Winter Cover Suggestions

mjlinss · Jun 27, 2017

I know it's early but I'm trying to put a budget together now to buy a new winter cover this year. I had to throw mine away this year as we had unusually high winds this winter and it got beat up pretty bad. Typically I close my pool in middle/late September (the kids are in school and sports and weather cools down so they don't get in at that point) and open in the middle of May. My typical procedure is to bring it to shock level, add some preventative algacide, run the pump for a day, and then drain below the return valve and cover and haul equipment in for the winter. My 2 thoughts are:
1) Get a solid winter cover secured with cable and winch, and leaf cover with bungees and bleach jugs filled with sand. We had several trees surrounding our property and fall and spring bring a lot of junk to the pool.
2) Get a sun blocking mesh cover only.

My concern with the mesh cover is that first, we do typically get quite a bit of rain/snow/ice (live in Central Missouri) and the water level would definitely rise quite a bit more than evaporation could handle. And Second, the new water introduced to the pool would deplete the chemicals and I'd be left with a swamp come time to open. Thanks for all you do here on the site and any and all suggestions are much appreciated. I'd like to stay below $200 total for it.

Gomez9356 · Jun 27, 2017

I will be needing a new winter cover as well so I'll be watching this thread.
But for the question of overfilling, last winter when I had it drained below the skimmer I installed an extra 'T' fitting just below the skimmer. When my water level gets too high I can attach a 1 1/2" sump drain tube and drain the excess water into the yard. Beats trying to siphon it out!

ford fanatic · Jun 27, 2017

I came here to make the same thread...

Following...

Lisbek · Jun 30, 2017

I have used the solid covers with the cable and winch and used the plastic wrap for extra security and when the pool froze it dragged the cover loose and there was nothing I could do about. I got a mesh cover last year and it work out perfectly. I use pool pillows to hold the cover up, drained it down below the intakes. I secured it using ground anchors and bungee cords. The snow melted off it. By late spring the pool had filled back up to the outlets. There wasn't really any silt on the bottom. I won't use anything else now. My problem with the solid covers were I couldn't get the leaves from my neighbors tree out the water that collects on the solid cover.

mjlinss · Jul 3, 2017

Lisbek thanks for the reply! How did it affect your water when you opened it in spring? I'm just concerned that adding all of the rain and snow to the water will turn it into a green swamp.

littleitalian · Jul 3, 2017

Solid cover came with our pool package. We got an inexpensive pump from Amazon that kept rain and melted snow from accumulating on top of the cover. We had a pool pillow but water still collected around it. Some friends told us not to use those that truck tire inner tubes are better so we got a big one to use this year when we close it. We only had problems with leaves in the fall. We'd go out with the net and get them off. But it was much better for us to keep the pool water where we left it. The chemicals worked all through the winter and when we took the cover off it was just as clear and clean as when it went on. We did close it a little later than is normal but if that helped, we may do that again. My husband lifted a bit of the cover about once a month (this was our first winter) to check things. So we'll stick with the solid cover.

Lisbek · Jul 7, 2017

The pool was fine when I uncovered it in May. I got a winterizing kit which includes all of the chemicals you need. Added them as specified when the temps stay below 65 degrees, and covered the pool. They recommend, which I did, to add more algicide in March. I got the kit and an additional bottles of algiside and the cover from In The Swim. There are also some great videos on you tube showing the process. It's very simple. I pretty much followed the same timeline as you did. I don't get a lot of snow, but more rain. When I closed the pool I left all of the pvc valves open in case the water level rose too high. I have the pool hard plumbed and use the Intex hoses to the pump so all I have to do is disconnect the hoses and store the pump for winter. For my size pool the kit was $20, additional algicide was $20 and I think the cover was around $50. Well worth the investment!