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Pros & Cons Of Automatic Pool Covers

With the summer season ending, the time is ripe for you to start thinking about how you’ll cover your swimming pool for the upcoming winter months. While you might be satisfied with your safety covers, some are still unsure about the available market options.

It helps to research the pros and cons of your swimming pool safety covers before making your purchases.

Most customers opt for automatic pool covers for improved chemical and energy savings and safety features. Even so, automatic pool covers come with their share of problems.

The three top problems include cleaning and maintenance, power loss, and animals during winter.

Cleaning and Maintenance

Usually, automatic pool safety covers come from vinyl and can withstand sun rays. Even so, with time, this material will rot away.

So, you’ll need a vinyl material cleaner alongside a UVA protectant. Using these two products will help extend the life service of your automatic safety covers by slowing down the dry rotting process.

If you have taken good care of your safety swimming pool cover for more than ten years, you may spend $6,000 above the amount used to install the pool safety cover.

You’ll need to clean your automatic pool cover material every year. This measure helps clear off debris and leaves from the material and conditions your material with UVA or UVB.

Your automatic safety pool cover depends on ropes, a motor, and a pulley system. So, as your safety pool cover ropes stretch from the weight on top, you’ll need to consider rope adjustments.

That way, your cover material comes out square to your swimming pool’s shallow end. You’ll also need to replace your safety pool cover material and pool liner after every six to nine years.

By this time, your material will have ripped off or dry rot. However, the service life of your automatic pool covers will depend on how well you can maintain them.

Read More: Why Do You Need A Pool Safety Cover?  

Power Loss

Have you ever wondered why your pool cover won’t open or close anymore? The most common problems consumers experience include power loss, broken ropes, and the cover coming off the tracks.

Like any other electronic appliance in your house, your safety pool cover breaker could run faulty. This makes your automatic pool cover not get any or enough power.

In such a case, you may need to replace your circuit breaker or solve a bigger problem.

Animals During Winter

During the winter season, the weather can become freezing. Mostly, you’ll find rodents and insects tending to invade your cover housing unit with a motor and cage mechanism in search of warmth.

Unfortunately, these rodents can chew through your wires and ropes and make holes in your automatic pool covers. This damages your best pool covers and shortens the service life.

Pros of Automatic Pool Covers

There are several advantages of automatic pool covers. They include the following.

Helping Heat Your Pool

An automatic safety cover over your pool helps the water retain more heat. The more heat you have in the water, the more comfortable you’ll swim.

Increasing Safety

While it’s true that safety pool covers won’t prevent all safety issues from happening to your pool, they provide an added safety layer. This helps to keep your swimming pool a little bit more protected.

Keeping the Pool Clean

Another advantage of automatic pool covers is to help keep your swimming pool clean. These safety covers reduce the amount of dirt falling into your pool.

So, you won’t have to worry about cleaning your pool, filters, and traps often.

Reducing Evaporation

When you install a pool safety cover, you also reduce the rate of water evaporating from your swimming pool. This measure helps your pool retain enough water to swim with comfort.

Faster Closing and Opening of Pool

Unlike manual safety covers, automatic pool covers use electric power. The power facilitates the fast closing and opening of your pool cover, unlike what would be the case with a manual pool safety cover.

Read More: Find The Right Safety Cover For Your Pool

Cons of Automatic Pool Covers

Despite the several advantages, automatic pool covers have a few cons:

Keeps Chlorine In

One demerit about automatic pool covers is that they keep chlorine in. This also happens when you’re using a salt generator.

Salt and chlorine can corrode away the metal parts of your safety pool cover. Unfortunately, your safety covers hold the chlorine inside, making the compound not dissolve as it should.

Ensure you keep your water-chlorine levels to the minimum if using automatic pool covers.

Can Heat Pool Too Much

The vinyl material for your automatic safety pool covers can make perfect solar covers. So, this ends up overheating your swimming pool, sometimes up to 95 degrees.

If your pool heats up too much, you can leave your covers open or try to cool your pool off. Unfortunately, your huge investment won’t be serving the original purpose.

You can cool your swimming pool off by using your heat pump chiller. Still, this will increase your operational cost.

Power Dependable

Automatic pool covers rely on electrical power to function. So, if you experience blackouts, your safety pool cover won’t work.

Also, if the power system trips, your automatic pool cover will neither close nor open as it should.

Cost

Automatic pool covers are costlier than other in-ground pool covers. The amount you part with will vary depending on factors like the size and shape of your pool, among others.

You should be ready to spend between $8000 and $20,000 for your automatic pool covers. Regular maintenance of your pool safety covers is also not a cheap adventure.

You must prepare to part with at least $1000 every year for cleaning and maintaining your swimming pool safety cover.

Read More: Pool Safety Covers – FAQ

Takeaway

Also known as retractable pool covers, automatic pool covers have become a trend for individuals with in-ground pools. The covers allow ease of use and protect your swimming pool when not in use.

You must perform regular maintenance on your automatic pool cover materials for extended service life. Ensure you get your services from the best players in the industry.

Contact us for your pool safety covers in Ontario.