Something that I figured out for my first pool opening that might make your life a bit easier. This was terrific in keeping the "junk" on top of the cover out of your nice clean pool. Bought rope...our pool is 30' round so we had two pieces of rope each over 40 ft. We tied it into grommets opposite the pool side that the deck is on. We chose grommets about 5-6 ft apart. We had two or three people holding the cover down on the sides of the pool as we held the deck side down with our foot (2 of us). We slowly pulled on the rope in 2-3' sections at a time until the other side of the cover reached the "side" people. As we kept pulling they moved towards us until they we didn't need them. The cover folded perfect in half with the dirty sides touching. Then the side people grabbed the middle and brought the middle to us> WA LA another neat fold w/ the junk inside. Then we grabbed both ends, slid it onto the deck and folded it up to throw it away...Really! It had holes in it from the pool co. so we duck taped the crap out of it for one season and will use our new replacement next year. GOOD LUCK