Wow.... Bleach consumption cut in half with a solar cover

[brent.roberts]

I recently went into a local major pool store and asked for a clear cover and they looked at me like I had rocks in my head.

I suspect the "blue" idea was to attract attention to the "product" to help sell more.

If you want to keep solar gain down in a car or in a room in your house, you tint the windows don't you ????

So they tell me the blue cover generates heat. Yeah sure. Then they put in the air bubbles that create an insulation layer the keeps a large part of that heat on the top surface of the cover. No thanks. Give me clear. Let the radiation penetrate the pool as much as possible.

My wife likes it at 90 degrees.

We are heating a 16x32 IG with solar panels and have a lot of wind in top of the hill where the pool sits. The water loss through evaporation is terrific. Maybe Chem Geek can tell us how many calories are lost when 1/4" of water evaporates. It's a big number and will translate into a lot of degrees.

I find the biggest reduction in loss is at night. To conserve your heat make sure you cover at night.

If your pool is in a well protected area and not subject to much wind, covering during the day is not so important, but will still make a difference.

With the tests I've tried, get a clear cover, run the pump intermittently so the water is moving under the cover and transfers the heat away from the cover resulting in less loss back up throught the cover.

The "heavy duty diamond" covers are just that ... heavy. After they start to break down and some bubbles break and others lose the air in them, they don't float to well. That means water on top of the cover and that means evaporation again and ..... why did we put the cover on the first place ... to stop the evaporation.

Get the lightest, clearest, cheapest cover you can find. It won't last anyway. Keep the water off the top of it. Protect it when its rolled up and you'll get the best bang for your buck.

You can tell this is a favorite rant of mine.

Good luck