BLUE ICE POOL

Inground pools and fiberglass pools are a lot of fun, but they can also be a lot of work. If you already own a pool, or if you’re thinking about owning a pool, you should know that properly maintaining your pool is going to cost you a little bit of money and will require you to do some work from time to time (unless you hire a pool service).  There are many swimming pool accessories that can help with this task, but they won't get all the work done for you!  Not only do you have to keep your pool clean, keep the swimming pool chemicals balanced, and maintain the pool filters, but you have to remember to put out the swimming pool cover whenever it is required (this is also true for hot tubs...use a hot tub cover!).

You can always hire a pool cleaner to do all of that general maintenance stuff for your pool. He’ll probably charge you an arm and a leg to do stuff that you can just as easily do on your own but at least you won’t have to worry about it right? Well, if you’re like me and you’re struggling to make ends meet in these trying economic times, you probably want to save a little money. Get rid of the pool boy and learn to do the pool maintenance yourself! Here’s the first step: Learn how to use your swimming pool cover.

The swimming pool cover is the foundation of pool maintenance. Your pool cover is going to protect your pool from weather damage, it is going to keep things like branches and squirrels from falling into the water, and it is also going to keep the pool’s waters at an even temperature and level. If you fail to cover your pool properly at the necessary times you are going to end up with a broken down pool that will cost you a lot of money to fix up.

So What is a Pool Cover and How Does it Work?

Swimming pool safety covers protect the pool from all kinds of potentially damaging things. 

There are a few different types of swimming pool covers but they all basically serve the same purpose: protect the swimming pool from danger. The basic swimming pool cover is a large plastic sheet designed to fit the form of the pool exactly. It covers all points of the pool and shields the water (or the empty basin) from anything that might fall in (including pool toys and pool floats that could damage of if left in the pool).

A swimming pool winter cover is designed specifically to protect against the harsh temperatures of the winter months. You might not need one of these in places like Florida and California, but if it snows in your area you want to put a winter cover over your pool. As the temperature falls and the water freezes, snow is going to start to come down. If snow gets into your pool it is going to cause some serious damage. Ice tends to expand and contract as it freezes and melts. This expansion process can crack your pool and cause some serious weather damage. You don’t want that to happen.

Winter swimming pool covers will keep your pool from freezing like the pool pictured above.

Solar swimming pool covers serve just the opposite purpose as the winter covers. A swimming pool solar cover is designed to trap the heat given off by the sun inside the pool. You can use solar pool covers to heat up your pool so that it is nice and warm when you dive in.

Enough Jibber Jabber! How Do You Use the Pool Cover?

Using a swimming pool safety cover is pretty simple really. All you have to do is unfurl the plastic or vinyl sheet and fasten it down on all sides of the pool. There are three types of pool covers: the manual pool cover, the semi-automatic pool cover, and the automatic pool cover.

Manual pool covers are going to require the most amount of work because you have to unfurl it when you want to cover the pool and you have to fold it up when you want to uncover the pool.  With automatic ones all you have to do is flip a switch. When you flip the switch a swimming pool cover pump will automatically reel in the cover.

A pool cover is one of many pool accessories to keep your pool clean, but I highly recommend it as one of the best and most simple to use for all inground swimming pools.  Please remember that a pool cover is not an appropriate replacement to pool fencing.