OT: winter pool covers: mesh or solid ?

[surfgirl]

Winterizing our pool in the next week or so and trying to decide upon a type of cover. Does anyone have pros/cons for mesh vs. solid (vinyl I guess ?) ?

thanks

 

[MyDizneyBoyz]

Back when we had a house with a pool, I preferred the mesh as rain and snow don't accumulate on top of it and put strain on it and perhaps tear it or if you use water bags to hold it in place, possibly pull one corner or side down into the pool. I know mesh lets little pieces of debris in but my feeling is that when we open the pool it gets a thorough cleaning anyway.

We had the mesh that anchors into the concrete and I liked it. It looked nice all winter, stayed tight, did what it was supposed to do - I was happy.

 

[Melrosgirl]

Solid - pros - pool is so much cleaner when you open it up in the spring
Cons - it's super heavy. You have to (should) pump the water off of it from melted snow during the winter. Kind of pain.

Mesh - I can't think of any pros really other than I guess there is no accumulation of stuff on it obviously, but most pools I see with the mesh covers look so bad in the spring.

 

[5 for WDW]

We had a mesh cover on our pool this past winter (inground). When we opened the pool this summer it was a disaster. The cover acted like a strainer if you know what I mean. Everything that settled on the cover (leaves, branches) would strain through into the pool. The water was literally black when we opened the pool.
It cost us a lot of money and time (my husbands as well as our pool guy) to get it maintainable.

We bought a solid one this fall.

 

[nyyankeegirl]

We are trying double duty this year! We've had the solid, but the leaves still settle on top & turn the water into a nasty mess. This year we bought a mesh leaf cover that we put on top of the solid cover. We have lots of trees that drop their leaves like crazy, so we are thinking about maybe taking the leaf cover off during the peak part of leaf dropping, then emptying it in the woods & recovering again. We are in NC, so our leaves won't really start falling for another week or two. Right now it's still looking good.

Also, another suggestion would be to put in a bunch of pool pillows under the covers. That will help stop the covers from settling into the water, hopefully stopping the nasty mess. We have about 6 large pillows this year. We've added a few more since last year.
Good luck! BTW, DH is my "pool boy"!!

 

[Melrosgirl]

I should add that if you get the solid cover, be sure to have it anchored to the ground. So much better that way. Don't use the water bags. We paid $2000 for the solid cover (20x40 pool) six years ago.

 

[cruellababy]

We also have the mesh safety cover for our inground; the year we waited till May to open it was black as the sunlight and some warmth had a chance to react with the leaves etc that managed to get in! But, this past season we opened in April and it was as clear as when we closed it in Oct. My neighbor also has an inground and he always opens his in April- I asked him how the water stayed so clear-he said in about Feb he shakes in 2 bags of shock under the egde of the cover and opens in April; it worked like a charm for us this past season!

 

[Emma's Dad]

We had an inground pool at our last house and it came with a solid cover. I personally did not like having to pump the water off of the cover and trying to get all the "yuck" off of it before removing the cover in the spring. I usually ended up getting some of the "yuck" in the pool anyway!

We bought a mesh safety cover the third year and I absolutely loved it. Oh... the only negative I can think of was the drilling of 32 holes in the concrete to put install the anchors. Tried it without a hammer-drill at first... what a mistake!

 

[HeatherSue]

I suggest getting whatever is safest!! I used to babysit for a family that had a cover that was stretched really tight over the pool and anchored with bolts all around. It was a PITB to remove every time they wanted to swim, but it saved me from constantly worrying that one of them was going to drown. I've known too many kids who have drowned in pools, so make sure you get whatever is safest (even if you have a fence around it already). Just my two cents!

 

[cheerforchelsea]

I am in Alabama and since it doesn't get too awfully cold I decided that if I ever had it to do again (we moved from our house with the inground pool) I would just keep the pool open all year (but not swim in it of course).....it was such a nightmare to "open" in the spring....we had a solid cover but somehow crap managed to still get in the pool...along with the constant accumulation of water on top of the cover all winter.

 

[Melrosgirl]

This thread makes me so glad we no longer have a pool. LOL. Memories.