New pool cover punctured during new patio construction - big problems

So first of all the pool cover is 1 year old so I am not happy that it was punctured during construction of a new patio. I found pieces of jagged concrete that I scooped off the cover along with a ton of slimy leaves. Hopefully once the cover is off and the holes are found they can be patched.

So rather than be angry I want to quickly move to solutions. First, the problem. Now that the cover is punctured when I go to fill the water level for the opening the water seeps through the cover. Now along with slimy leaves, sand, grit and pieces of concrete I have a few thousand gallons of water on top of the cover. What I need to do is remove all the leaves, debris, sand etc. so my pool guys can remove the cover. Their intent is to simply dump whatever is on top of the cover into the pool. There are major problems on so many levels if that occurs. These guys are not very helpful.

I have already tried to pump the excess water off the cover. The issue is that since water is coming up through the cover I am simply emptying the pool going this route and water remains on top of the cover.

Here is my preliminary plan. Skim out as many leaves as possible. Then use a shop vac and take out the remaining leaves, sand, debris etc. to get the cover as clean as possible. Also I dumped a few gallons of 12% liquid chlorine on top of the cover as I noticed some slime developing.

I am not certain how I am going to manage pumping off more of the cover water. This is an area that I do not have fully figured out. But at least if the water on top is as clean as I can make it there will be fewer issues once the cover comes off.

I would like any feedback any of you can offer to make this go as smoothly as possible. I appreciate any help or experience you have. Thanks.

So I just did this task. It required WORK. I had several holes in the cover just like you said so draining the cover was infact just draining the pool. If you have enough man power you could just pull it off slowly with brute force. We did that and we got to the end and could not remove it due to not enough people and too much material in the cover. I ended up cutting the cover and dropping EVERYTHING in the pool. Slowly I removed all the leaves with my big leaf bagger and shocked the pool until I could see what I was removing. Ran the filter 24/7 until I could see the bottom. I don't really know if there is an easy way around it.

Why not drain the water back down to where it was before you started to fill? This level was below where the water reached the hole, wasn't it?

Then brute force to remove the heavy stuff.. leaf rakes.. perhaps regular rakes.. maybe a shovel - careful not to damage the pool.


I'd give that construction company's manager a piece of my mind. Maybe he could supply the workers to clean up the mess they made.

Thanks for the above replies. Here is where things stand. Lots of hard work so far and about 80% of the leaves are removed using a leak rake (net). I used the shop vac to remove the sand and grit. Maybe about 40% of that is done. It is a 14 gallon vacuum so this piece takes a long, long time.

kelemvor: That sounds like a great suggestion. I will drain the water level down tonight. That makes a lot of sense. It will be much easier to clean the as the water recedes off the cover. From there I can more easily remove the leaves and pieces of concrete. Also I contacted the contractor earlier today and I asked for help from his crew with the cleanup effort. No reply yet. The good thing is I will withhold the final payment until this is done.

Hopefully this has a good ending...and soon.