Does anyone RAISE their water level to close?

[tnt69]

I am wondering if anyone on the forum has ever tried to plug their skimmer with an aquador & plug the return and then raise the water level up to a couple inches from the top. I have neighbors on each side of me with huge trees just off of my prop line that drop junk most of the winter so I pretty well need the winter cover. But this year I put some pillows under the cover and raised the water so I can't get too much water pressure from the puddling and hope to not worry about pumping it off. Still new to this pool stuff (1&half seasons) so would like to hear if anyone else has tried this or if there is any problem with this idea? I live in STL area so some heavy wet snow & ice and once in a while a stretch of cold (lows in 0-10 degree range) weather. We have a 21'x43' A/G - 30K gal.

[CarlD]

The main things to worry about is icing into the coping and breaking it, and overfilling freezing and, again, breaking stuff. But I've found some winters even when I've dropped the water level, if there's lots of fall rain and snow that melts, it fills up, and, if it's a cold winter on top of that, I'll get a foot or more of ice. What I do then is when the water/ice gets high, I slide a siphon hose between the ice and the wall--usually there's a gap in the corner, and drain into my overflow drain directly.

But don't trust an Aquador to give a perfect seal. It will probably leak. So put a Gizmo or equiv in the skimmer. Poconos likes to fill it with foam (like from a kid's Noodle) to give an water in there something to expand into without cracking the skimmer. I've sometimes just left the skimmer open so water flows to the ground, but it CAN ice up that way so you have to check it. I prefer the Gizmo route.