The first problem involved a dead skunk found in the bottom of a pool cover mechanism housing. The customer had been complaining for a few week of the foul odor, but was uncertain of where it was coming from. After doing his regular yearly cleaning of his pool cover housing the mystery was solved. The skunk was by far worse than the opossum that I found several years ago in another clients housing.

The second encounter was not as foul but could have been much more tragic. A long time friend and pool service tech called me and told me that one of our mutual clients had a problem with his pool cover and asked if I could come and fix it before the weekend as the homeowners would be coming out to their country house for the holiday weekend. I told him that that would not be a problem, but what kind of issue were they having? He said that part of the track had came loose from under the coping and there was a fist sized hole in the cover fabric near the loose track. After asking him a few question he suddenly replied, "I have never seen the horse out here around the house." Luckily for the horse he only placed one hoof on the cover and was able to recover his footing. After I mended the cover, the homeowner had to mend some fences.

The third event involved a small terrier puppy and a frantic homeowner. I received a call requesting the price for new cover fabric. After pulling the clients file I noticed that his cover was less than three years old and asked him why he needed new fabric. He proceeded to tell me that after his wife and him were done swimming for the evening they closed the cover for the night and called the dogs to retire for the evening. It wasn't long and he realized that both of the dogs were not in the house. Taking a flashlight, he went outside to make sure the gate was not open. Walking back to the backdoor he suddenly heard a whimper, realizing it was coming from under the cover he quickly got a knife and made a four foot long incision in the cover were the whining was come from. The dog was a little frightened and very wet but was not harmed in any other way. I went out the following week to replace the cover fabric and the homeowner told me that the dog will not come any were near the pool.

When it comes to the selling of automatic swimming pool covers with new pool construction, the pool designer/salesman needs to be very educated. After the pools are built and the covers are installed it is much harder to make changes when the customers expectations were not met.

 

There are many designs and options when it comes to swimming pool safety covers. There are many different track options, fabric colors and recessed housing lids. The tracks can be mounted to the pool walls, to the bottom of the coping or even flush in the pool deck, to name a few options. Most manufacturers carry anywhere from 7 to 11 standard colors in stock, although other colors can be ordered at additional costs. The mechanism housings can be covered by standard aluminum lids which can be powder coated for a more pleasing appearance. The type of lid that is becoming ever-increasingly more common is the heavy walk-on lids. These lids are constructed out of coping stone, natural stone, concrete or any other construction material suited to accent the surrounding pool area. These stone are supported by heavy duty brackets. If the lid material is thinner than 2" or brick, then a pan system can be used as a base to mortar these materials to. With these types of lids the front leading edges of the covers can be hidden when the cover is retracted off the pool by adding oversized lid stones and notching the end of the lowered pool wall.

 

It is always better to come to a customer with adequate information thereby allowing your customer to make a more educated decision.

 

With nearly twenty years of pool cover experience we can provide you with the support that you need.

   

 

 

I still can't understand why a pool owner would invest in an automatic pool cover and not do the required preventive maintenance (PM). This just seems absurd.

Spending 300.00 or 400.00 dollars every two or three years to keep your pool cover in top operating condition is a small price to pay considering the cost of the system. You wouldn't let your car go this long without some kind of maintenance.

Customers don't realize that all mechanical equipment needs maintenance to some degree in order to maintain proper operation. This can be attributed to the fact that the customers are not being educated enough at installation or as the saying goes "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Well if you wait long enough it will break and you will have to fix it, at which point it will cost 2 to 3 times as much as it would have cost doing PM.

Let's keep those pools safe, clean and warm.

 

This is the area for the discussion on automatic swimming pool safety covers.