We cover our pool every year with the loop loc cover..It keeps the neighbors leaves out of it and we tend to get a lot of wind. It stays reasonably clean, we add our chemicals if needed through the skimmer usually just the chlorine tabs. We do chemical it before covering for the season. We run the pool 5-6 hours every day/night we switch to night time for the cold, we have an intelliflo variable speed pump.. The only problem we have is trying to set the pump from summer to winter time, we find that very confusing we got this pump last year.... We remove the cover in the spring before we turn on our solar heater for the season, usually in April sometime and we change the water every three to fours years ..We really like our cover it does save a lot when getting ready to open for the season..We live in Las Vegas