Swimming Pool Solar Covers

Solar Covers

1. They heat the pool.

If you have a pool, you want to swim in it. That means that you’ll need to keep it at a comfortable temperature for swimming. The most cost effective way to do this, is to utilize the sun's heat to heat your pool. This is where swimming pool solar covers come in. These pool blankets can heat your pool up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit! The difference between a 65 degree pool and a 75 degree pool is staggering, I can assure you!

Swimming pool solar covers are one of the most effective ways to heat your pool, and they are just as efficient at heating your pool as a solar heating system!

2. They keep that heat in the pool.

Once you're successful at heating your pool, you want to make sure that you keep it warm. Swimming pool solar covers not only harness the sun’s warmth, but they retain it too. Even if I’ve had the cover off all day long so that I could swim, I make sure the solar cover is back on at night to keep the heat from the day inside the pool. This method of heat retention will be important even if you have a heater attached to your pool. Your heater can only provide so much warmth to your pool, and overnight there is a large amount of heat that can escape. Swimming pool solar covers ensure that all that heat put into the pool during the day stays where it belongs!

3. They reduce evaporation.

Is water evaporation that much of a concern? Well, maybe it is! When pool water evaporates, more water needs to be added to the pool to retain appropriate levels. When fresh water is added to the pool, more pool chemicals need to be added. So you’re not only losing money from the water that you’re adding to the pool, but through the additional chemicals that need to be added once the water evaporates. Do yourself a favor, and keep the pool covered as often as you’re able to! On a side note, be sure to add your chemicals to the pool when the solar cover is OFF! Adding chemicals to the pool with the cover on will cause the cover itself to break down and deteriorate that much more quickly. Trust me on this, I just had it happen to me.

4. They keep leaves and other debris out of the pool.

It’s surprising to me how much debris is kept out of the pool through the use of swimming pool solar covers, but it actually does work. When my pool isn’t in use for several days in a row, and the cover is placed on the pool, it stays as clean as it was the last time I used it. If I leave the cover off, all of the leaves and other debris that fall go straight to the bottom of my pool. Trust me on this one. I’ve got a lot of debris, and I’ve tried lots of different methods to keep it away, and/or get rid of it. Swimming pool solar covers go a long way in prevention!

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Swimming Pool Solar Covers - Ease of Use

I have to laugh at the pictures that are on the side of the box when you purchase a solar cover. I’ll post a picture of it when I’m able to get one, but let me describe it here. There’s a beautiful young woman, in a bikini, gracefully pulling a solar cover over her pool with one hand.

Excuse me while I pick myself off of the floor from laughing!! Let’s just say that it is SO NOT that easy!

Swimming pool solar covers are essentially huge sheets of bubble wrap. I have a 30 foot round pool, and when the solar cover is folded into a nice package, I can actually lift it by myself. HOWEVER, maneuvering it on and off your pool, and rolling it up and unrolling it is a challenge to say the least! If you’re going to get a solar cover, which I highly recommend you do, I also recommend that you invest in a Reel System from someone like PoolCenter.com to make covering and uncovering your pool easier to do. I can assure you that it’s worth every penny. I’m pretty stubborn, so I have tried to live without the reel system for several years, and it’s just not working for me. Trust me, you need the reel system.

Reel System

If you have a square inground pool, you can find a very easy, user friendly reel system that will lay at one end of the pool, and easily role the solar cover up up and away. If you have an above ground pool, or an odd-shaped pool, you will still be able to install a reel system, but you may have to deal with some difficulties.

For example, I should be able to swing my reel system out of the pool to get it out of the way, however the child safety pool fence makes this impossible for me, so in order to remove it from the pool I do need someone’s help.

Swimming pool solar covers come with a lot of nuances to deal with and think about, but they are definitely worth the effort. This is one of those amenities that I think is an absolute must for every pool owner!

Swimming Pool Safety You Need to Know If You Have a Swimming Pool

In anticipation of the warm summer weather and summer holidays many people dream of spending their days by the pool. Whether you have a large in-ground or aboveground pool, or simply a small inflatable swimming pool, floating in the cooling water is a relief on those hot summer days. But there are some precautions you should take to ensure that the time you and your family spend in and around the swimming pool are safe as well as fun.

Do you have a swimming pool in your backyard? Then you need to know about swimming pool safety, especially if you have kids. There are many ways that something bad can happen in and around a pool if you don’t know pool safety. So, you will want to make sure that you learn all you can about being safe around a pool to make sure nothing happens to anyone at your home.

Here are some swimming pool safety tips that will help you to start learning about pool safety.

One: You always need to make sure that if there are kids around the pool, that there is an adult around who knows how to swim to watch them. Don’t ever leave kids around pools unsupervised. If you do run into trouble knowing CPR could help save someone's life. Contact your city or local Saint John’s ambulance for CPR course.

Two: When you have an underground pool you want to have a fence around it with a gate that will lock. This will help keep kids out if an adult can’t be there to supervise.

Three: It is always a good idea even when you have a fence around your pool to add an alarm. This will tell you when someone has gone through the gate when they are not supposed to. So, if you have kids and the alarm sounds you can be there in a hurry to stop anything from happening.

Four: Don’t allow alcohol around your swimming pool. This is one of the swimming pool safety rules that a lot of adults don’t think about, especially if there are no kids around. Alcohol can alter a person’s perception, which can be dangerous for the person who has consumed the alcohol but especially if there are kids around. You just need to remember that alcohol and swimming just doesn’t mix, so don’t do it.

Five: When you have an above ground swimming pool you want to remove the steps or ladder when the pool is not in use. This swimming pool safety tip is very important because kids are very curious and will always climb stairs or a ladder when they see one. So, you have to remember to remove the way into the pool each time after you use your pool.

2 Simple Ways To Slow Down Calcium Buildup

There are 2 SIMPLE and EASY things you can do to slow down calcium buildup. . . and neither one costs you a dime! 

The first way to slow down calcium buildup is to brush the tile line (water line) weekly. This two minute job has a big impact on slowing the calcium buildup, but yet it is something that many pool owners neglect to do. 

Before I give you the second way, I want to talk a little bit about the cause of calcium buildup (as it will help the second way make more sense when I talk about it). Calcium buildup on pool tiles is a direct result of the amount of calcium in the water. 

That calcium in the water can come in the form of hard water. Every geographical area wil have different levels of hardness in the water. 

Calcium in the water can also come from the chemicals you regularly add to your pool. You are adding chemicals to your pool every single week (even if you have a salt system). 

Think of your pool as a cup of tea. If you keep adding sugar to that cup of tea, at some point saturation takes place and our tea can’t handle all the sugar you’re putting in it. When that happens, absorbtion becomes more and more difficult. The same is true with the chemicals you add to your pool. 

Calcium buildup can therefore occur in any part of the pool that is under water. The most common place it occurs, though, is at the water line. 

Another way to slow down the natural buildup of TDS in your pool (especially if you already have a known calcium or TDS issue with your water), is to backwash your pool frequently. That way, you are replacing saturated water with fresh water (assuming, of course, that the hardness of the “fresh” water is lower than the hardness level of the water you’re replacing in the pool).

How Do I Calculate My Swimming Pool Volume?

How much do I need for my pool?

Whenever you get pool supplies, the instructions say x ounces per 1,000 gallons or something similar. So how many gallons of water does my swimming pool hold?

There are a lot of sites on the internet that tell you how to work out your pool volume. These easy to use pool volume calculators (site below) from the Pool Wizard make life so much easier.

You just put in the measurements and it spits out the answer. I tested it out and it consistently gives ‘clean’ results to the nearest 100 gallons. I found this very nifty, after all, who wants a result like 11,489 gallons. It seems unwieldy and unnecessary to have such an accurate result as opposed to 11,500 gallons, which is just as good when it comes to swimming pool volume and chemical dosing.

The Pool Wizard site have also made provision for those who use metric values. You put in the measurements in meters and it gives metric pool volume results (in cubic meters - site below) as well as the conversion into gallons.

Pool volume calculator site: http://www.poolwizard.net/pool-volume/

Metric pool volume site: http://www.poolwizard.net/metric-pool-volume/

2 Simple Ways To Slow Down Calcium Buildup

There are 2 SIMPLE and EASY things you can do to slow down calcium buildup. . . and neither one costs you a dime! 

The first way to slow down calcium buildup is to brush the tile line (water line) weekly. This two minute job has a big impact on slowing the calcium buildup, but yet it is something that many pool owners neglect to do. 

 

Before I give you the second way, I want to talk a little bit about the cause of calcium buildup (as it will help the second way make more sense when I talk about it). Calcium buildup on pool tiles is a direct result of the amount of calcium in the water. 

That calcium in the water can come in the form of hard water. Every geographical area wil have different levels of hardness in the water. 

Calcium in the water can also come from the chemicals you regularly add to your pool. You are adding chemicals to your pool every single week (even if you have a salt system). 

Think of your pool as a cup of tea. If you keep adding sugar to that cup of tea, at some point saturation takes place and our tea can’t handle all the sugar you’re putting in it. When that happens, absorbtion becomes more and more difficult. The same is true with the chemicals you add to your pool.

Calcium buildup can therefore occur in any part of the pool that is under water. The most common place it occurs, though, is at the water line. 

Another way to slow down the natural buildup of TDS in your pool (especially if you already have a known calcium or TDS issue with your water), is to backwash your pool frequently. That way, you are replacing saturated water with fresh water (assuming, of course, that the hardness of the “fresh” water is lower than the hardness level of the water you’re replacing in the pool).

3 Tips To Closing Your Swimming Pool For The Winter

Closing or winterizing your swimming pool is very important, especially for the folks living places where it gets really cold. Last year in the northeast, we had the biggest snowfall in decades. Could you imagine not closing your pool for that? We have put together some important tips to use while closing your swimming pool for the upcoming seasons.

#1 – Use An Air Pillow (For Above Ground Pools)

Air pillows serve multiple purposes, but the most important purpose is the fact that they protect your pool from being damaged by ice expansion. In the winter when the water in your pool freezes, the ice expands and puts pressure on the walls of your pool. This could cause the walls to break (this has happened to my pool). By using an air pillow in the middle of your pool, the pillow absorbs the expansion of the ice, relieving the pressure off your pool walls.

#2 – Lower Your Pool Water

In today’s market there are skimmer plates that block the skimmer holes which allows you to keep your pool filled at normal level. These are very popular and I’m not really sure why. Lowering your pool water is actually a good thing. When you are constantly putting pool chemicals into your pool, you are building up your TDS (Total Dissolved Solids). Over time this can lead to problems. Adding more chemicals to fix problems over and over again can be a bad thing. However, in the summer we have splash-out and evaporation, so we are always topping off the pool with more water. This is slowly diluting the water, which is a good thing. So, a good time to add some fresh water is in the spring, and if your pool is already full because you used a skimmer plate, then you won’t be able to give your pool fresh water.

#3 – Make Sure Your Chemicals Are Balanced Before You Close

I know you are the perfect pool owner. You keep your chemicals in check all season long. You monitor your pH and alkalinity levels like a hawk. You always make sure your sanitizer levels are perfect, keeping your family and friends clean and safe. Because I know you are this way, then I don’t have to tell you to make sure it’s perfect just before you close the pool, right? You just want to make sure you pH isn’t low and your sanitizer level is good, even high. Low pH can be bad over the winter. Your pool water becomes stagnate acid that can eat away at your liner. Also, keeping your sanitation level perfect (or even slightly higher) is a great way to prevent algae from growing in your pool over the winter. No one wants to open up thier pool to a green mess in the spring.

Here a just a few tips to help you along your way to closing your swimming pool. Remember that closing your swimming pool is important and taking care of your pool throughout the season and following a tight closing regiment will allow you to open up a to a clear and clean pool in the spring time.