Summer is always the favorite period in all four seasons for pool owners; it’s the time of the year you can enjoy your swimming pool the way you like and at any time of the day. And I get it if you’re asking yourself, ‘should I cover my pool in the summer.’
The short answer is yes. A pool cover in the summer can help you protect your pool from debris, keep it clean, prevent water and chemical loss. Besides this, it can help keep your swimming pool warm, reduce pool maintenance and increase pool safety. However, there are instances when you will want to leave your swimming pool open, like during a storm or when shocking your pool.
Why? The above is only a list of how you can benefit from a pool cover in the summer. Allow me to elaborate on these points to tell you what I mean.
Benefits of Covering Your Swimming Pool in the Summer
The reasons to cover your pool in the summer outweigh the reasons not to, and that’s why I said the answer is yes. Here is an elaboration of the points.
Reduces Water Loss
Are you familiar with water evaporation? It’s the process where water is heated and turns into vapor.
When this happens in your open swimming pool, the water will escape to the sky. And when the process is repeated, it can lead to water loss.
When I’m talking about water loss, I don’t mean splashes and leaks, which can also cause the same problem, but instead losing water while it stays unused.
During the hot summer, evaporation could fasten the process and reduce the water to the extent of causing damage to your pool skimmer(s) and pump system.
Covering your swimming pool can help reduce the amount of heat reaching the water while also help trap the evaporating moisture inside the swimming pool.
That way, it can help you reduce pool maintenance expenses as you won’t need to refill it often.
Keeps Water Clean
Do you swim daily in the summer? It’s unlikely. For most pool owners, swimming is an infrequent thing. That means you will need to clean your swimming pool of leaves, twigs, bugs, and other debris weekly.
That can be a hassle. When I say this, I don’t mean you can stop cleaning it, but I’m suggesting another way you can make the process easier for yourself, and as you might have guessed it, using a pool cover.
It’s not feasible to clean your pool daily. And when you don’t, the leaves and other debris accumulate in your swimming pool and start clogging your filter system while also setting a perfect condition for algae growth.
Your pool starts to get cloudy; before you know it, you’re forced to rebalance your pool chemicals. That means you will spend more money and crucial time you could have used to take a swim.
Covering your pool when not in use in the summer can prevent all these. It can help protect your swimming pool from debris while also taking away the skimming and filtering strain from the pool filtration system.
Reduces Chemical Usage
There’s a series of ways pool chemicals are lost. One is through evaporation. When the water is heated by the sun, the evaporation causes the water to evaporate, carrying some pool chemicals.
Besides this, chlorine degrades when exposed to UV rays from the sun. With time, your swimming pool is left unprotected.
Another way your pool chemicals can be lost is when the leaves and debris enter the swimming pool and provoke chemical imbalance.
If all the above were to happen, then you’ll be forced to use more chemicals to keep the swimming pool protected and balanced.
Of course, you can prevent all these by covering it with a pool cover in the summer. It ensures the UV rays don’t reach the water, keeps the moisture in the pool, and prevents debris from entering the pool water.
Keeps the Pool Warm & Save on Heating Bills
Tip: Solar showers are a great addition to your pool. Having an outdoor shower next to your swimming pool is a must-have for everyone to rinse off before or after a swim conveniently. See our solar showers available online.
I wouldn’t say I like swimming in the cold unless I need it is those special occasions. Do you? If you’re like me, then you might want to consider covering your pool in the summer.
A pool cover maintains the pool temperature, especially during the night when the temperatures drop. It can help you save on heating bills big time. You can even expect 50%–70% savings.
What’s more, you might even eliminate the need for a solar heater by installing a solar pool cover. It takes free solar energy from the sun and traps it inside the pool, thus heating it.
The figure above shows an estimate of how much you can saves on electricity bills by covering your pool, estimation done by energy.gov
Reduces Maintenance Time
When you reduce the amount of debris that enters the swimming pool, you’ll have an easy time cleaning it. You also reduce the amount of time you’ll need to balance or shock your pool water.
And all that are the benefits you earn from covering your pool in the summer. And apart from all that, the pool cover can also protect the pool’s filtration system and prevent pool stains.
Improves Pool Safety
A safety pool cover is more than a regular pool cover or solar cover. These covers are available in different materials. Some of these types of pool covers can even hold up 180kg when attached and installed correctly.
That means covering your pool in the summer with such a cover will not only keep it debris-free, save you time during the maintenance but also make it safer for the kids and animals running loose around it.
Some safety cover types, such as fiberglass, are pretty heavy. Because of their weight, the best option to use when covering your inground pool would be a retractable pool cover, or automatic pool covers customized and built into your system.
However, keep in mind that tarps and solar covers cannot provide this kind of safety. Don’t use them as you might turn your swimming pool into a tragedy. You might also be fined or charged for negligence.
When Should You Not Cover in the Summer?
Covering your pool in the summer can prove quite beneficial, as I discussed above. However, there are instances where surrounding the swimming pool might not do you any good but risk your cover from damage.
Such time is during a storm or a hurricane. The strong winds experienced can take your cover off, and if tightly fixed, it might tear it apart.
Besides this, the lifting won’t help cover your pool as the debris will still find its way into the pool water. The runoff water might also get in and dirtying your water.
The best move here is to watch the weather and check your weather apps. If they predict a storm or a hurricane, remove the pool cover and store it safely.
After the outside is clear, reduce the water to the regular level, take a leaf net, remove the debris, turn on the pool’s circulation and filtration systems, and balance water chemistry.
Now you can cover it again until your next swim or stormy day.
Related Questions
When should I take my pool cover off?
The best time to take the cover off is to notice there is too much debris on the cover. Of course, you can prevent the accumulation by raking the leaf regularly. There is also the apparent time when you’re maintaining your pool. You cannot clean or shock your swimming pool when the pool cover is on.
How do you take off a pool cover?
Start by removing any debris on it using a leaf rake or if you have a mesh cover, take it off first with all the leaves. The next step is to drain any water that might have collected on the pool cover. You can use a submersible cover pump or a regular drain pump. Once the cover top is clear, you can get some help to roll it off from one side to the other. When it’s all off, you can lay on clean ground and give an excellent cleaning.
Final Verdict!
Should you cover your pool in the summer? Yes. Unless you plan on swimming every day, then consider covering it. It can help you keep it clean, reduce your heating bills and maintenance time. During a heavy storm, you can take it off to prevent damage. Remember not to close it too long as it might contribute to algae growth. You have to follow your maintenance routine to the latter, mainly when the pool water stays warm. Shock it often as algae tend to grow quite fast in warm weather.
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