Re: Watermom's New Pool Adventure- Solar Roller Cover Stick
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Ok. After a couple of nudges in some other threads, I'm back to give my take on the Solar Roller Cover Stick that I purchased this year.
It was a little bit of a pain in the butt to follow the directions for attaching it to the solar cover but once we finally figured out what they were saying, it went on very easily. We did determine that you have to have your solar cover cut to fit your pool properly. Any time I have ever bought a round solar cover for my pools, it never is the size that the box says that it is. If I remember correctly, the new cover I bought this year was a 28 ft. round (I have a 27ft round pool) but I had to cut off more than a foot to make it fit. I cut the round cover in half so I have two semi-circles. For the Solar Roller Cover Stick to work easily, the cover must lay flat on the pool without having the two pieces overlap each other. So, after kinda fighting with the thing in the first few days and initially wondering if I made a mistake buying it, i ended up trimming my cover a few times to get it to fit better and that helped a lot.
For me, the crank handle works best if I put the cover on and off while I am in the pool, although it can be done from outside the pool. I have 54" walls on this new pool. I am about 5'7" and to do it from outside the pool, I found it easier if I had a step stool to stand on. But, 99% of the time, I do it from inside the pool. If you do it from outside the pool, I had to slightly lift the crank handle off the water so that the cover was no longer laying flat and it made it not roll up as smoothly. When it is done from inside the pool and the crank can be laying flat, it makes it go much more smoothly. (The crank stays attached to the cover while it is rolled up and off the pool and then you remove it after you put the cover back on the pool.)
Another thing to know is that the crank handle extends about 6 inches past the edge of the cover and both cut pieces of the cover will have a crank on them. So, if you cut your cover to fit the pool -- and you want to in order to keep the heat in the pool --- that means that there is no room to put the crank on and still have the pieces of the cover laying flat on the pool without overlapping each other any. Like I said, after a few days of kinda fighting with this thing, I figured out how to make it work for my pool.
Here is what I do:
I get into the pool and walk around the perimeter of the pool to the middle of one side where the cover stick (long aluminum pole) is attached to one half. I grab it at the pole, and kind of drag that section of the pole off the pool so it is sticking out about a foot past the top rail. Then, I go back and take each side and kind of move them away from the center of the pool. In other words, this section of the cover is kind of bunched up temporarily instead of laying neatly on the pool surface. By doing this, it allow me to be able to get the other piece of the cover and push it away from the pool wall towards the center of the pool without having it overlap the first piece. Then, since the second piece is now moved away from the wall, there is room to attach the crank with the crank and cover still flat on the pool. Then, it easily and quickly rolls right up. I float it around the pool and easily can lift it out of the pool onto my pool deck. It is not heavy at all as most of the water is pushed out as it is rolled up. I then go back and drag the first piece back onto the pool and attach its crank handle and roll that one up and remove that one also.
It is important to remember that when your cover is NOT on your pool, that you need to cover it with either a white sheet of piece of plastic or you will really cut down on the life span of your cover. It gets really hot inside that thing all rolled up out in the sun which causes the bubbles to disintegrate. Covering it with a white cover reflects a lot of the heat away and will prolong the life of the cover.
When I am ready to put the cover back onto the pool after swimming, I do the process kind of in reverse. Get the first piece on there and then partially drag it off the side of the pool to allow the second piece to go on easily without overlapping the first piece. Once that was is on, the first piece is pulled back on. The crank handles are removed when the cover is on the pool.
I'm pretty sure my description may sound like this is a complicated process, but it is not. If I have not made myself clear and someone has any questions or needs further clarification, please ask. I DO like the Solar Roller Cover Stick. It is easier than what we have done in previous years. I can do it by myself in a total of about 5 minutes. I am definitely glad I bought this thing. It does work pretty well ---- once we figured out that we needed to have the cover fit just right and once we figured out our little system described above for getting in on and off the pool.
The only problem we have now has nothing to do with the product itself. As many of you know from reading on the forum, I was a part of the area that got hit by that big storm (derecho) on June 29. The winds were around 80mph and blew my solar cover off of my pool. Unfortunately, when this happened. it ripped a part of the aluminum pole off of my solar cover so part of it is no longer attached on one end as it should be. (The other side on that piece is still attached.) Thus, the crank cannot be used on this half of the solar cover but I am still able to roll it up by just doing it by hand which really isn't an issue. The other half of the solar cover, though also blown off the pool, was not damaged and still works as it is supposed to. One other thing I now do is that once I have the cover in place on the pool, I take those old pieces of capped PVC pipe that I used to roll my cover up on and I toss them onto the pool on top of the cover to hold it down in case we ever have another big storm like we did this year. I'd say the chance of that happening any time soon isn't likely (I hope!) but the PVC poles were already there, not being used for anything else since we now have this other thing and I decided it was just a little added insurance.
Hope this helps some. Sorry for it being so long but it is hard to describe in words when you are telling someone how to do something and I wanted to try and be as descriptive as I could to help. Like I said, if you need anything else to clarify or other questions, feel free to ask.
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