Is it necessary to drain winter cover/

[poolbee]

We have about 3 inches of rain on our cover now and a lot more is expected in the next days. Is it necessary to drain the water off of it? It is an inground pool.

Thank you!

[Poconos]

Not sure but if it were my situation I would drain it off. In NY it will be ice soon and you'll wind up with the cover frozen in ice. What has been your experience in previous years (if there were any) with snow buildup? I have a mesh loop-lock that I don't use anymore because every Spring it would be frozen in this massive ice block with the springs stretched. Think this will be the 4th Winter without a cover.
Al

[poolbee]

This is our first year with the pool so no experience. But a friend tells me she doesn't drain off the cover, but ends up putting large heavy rocks around the cover along with the water bags because it gets pulled into the pool. Maybe if it was drained this wouldn't happen? Wholly cow-it is snowing/sleeting right now! Good grief! I live near Buffalo-tons of snow every year :(

[brittmer]

If it is just a tarp then it should be OK. I use a tarp on mine and hold the edges down with the water filled bags and sand bags. The tarp rests on top of the water so water on the top of the tarp won't make a difference. Actually helps hold it down in the wind.

If you have a safty cover that is taunt and is not supposed to rest on top of the water, then you should drain it off or you will end up possibly damaging the springs that hold it on.

Bruce

[JohnT]

Never use rocks to hold the cover in place. They will eventually wind up in the pool, and aren't very gentle when they do.

[matt4x4]

up here (canada), no one touches their pool after closing it, winter covers (tarp kind) are always under water, and it really isn't practical to drain them since we get tons of snow that melts/freezes with sunshine etc. and just creates a huge block of ice under the snow anyways, but there's always that thick layer of snow on top so there's no way to get a pump under the snow, nor be able to pump anything.
Mesh covers are not supposed to be used over the winter since the ice will tear them appart - that said, there is one type of mesh cover that is qualified to stay on over the winter, likely made of a different fiber that allows it to be frozen in a block without damage.

[poolbee]

Thanks. It is a tarp type cover with the water bags. I mentioned previously that it had begun to snow... Well, that isn't the half of it. Just got power back today after loosing it Thurs. evening. About 2 feet of the heaviest wet snow fell, breaking almost every tree in all, and I mean all, of Western NY. We have a beautiful Olmsted park here, Delaware Park, in the city of Buffalo. Almost every one of the hundreds of stately trees, most over 50-60 years old, are broken, felled, just plain destroyed. I have many trees in my yard. Almost every one is gone. A huge branch fell onto my fence and pool. Fortunately just 1 top rail of the fence is damaged. The pool cover did not rip. My kids are off from school the whole next week. There are just too many trees down and too many power lines down to get around safely. Over 400,000 without power and its not expected to have every one back online until next week. Luckily I'm on the same electric grid as a big supermarket so when they were brought online we were too. I have lots of pictures to post when I can get to my other computer. Buffalo-gotta love it!
BTW-almost all of the snow is melted; highs in the 60's later this week. It looks more like a tornado hit than a freak snow storm.

[Poconos]

I've seen a lot of news clips from the Buffalo area and I sympathize with you. Weather in recent years has been bizarre at best. Here in Northeast PA we've had so many heavy rains in the last 3 years that road crews won't get caught up for years. Bridges out or damaged, road shoulders washed away, etc. Whatever water falls up here eventually winds up in the Delaware River and floods downstream in the Trenton, NJ and Philadelphia areas....and they've had the problems as a result. Somebody up there is mad at the U.S.
Al

[waste]

I have 1 good reason for keeping 'tarp' covers pumped off and clean - what if the tree had ripped the cover? If you develop a hole in one that is full of debris and algae, all the work you did to clean your pool when you closed it is wasted (I think Watermom's cover blew into the pool last year and left her with a real mess this spring).
Just my $.02 - but if you pay that much for it, you're wasting money ;)

[Watermom]

Good memory Waste! But, instead of having a mess to clean up this spring, I took care of it right when it happened. The following links show the pool right after it happened and then about a day or two after shocking with bleach and running the pump 24/7 for awhile to clear it. The dark area in the center are leaves that I vacuumed out after snapping the pic. (By the way - the amount of water and debris on top of the cover wasn't much, but it doesn't take too much to make a mess of your pool!)

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/attachment.php?attachmentid=17&d=1144504794

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/attachment.php?attachmentid=18&d=1144504810

[matt4x4]

Being only about 1 hour away from Buffalo, I've seen a lot of news reports lately on that big snow storm (we got nothing), and my heart goes out to everyone affected by this freak storm.
Unfortunately, I believe that the weather will only get worse in the years to come, I would think it's our own doing, so my recommendation is for everyone to always be prepared and have a plan that you rehearse regularly with those included in it.
We've done a lot of work and preparation for those freaks of nature, and even though it's a lot of $ up front, you'll be glad you did it even if it's only needed once.
Poconos - I understand your theory behind keeping a cover clean and pumped off, unfortunately, in some climates (like ours), that's all it'll ever be - theory. In reality, I don't think most Canadians would ever be able to keep their cover clean, it would mean quitting your daytime job, or putting all those weekend chores aside so you can stay on top of your cover. and spending most of your other time from November to April fighting off the pneumonia you're bound to get spending countless hours tending to your pool cover. Most times, you don't even have an option since mother nature beats you to the punch and freezes the thing solid before you can walk out there with the pump. This is why i don't bother doing much of anything with my pool for/over the winter - covering it is a huge waste of my time and could lead to my pool getting destroyed in one winter (primarily wind), I'd rather spend 1 hour to vac up some leaves off the bottom come spring time, it would still only be about 1/50th the effort in comparison to a full pool winterization and maintenance thereof.

[markphin]

I keep the water pumped off my cover for no other reason than I don't want the water level on the cover to geat any where near the coping where it could freeze and potentially pop off some of the bricks. Not likely to happen, but why take the cahnce for the minimal effort required.