We’re dedicated to helping our neighbors create safer swimming pools, but a swimming pool cover can do more than just help prevent accidental drownings. Swimming pool covers sit above your pool’s waterline, offering a barrier between it and the outside world. Just about everyone is familiar with the simple leaf covers that are meant to provide a cheap way to keep small debris out of your pool, but modern swimming pool covers go beyond that, protecting your loved ones, lowering your costs of pool ownership, and making sure your swimming pool is more comfortable when you’re ready to use it. Pool covers for inground pools can be one of the best decisions an owner can make.
What Makes A Swimming Pool Safety Cover Different?
Swimming pool safety covers are not the same as leaf covers. Where leaf covers might be lightly anchored to keep them in place, safety covers use sturdy anchors along the edge of your pool to keep potential drowning victims out of the water. Once anchored, the rip-resistant material is strong enough to be walked on or to take the weight of a full-grown person falling toward the water, helping ensure your pool doesn’t become a sight of one of the nearly 4000 annual accidental drowning deaths. It’s one of the best ways to prevent unsupervised access to your swimming pool, and it can be removed or reinstalled in minutes, keeping more of your pool time free to relax, exercise, or have fun with your friends and family.
The Other Benefits Of A Swimming Pool Safety Cover
While drowning prevention is the most important benefit of installing safe swimming pool covers, it isn’t the only one. A pool cover for inground pools works hard to keep other things out–and some things in–to give you a better overall swimming pool experience.
- Your Swimming Pool Cover Saves Water – Water conservation is an important factor in the western states, and one that impacts not only your environment but your pocketbook. Installing and properly using pool covers for inground pools can save up to 50% of the make-up water needed to replace evaporation according to the Department of Energy. The air under your pool cover becomes saturated with evaporated water, slowing the evaporation process. As temperatures fluctuate, water that condenses out of that trapped air is returned to your pool. Without a cover, the saturation point is not reached and the warm moist air rises to be carried away by the breeze, leaving your pool water level to drop lower and lower.
- Your Swimming Pool Stays In Better Chemical Balance – Every pool owner is familiar with the applied chemistry of conditioning their pool water to keep it safe and healthy for swimmers. You use test kits and buy chemicals to adjust its alkalinity, hardness, sanitizer level, and pH. You add algaecide, scale preventer, and introduce regular shock treatments, and all these steps cost money. Your swimming pool cover helps lower your cost of operation by protecting this tenuous balance through two distinct mechanisms. First, by slowing evaporation, as mentioned above, you’re maintaining a more constant volume of water your chemicals are added to. Secondly, some chemicals are broken down by the UV radiation of the sun, while some contaminants, such as algae, are bolstered by it. By covering your pool when it’s not in use, you’re blocking out most of this UV radiation.
- Your Pool Cover Keeps Your Water Cleaner – Pool covers offer a solid barrier that keeps debris out of your pool. Leaves and twigs have long been the bane of pool owners, but if you live in an urban area, there are far worse things that can come over your swimming pool fence. Trash, litter, and pollutants are an ever-present nuisance of city life. Aside from being unsightly, these items, whether carried into your pool by wind or tossed by a neighborhood litterbug, can carry germs and chemical contaminants you don’t want your loved ones floating around in. Once caught by above-ground pool covers, these items can be swept or brushed away before the pool is opened, keeping them away from your water and out of your filter baskets and piping.
- Your Swimming Pool Cover Helps Keep Your Pool Warmer – A good pool cover helps your pool maintain its heat, capturing the sun’s energy and transferring it to the pool so the water is ready when you are. If your pool is heated, this also lowers your energy costs by requiring less energy to build to and maintain a set temperature. Swimming pool covers for inground pools can help protect your pool through cooler months by stabilizing temperature fluctuations that happen throughout the day. If you’re in an area that gets cold winters, winter swimming pool covers take this benefit a step farther, offering insulated protection to avoid pool damage from frosts and freezes.
Fences, Covers, And Nets, Oh My!
As your local pool safety experts, we get a lot of calls about removable mesh pool fences, safety nets, and pool covers. These swimming pool safety barriers are all good choices for pool protection and one or more may be required by the municipal jurisdictions you live in, your HOA, or your insurance carrier. They don’t all offer the same benefits when it does beyond drowning prevention, however.
- Removable Mesh Pool Fencing – This modern pool fencing uses poles anchored in sleeves installed around your pool that support a taut, mesh material to prevent access to your pool area. The self-closing, self-latching gate helps prevent unsupervised access, and the entire fence can be taken down and moved aside in minutes to allow for larger gatherings that require more space. While this does protect a larger area of your yard than a swimming pool safety cover, it doesn’t impact your pool’s evaporative cycle or the direct cost of maintaining your pool’s heat or chemical balance. It’s not uncommon for pool owners to install both a fence and cover, reaping the rewards of both.
- Swimming Pool Safety Nets – Safety nets are an alternative to swimming pool covers that use a mesh of knotted twine and cords to secure the pool and help prevent drownings. Anchored to the deck or surrounding structures and tensioned by springs, nets do little to prevent evaporation or maintain your pool’s condition on their own but are a more flexible alternative for pools that have a unique design, landscaping, or structural features. Often, custom leaf covers designed to be used on top of the safety net are available to help mitigate evaporation and catch debris.
Find The Perfect Swimming Pool Cover For Your Pool
Our local safety pros are ready to help you prevent accidental drownings and find the best cover for your pool setup. They’ll talk to you about your pool needs, take measurements, and give you a written estimate with the best options available. We live in the communities we serve, and we’re always ready to help our neighbors build better, safer pools. Request your free quote from Lifeguard on Duty today.
