Installing or renovating a swimming pool is a thrill for any homeowner. It adds a lot of functionality to your backyard, and gives you a centrepiece that can be the life of the party when you invite friends and family over.
But once you’ve made the dive into pool ownership, you’ll need to make sure you protect both your investment and the ones you love with a reliable cover.
For many pool owners, safety covers are becoming the cover of choice for the following reasons:
Safety
As the name suggests, the primary purpose of a safety cover is to give homeowners with young children or pets the peace of mind that their pool area will be safe during the fall and winter months.
Other options, such as tarps or lock in covers, can’t protect against accidents in the same way as safety covers — and may result in serious injury or death.
This added degree of safety is the reason why many pool owners see the value of investing in safety covers to help protect their family.
Visual Appeal
The second biggest benefit of safety covers is how they improve the look of the pool in the off-season.
As Canadians, we have a fairly short pool season that lasts around 5 months. For the rest of the year, the pool is closed.
Using a safety cover helps maintain a clean, neat and visually appealing backyard. You can work together with a local pool contractor to choose from five different designer colours that can match or accentuate the existing colour styles and accents in your outdoor living spaces.
Other methods of covering a pool can result in standing water and surface debris, which can be distracting or even potentially cause damage to the pool.
Installation
Installing a safety cover can be surprisingly challenging and isn’t a task that just anyone should tackle. It typically requires having a friend or two who can help with the installation process to ensure that the cover is attached properly.
Overlooking any details can result in the cover not providing adequate safety or could result in damage to the pool once winter weather arrives.
If you’re looking to save on time and effort, you can contact your local pool company to help ensure that your pool cover installation goes off without a hitch.
Opening your pool
Once springtime rolls around you should plan to remove your safety cover and prepare your pool one to two weeks before the first swim of the season.
This gives you enough time to remove any excess water or debris from the cover, and then put in the necessary filtration, vacuuming and maintenance work in order to ensure your pool is crystal clear.
Winter Maintenance
Just because your pool isn’t in use doesn’t mean you can neglect your safety cover!
Safety covers are designed to allow fall rain and winter snow to filter through which means depending on the severity of the winter your pool can start to fill quickly. This means you will want to monitor the height of the water levels. Snow and rain can increase the amount of water in the pool — and if the water level gets too high it can cause damage to the pool coping when it freezes.
This can be prevented by making sure to check your pool on a periodic basis, or by getting in touch with a company like Pool Craft to take advantage of our winter check program. We’ll check your pool levels each month, and then measure, record and pump it to a safe level if the water level in the pool or spa is too high.
Whatever size or shape of pool you have, safety covers can keep your pool snug and safe all year long!
