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4.5
Works works works. Due to massive amounts of leaves from neighbor's trees, my pool cover was always loaded with them. I purchased a leaf net, but masses of wet leaves make the leaf net impossible for me to remove singlehandedly (it's amazing how volunteers do NOT line up to help with pool maintenance, but WILL line up to use the pool all summer long ...). So, the pressure from the leaves on the regular pool covers would push down on the water, causing it to displace up and out of the pool, slowly, over a few months. Add some snow or blizzards or bad storms that my cover sump pump couldn't keep up with, and every year my pool would completely empty itself of water, the cover would fall in, the liner would get ripped from flying debris, and one year the sidewalls collapsed and I had to rebuild the pool. The least amount of work I ever got away with was scrubbing the liner from top to bottom (took 18 hours) and refilling. Except for that one time where I could scrub the liner and refill, I had to replace my liner to the tune of about $800 (including labor). The last time I replaced the liner, I got someone to help me and we did it ourselves by converting the overlap to beaded, using some other gizmos, and it's still quite wrinkled. Overall, over the five years I've owned this house (the pool came with it), I've spent over $5000 in liner replacements, cover replacements, water, etc.This past fall I bought this micromesh cover and an 8-ft. pillow, which I tied down so it stays in the center of the pool, tenting the cover over it. You HAVE to do this for this type of cover to work properly. There are leaves on the pool. There are puddles of water on the pool. BUT the pool is FULL of water, the sidewalls are standing, the cover is in place, nothing is ripped or broken or empty. The tented cover over the pillow allows plenty of water to pass through the cover, even though leaves are standing in the areas of the cover that touch the water. I don't know what the water looks like under the cover, but I expect it won't be in the greatest of shape. I think some chemicals and a week's worth of running the pump and filter will take care of that problem.Product descriptions for this type of cover say the leaves will dry up and blow off. Poppycock. Won't happen. Water WILL pool on the cover, BUT it ALSO drains through very effectively. You CAN'T use a cover pump because it WILL pump water OUT of your pool. But you don't NEED to pump water off this type of cover; because water is going through the cover, it is replacing water that is being displaced. Excess water comes out of your skimmer. I have a bucket under the skimmer and **try** to remember to empty it regularly.This cover is meant to prevent displacement of the pool water due to weight on top of the cover - that's it. No matter what the marketing hype says. It prevents displacement, and for that purpose it is AMAZING. This is the FIRST time, EVER, that I will not have to spend close to $1000 to open my pool for the summer, and I won't have to spend hours and hours and hours repairing and replacing parts of it.If you do not have problems with water displacement due to weight on top of your cover from leaves, a lot of snow, a lot of rain, etc., then you do not need this cover and it would be a waste of money for you. But for those of you who suffer from all the problems I've had with my pool covers, this is a Godsend.UPDATE 10-2013: Opening the pool the first Spring after using this cover, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the water in the pool. It was not sparkling clear, but it was also not as bad as I'd feared. It was the color of very weak tea, and about a week of a little shocking and a lot of filtering had it crystal clear. I believe had I removed all the dead leaves from the cover as soon as they had all finished falling off the trees, I would have had much clearer water. Part of this is because the leaves decomposed and the rain water passed through that decomposition. Also, many birds, humongous and smaller in flocks, were attracted to the decomposing leaves and the bugs in those leaves and the resulting swampiness and not only did they make much poopiness, they also poked many holes, a couple rather sizable (3 inches or so each). When that Fall came, I thought to myself "well, water passes through the cover anyway, so I don't have to patch these holes." That was a huge mistake. When I opened the pool this past Spring, again not removing the dead leaves over the winter (because getting people to help with that job in December is impossible, but if they want to swim the next summer, they'll help then ...) and again after bird parties on the swampy cover, the pool water looked exactly like a gigantic bowl of split pea soup, complete with pea clumps. So here is what I've learned from that, with some tips for success: 1) Patch the holes you'll get after the first winter. Use Gorilla tape (you can get it here on Amazon); it's amazing. Duct tape is not so amazing. I spent several hours going over the cover thoroughly, patching it. 2) I have a leaf net on top of the cover. It makes it really easy to get the leaves off. I hope to be able to pull it off this December, which will keep the water much cleaner by Spring. 3) Have pots and lids handy so that when you see birds having a Splash Party on the cover (I had 20 big crows on it a couple of hours after putting it on), run outside and bang them (the pots, not the birds). The crows have not been back since I entertained the neighborhood with my pot drum solo. 4) It is impossible to put the cover on and not have it resting on the water in places, even when using a large pillow in the middle. This means water seeps through the top and makes an open invitation to birds and gunk. This year, I have the cover completely off the water because, after the Crow Splash Party, I took all the inflatable pool rings we used during the summer and slid them under the cover around the edges, about two feet from the rail. Next, I put the big pillow in the middle, but only inflated it a bit, so that it is no higher than the pool rings. Lastly, I pulled the cover taut over the rings and pillow, and secured it around the pool rails with cover clips, many many cover clips (this is in addition to the cable). The cover is off the water. I saw a few birds land on the cover, bounce around a little bit, and fly away. YAY!
