Pool covers

[SamSpade]

Every year we open the pool, there's always a bit of timing with the weather and a lot of irritation because ---

Over the course of the winter, the pool cover (for an inground pool) gets fill with water. A lot of water. I try to sump pump or wet vac it out, but I can only get so much of it off. Once it's down to oh about a quarter to a half inch, I can't get much more off but if I try to remove it then - a 25 x 40 foot pool cover still will have a LOT of water weight.

Typically I wait for Mister Sun to dry it out enough for me, and get it off before the rain makes me start over.

I hate this yearly dance.

I saw an ad for a "pool cover pump" and a couple posts about how it can be used. It looks a lot like a regular sump pump with spacing and rubber mesh below to keep it from fouling. A post I saw somewhere suggested placing it in the middle of the pool - and the automatic pump will pump out water when it gets above a certain level - and turn itself off.

1. Does anyone have experience with this sort of device? My gut tells me it's not going to be any better than what I use now.
2. How the hell does everyone ELSE do it? I hate fighting that freaking tarp every year and praying it doesn't rain.

 

[Grumpy]

Before I filled in my pool, I covered the pool in the fall and didn't worry about the water on top until spring, then I put a sump pump in the middle and powered it up, it had an automatic switch that shut off when water got to a certain level. The sump pump I used was a big cast iron one that weighed about 30 pounds.. By putting it in the middle, it sunk the cover down enough so all the water flowed to it. I've seen alot of pool cover pumps that were plastic and light weight, those wouldn't work as well. I never had an issue in getting the cover off solo, and usually there was no more than about 5 gallons of water on the cover. This was a 16x32 inground pool.

 

[SamSpade]

Before I filled in my pool, I covered the pool in the fall and didn't worry about the water on top until spring, then I put a sump pump in the middle and powered it up, it had an automatic switch that shut off when water got to a certain level. The sump pump I used was a big cast iron one that weighed about 30 pounds.. By putting it in the middle, it sunk the cover down enough so all the water flowed to it. I've seen alot of pool cover pumps that were plastic and light weight, those wouldn't work as well. I never had an issue in getting the cover off solo, and usually there was no more than about 5 gallons of water on the cover. This was a 16x32 inground pool.

Thanks. That's actually exactly what I wanted to know.

 

[Bonehead]

I put three plastic barrels tied off under the cover to "tent" the cover so no accumulation happened. That was for a 15 X 25' pool.