Hi Waste, Happy Spring back at ya! (ah choo!)

Thanks for the reply and the new concept to think about. I dropped the water below the vacuum port and filled the skimmer with styro balls before covering the pool. The face plate covers the skimmer and vac port but is a bear to put on and may have a gap in the rim somewhere.

I recently pumped a good 3 -4 ft of water off the cover top - yeah, once the iceberg melted. It went from 20F to 60F in about a week here with little in between. I couldn't pump it during the winter because the water on top was solid most of the winter. I don't know if the pool water froze. It isn't frozen now.

We tried a solid cover this year to see if I could avoid the spring pea soup syndrome. I was going to use a pillow but because I had to drop the water level below the skimmer, (I couldn't get the face plate installed with the water higher) didn't have enough extra on the sides to accommodate a pillow and still secure it.

I did note that the water is still clear! I think that I'll double check the patches while the water level is lower (Might have a better chance at staying submerged!) and might re-patch them just for security's sake but you might just have nailed the reason for my water loss.

Thanks. I feel better.

CoffeeBean