cover up off the deep end side, that my motor died, as it still would not open. They got a new (slightly more powerful) motor installed, and it still would not open. The worker then got the plunger that I had and he found out that not only the deep end on the cover had been stuck, but also the sides & shallow end of the cover was sticking to the lower deck. After pulling the areas up with the plunger the cover opened. So he reinstalled my old motor, and the cover opened & shut. After 3 hrs of troubleshooting, he only charged me an hour of labor. He said that I could flip the cover so the bottom side was on top, but tah would void my 7 year warranty (my cover's only 3 yrs old), and that would cost me (although less than a new cover). Before he left, he said that possibly to try sprinkling powder on the lower deck (when it wasn't windy), then closing the cover, and doing that may absorb the stickyness on the underside of the cover.
My question to all is: Has anyone experienced this? Note that I have had my upper & lower deck re-sealed 2-3 times before (but this never has happened before). Second question is: If I sprinkled powder on my lower deck, what kind of powder should I use? What kind of powder would less effect the pool water chemistry? What kind would be the least expensive? What would you do?
Lately it has been sticking more frequently, so I made it a point to not close it all the the way, so I could operate the motor both ways to loosen the stickiness. 2 weeks ago, I had to have surgery, and was not able to mess with the pool for a week. Then 3 days ago, I tried to open the cover, and it was stuck again, and I could not get it unstuck (as I am only allowed to use my R arm to pull or lift 5lbs or more, for the next 5 weeks. The next day, I had a dream to try using plungers to pull the cover up off of the lower deck. That worked well & I got all the area near the cover motor unstuck, but the cover would still not open. I then called a pool cover contractor, & they came by today. They originally thought after they pulled up the sticky cover up off the deep end side, that my motor died, as it still would not open. They got a new (slightly more powerful) motor installed, and it still would not open. The worker then got the plunger that I had and he found out that not only the deep end on the cover had been stuck, but also the sides & shallow end of the cover was sticking to the lower deck. After pulling the areas up with the plunger the cover opened. So he reinstalled my old motor, and the cover opened & shut. After 3 hrs of troubleshooting, he only charged me an hour of labor. He said that I could flip the cover so the bottom side was on top, but tah would void my 7 year warranty (my cover's only 3 yrs old), and that would cost me (although less than a new cover). Before he left, he said that possibly to try sprinkling powder on the lower deck (when it wasn't windy), then closing the cover, and doing that may absorb the stickyness on the underside of the cover.
My question to all is: Has anyone experienced this? Note that I have had my upper & lower deck re-sealed 2-3 times before (but this never has happened before). Second question is: If I sprinkled powder on my lower deck, what kind of powder should I use? What kind of powder would less effect the pool water chemistry? What kind would be the least expensive? What would you do?
