Quote Originally Posted by Teapot View Post
Yes, some time difference, I heard on the UK news that a total water ban in California was it? I understand the issue, with non box/oval pools can you cut the normal cover in two to make it easier to manage? Rather do that than add the liquid cover.
Luckily I live in the Copper State and not the Golden State!! Yes, Governor Brown issued an Executive Order that mandates the reduction of water use to levels 25% lower than 2013 values for all CA counties (farmers are excluded from the ban). Since the snow-pack in the Sierra Nevada mountain range is only at 5% depth of historic averages and it supplies most of CA with its fresh water, his order is reasonable. The net effect though is that most areas will have to cut back on landscape watering (unless that water is fed by grey-water systems) and folks will see higher water bills to "nudge" them to take shorter showers. Theoretically a code enforcement officer could write you a citation for washing your car in the driveway but that's probably not likely. I live in Arizona where we have lots of Colorado river water and deep aquifer wells. But AZ is almost always in a drought so we're quite use to high water bills. My landscaping is quite minimal (pretty close to Xeriscaping and artificial turf in the backyard), so my biggest water hogs are showers, toilet bowls, washing machines and.....the pool!

Cutting up bubble covers is not really desirable for me. Aside from the irregular shape of my pool, I have two water features (a spillway from the spa into the pool and a waterfall) and that tends to sink the covers. As well, I have almost no storage area for them so they wind up gathering wildlife when rolled up (scorpions are easy to kill but scare the pants off you when you accidentally run across them). I'm tempted to try the liquid cover chemical and try to do a before and after evaporation experiment with my autofill shut off to see how much the water loss is cut down under "normal" operating procedures (the water features run at least once per day). I don't think the "gunk" load would cause a huge hit to the filter and, even if it did, tearing down the filter is a 1/2 day project anyway.

Thanks for being a sounding board and I'll start a separate thread if/when I decide to experiment.

Cheers!