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Pool Covers
Covering the pool in the winter can protect it from the weather and make for an easier opening with clear water. The type of cover that is best for you depends on the weather you get in your region of the country. Does the cover need to handle the weight of a few feet of snow? Do you get high winds?
Pool covers can also provide safety that no people, children or animals fall into the pool. To be a safety cover it must have strong material and anchors to support the weight of being walked on.
In-Ground Pools
Mesh or solid covers?
In-ground pool covers are secured by Pool Cover Anchors on the deck or grass.
Custom Covers
Meyco, Looploc, GLI, Merlin are all major brands for custom in-gorund pool covers. Pool Covers Direct is an online source for custom made pool covers.
Standard Covers
Automatic Covers
An automatic cover prevents children and pets from getting into your pool when you can't be there and it minimizes evaporation and retains heat in the pool water.
Automatic covers open and close at the turn of a switch. You need to have the right shape and size pool for an automatic cover to fit, usually rectangle. Freeform shaped pools cannot have an automatic cover.
An automatic pool cover typically has a pit at one end of the pool where the motor is and the cover rolls into. Tracks on the side of the pool guide the covers movement. The tracks can be built into the sides of the coping or placed on the deck along the sides of the pool.
Automatic covers are not designed to support the weight of snow. In areas where a pool with an automatic cover is winterized the automatic cover will be replaced by an in-ground pool cover anchored to the ground.
Lantham Pool Products manufacturers the Coverstar[1] automatic pool cover
Above Ground Pools
Above ground pools have different cover requirements then in-ground pools. You don't have to worry about the cover being walked on, but the methods of anchoring down a cover in an above ground pool can be challenging. Especially if you are in a high wind area.
Often a tarp is thrown over the pool and tied down.
