Pros and Cons of Automatic Pool Covers

If you’re planning to have a pool installed in your backyard, you’re looking at all the options and accessories and no doubt you’ve come across the automatic pool cover. We are going to discuss the pros and cons of an automatic pool cover.

Pool Covers are expensive

We’re going to start off by saying a lot of people generally think that automatic covers cost about $5,000 until they begin to do their research and realize they actually cost between 12 and $22,000. Yes, I know that’s a lot higher than you might have been thinking, but at least now you know the truth and the factors that really affect the final price tag of that automatic cover have to do with the size of your pool, the material you choose, and of course all the motor and installation components that need to go in. So now you know, $12,000 up to $22,000, not $5,000 and you’ve got a range in mind.

Pool covers keep heat in

An automatic cover can be very useful to keep the heat in your pool. If you have a heater on your pool, it’s going to help heat your pool up a lot faster. If you don’t, the sunlight itself will heat up that cover and keep that natural heat inside your pool. On the con side, pools with automatic covers that keep the cover on can actually get the water too hot. So on a hot summer day, it may not be as cooling and refreshing as you would like it to be. So you just have to monitor the temperature of your pool. Pull that cover back to let some of that heat dissipate and bring your cool temperature back into the range where you would like to have it.

Pool Cover adds Safety features

Automatic pool covers add safety features to your pool, but what can happen is components get stuck. Sometimes the motors freeze up. We’ve got a lot of mechanical moving parts here, and let’s face it, nothing is foolproof these days. So if you’re planning to have a lot of people over, make sure you test the cover itself several hours before or even the evening before, just to make sure the pool is going to open. The last thing you want is to have the entire party arrive for that delicious barbecue you made only to find out the cover won’t open. So on the pro side, they keep people out. On the con side, sometimes they keep people out when you don’t expect them to.

Pool Covers keep debris in

While automatic covers are very good at keeping debris out of your pool. So think about cutting the grass or there’s a really dry summer day and the wind’s blowing dust and debris around, the automatic cover is very good at keeping all of those particulates out of your pool. However, an automatic cover will also trap that chlorine smell in your pool. Now that’s actually not chlorine, but rather the byproduct of used chlorine. In which case we’re really talking about chloramines. So when you open it up, you can get hit with that big, intense smell that we’ve all experienced when we are around a pool. So make sure that cover gets opened every so often to let that gas escape and be prepared for it when you do open your pool.

Pool Covers can Replace Fences

An automatic pool cover can replace a fence in many localities. On the con side, it’s often much more expensive than having a fence installed. So you just need to weigh out what are the safety features you must have on your pool? What’s your comfort level and what’s in the budget? As for the rest of the story, when it comes to automatic pool covers, you need to think about ownership cost and maintenance over time. About the five to seven-year mark, you should anticipate some expense and possibly replacing the cover itself, or maybe the motor or some different components. So you probably want to budget several hundred to a thousand dollars a year to account for those major repairs at about the five to seven-year mark.

Pool covers can be added to existing pools, if you’re looking to have a pool cover installed on your existing St. George Utah Pool, give Polo Pools a call to find out what your options are.