All You Need to Know About Solar Pool Covers vs. Standard Pool Covers

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When choosing pool covers, you must consider what suits you or is convenient for you, depending on your circumstances. You’re to consider many factors, like its purpose, climate in your area, pool type, size, or shape.

Below are the general benefits of swimming pool cover. You will know the type of pool cover that delivers the best advantage so you can decide what to purchase for your swimming pool.

1. Pool Covers Can Retain Heat

A standard pool cover will not contribute much to the actual heating of the pool, but you can retain minimal heat compared to leaving your pools with none at all. However, if you want your pool to get the most heat possible, you should use solar pool covers.

They’re like giant sheets with tiny air pockets that capture heat from the sun and transfer it to the pool water. Solar swimming pool covers can raise the temperature by the pool up to 12 degrees because of their “bubble wrap” feature.

When you’re buying a solar pool cover, you should measure the longest and widest points of the pool to get the most preferred size of your pool cover. Having the right size makes it perform it’s best. Lastly, choose light blue solar pool covers because they do a better job trapping and reflecting the heat into your pool.

2. Pool Covers Save You Energy Costs

You may say that standard swimming pool covers provide the same benefits as solar pool covers, but the truth is… solar pool covers can save you more energy costs.

Solar swimming pool covers can keep the water temperature at 10-15 degrees warmer when used. They help retain pool heat or prevent heat loss from cool air temperature or heat robbing winds at night.

Therefore, you can keep swimming even in the winter in temperate climates (despite the cooler weather) because your pool is already warm. There is less need to keep running your swimming pool heating system before using it.

And if you’re lucky to live in a sunny area, you may not need to turn on your heater. For these reasons, you should notice a reduction in your energy bills when you use a solar pool cover.

3. Less Pool Cleaning

Both types of covers can prevent debris, dirt, and leaves from entering the pool, but standard pool covers discourage algae from growing in your pool in spring when the temperature rises again. Aside from blocking organic matter and rainwater from entering the pool, they keep out sunlight that algae require to bloom.

Now that we’re talking about pool cleaning, it’s best to think automatic because retracting a pool cover could be a heavy work. Consider installing a pool cover roller that will help you do all the heavy lifting. Also, choose a swimming pool cover reel that is hands-free operation and can be installed as a built-in so you would have a no-brainer when pulling up your pool cover.

4. Reduced Chemical Use

High temperatures, lots of humidity, and high winds can increase your pool’s evaporation rate. A pool that is not covered loses up to two inches of water every week due to evaporation. Your chemical use will eventually go up because the chlorine would evaporate with the water.

Evaporation happens every time you simply leave the pool water to stand. The good thing is both covers can dramatically slow the pace of the water evaporation. Thus, you can reduce the amount of make-up chemicals. And here’s one more tip, add stabilizers to your pool water to prevent excessive chlorine evaporation in the hot weather.

5. Pool User’s Safety

Choose standard pool covers if you’re into protection against accidental drowning of children and pets. It has tracks and anchors to the deck or coping. They are available in mesh and solid vinyl materials.

On the other hand, a solar cover freely floats on the water’s surface without the anchors or any other attachments that hold it in place. Thus, solar covers do not have the tension necessary to prevent a child or pet from falling into the water.

But, whatever you choose between them, you must ensure that pool covers serve their purpose well by prolonging their life. You’d be needing a pool roller along with a swimming pool cover reel.

These will help you evenly distribute the cover when removing it. It will also neatly roll the cover-up making it easy to store when not using it. With a pool roller and a swimming pool cover reel, you will avoid tearing and scraping the cover on rocks, paving, or fences.

Standard swimming pool covers such as safety covers, winter covers, and automatic covers act more effectively than the solar cover when it comes to protecting your family member from falling or drowning. On the other hand, you should choose solar swimming pool covers when your need is about absorbing and retaining sunlight and heat in your pool water.

Read also Does My Homeowner Insurance Cover My Swimming Pool?