Tarp over mesh

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vbertone

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Dec 20, 2015
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Arnold md.
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25000
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Plaster
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
Hello all,
I was talking to a neighbor who also had a mesh cover and said she had no leaves and opened with little cleaning at opening of her pool. When I asked how, she said she had a tarp with bag weights over her mesh cover. Anyone else have luck with this?
 
vbertone said:
Hello all,
I was talking to a neighbor who also had a mesh cover and said she had no leaves and opened with little cleaning at opening of her pool. When I asked how, she said she had a tarp with bag weights over her mesh cover. Anyone else have luck with this?
Click to expand...

Just get a solid cover then. They work great and are a bit heavier to handle.
 
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vbertone said:
Thx, just too expensive at this time. Thought the tarp over mesh would be a good temp
Click to expand...

I’ve been doing this for many years. It works great and is far cheaper than buying a new solid safety cover. As a bonus, it has greatly extended the life of the mesh safety cover since the tarp protects it from UV light. I can usually get 5 years or so out of the pool tarp before I replace it.

Since covering the mesh safety cover I’ve noticed a few things:

1. The pool is MUCH cleaner at opening.
2. I can close and open when I want without the water turning green (I close early Oct and open early May). With just the mesh safety cover, I had to wait until late Nov/early Dec to close, and open by the first of March. Even then, there were some green openings. Since adding the tarp, I’ve never had a green opening, even when one year I couldn’t open until early June and the water temp was 80!

The downside is dealing with two covers at opening and closing. Not fun, but still worth it overall, IMHO.
 
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vbertone said:
Thx, just too expensive at this time. Thought the tarp over mesh would be a good temp
Click to expand...
I’ve been doing a mesh tarp over a mesh safety cover. Only because the safety cover is falling apart. It worked much better than the mesh tarp by itself. Didn’t have any leaves but did have some worms and small amount of dirt, along with a frog.
 
Saturn94 said:
I’ve been doing this for many years. It works great and is far cheaper than buying a new solid safety cover. As a bonus, it has greatly extended the life of the mesh safety cover since the tarp protects it from UV light. I can usually get 5 years or so out of the pool tarp before I replace it.

Since covering the mesh safety cover I’ve noticed a few things:

1. The pool is MUCH cleaner at opening.
2. I can close and open when I want without the water turning green (I close early Oct and open early May). With just the mesh safety cover, I had to wait until late Nov/early Dec to close, and open by the first of March. Even then, there were some green openings. Since adding the tarp, I’ve never had a green opening, even when one year I couldn’t open until early June and the water temp was 80!

The downside is dealing with two covers at opening and closing. Not fun, but still worth it overall, IMHO.
Click to expand...
Thank you, and do you just use the water bags for weights?
 
@Saturn94 please elaborate on the solid cover and water bags. I also have a mesh cover and have thought about putting a solid cover over the top as well. This is my first year on TFP and I've read to close the pool with a water consistency below 60. I figured a solid cover would help as well. Thinking something like this
www.doheny.com

Doheny's Economy Winter Cover for 16x32 ft Rectangular Pools, 4 Year Warranty, with 12 Water Bags

You SAVED $3.60 purchasing your cover with bags!16x32 ft Rectangle Economy Winter Pool Cover actual cover size is 21x37 ft. with 12 bags.4 year warranty with 1 year full warranty. Full coverage on manufacturer defects only.Includes: (1) Winter cover, (2) 4 ft blue 14 gauge single chamber water...
www.doheny.com www.doheny.com
 
vbertone said:
Thank you, and do you just use the water bags for weights?
Click to expand...

I did use water bags for several years. They worked well holding the tarp down, but often sprung leaks and were a pain to clean (they got pretty nasty on the bottoms over the winter). I started saving empty bleach jugs and now fill them with water to hold the tarp down. The jugs work great and last MUCH longer than the bags (and cheaper to boot!). I also tuck the excess tarp under the mesh safety cover to help hold the tarp in place.

Here’s a couple older pics. I don’t seem to have more recent pics showing use of bleach jugs all around.
 

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shwn2405 said:
@Saturn94 please elaborate on the solid cover and water bags. I also have a mesh cover and have thought about putting a solid cover over the top as well. This is my first year on TFP and I've read to close the pool with a water consistency below 60. I figured a solid cover would help as well. Thinking something like this
www.doheny.com

Doheny's Economy Winter Cover for 16x32 ft Rectangular Pools, 4 Year Warranty, with 12 Water Bags

You SAVED $3.60 purchasing your cover with bags!16x32 ft Rectangle Economy Winter Pool Cover actual cover size is 21x37 ft. with 12 bags.4 year warranty with 1 year full warranty. Full coverage on manufacturer defects only.Includes: (1) Winter cover, (2) 4 ft blue 14 gauge single chamber water...
www.doheny.com www.doheny.com
Click to expand...

Anything in particular you wanted to know?

When choosing a tarp cover, just make sure it’s oversized enough to allow for movement (rain/snow accumulation will make it sag). I leave mine loose enough over the mesh cover to account for this.

If your pool is 16x32 like it says in the link, it should work fine since the actual tarp size is a bit larger according to the description.

I forgot to mention, of course with the solid tarp you will have to pump excess water off the cover periodically.

Regarding water temp at closing and opening, ours is usually in the mid to upper 60s at closing and opening and has never been an issue since adding the solid tarp over the mesh safety cover.
 
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shwn2405 said:
Thanks for the info, ya I do have a pump. What do you do with the snow @Saturn94 ? Push it off if it accumulates? @vbertone sorry for the hijack
Click to expand...

Snow is a relatively unusual event here. Once in a great while, we’ll get a significant snow (maybe 6”-10”), and it hasn’t been an issue (I never try to remove the snow from the cover). It tends to melt over the next few days and I just pump off the excess water. Btw, I do not lower the pool water level at closing. This helps prevent the liner from floating (we can get nasty nor’easters during the fall/winter that can drop ALOT of rain in a short period). I imagine keeping the water level at normal level also helps support the cover in case of lots of rain or snow.
 
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I used tarps on top of the mesh cover around two edges of the pool last winter for the first time, because we have rocks around the edge of the pool that prevent the cover from sitting tightly. This spring I opened to a lot fewer leaves in the pool, and a lot less algae. I used multiple heavy rocks to hold the tarp on the outside of the pool (where it's either dirt or rocks underneath) and then bungee cords strung across the pool to the regular pool anchors on the other side. By heavy rocks I mean ones that I could barely lift.

We had such strong winds that it managed to blow the tarps around and unhook the bungees and pull the tarp from underneath the rocks, but by then it was Jan/Feb by which point the main leaf problem was over. I'm doing it again this fall but I'm replacing the 30x20 tarp with two 20x12s because I need length not breadth and hopefully having 2 tarps will reduce the amount of dramatic waving around.

As for snow, we had 3 ft in one storm and I left it on the tarps (and the pool cover) like I left it on the rest of the yard. The weight of the snow (or heavy rainwater) on the tarps weighs down the pool cover so it seems to naturally then run from the tarps through the mesh and into the pool.
 
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Saturn94 said:
Since covering the mesh safety cover I’ve noticed a few things:

1. The pool is MUCH cleaner at opening.
2. I can close and open when I want without the water turning green (I close early Oct and open early May). With just the mesh safety cover, I had to wait until late Nov/early Dec to close, and open by the first of March. Even then, there were some green openings. Since adding the tarp, I’ve never had a green opening, even when one year I couldn’t open until early June and the water temp was 80!
Click to expand...
Hi Saturn,

If you don’t mind me asking but why did you have to close later / open earlier with a mesh cover?
 
Aquaman7 said:
Hi Saturn,

If you don’t mind me asking but why did you have to close later / open earlier with a mesh cover?
Click to expand...

TFP teaches to close/open when water temp is below 60 to help avoid opening to a green pool. The mesh cover lets enough light through to encourage algae growth.

With our milder winters here, usually the water temp doesn’t drop below 60 until late November or early December, and by March the water gets above 60. If I didn’t close late enough and open early enough, the pool would be green at opening. If we had particularly mild spells during the winter, sometimes it would be green at opening even if I closed late and opened early. Since adding the solid tarp over the mesh safety cover, I’ve never opened to a green pool, even when closing earlier (usually early Oct) and opening later (usually early May) with water temps well above 60. One year, due to not being able to open until June, the water temp was 80 and the water was still clear! The solid tarp also prevents fine dirt from accumulating on the bottom of the pool making spring cleanup much easier.
 
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