The benefits offered by automatic covers and mesh safety covers seem innumerable. In addition to forming a potentially lifesaving barrier between the pool and children not meant to enter, these products can block dirt and debris, stretch sanitizer efficacy, and prevent algae, as well as reducing the loss of heat and water through evaporation.
But special pool features such as rock waterfeatures and vanishing edges can complicate the installation of these devices. Fortunately, workarounds exist for many situations.
These experts provide an overview of strategies used to reconcile the needs of pool covers with these features.
Automatic covers
Because they don’t have the coping and freeboard to accommodate traditional cover tracks, vanishing-edge pools require a different type of installation if the spillway runs along the length of the pool.
A special track is installed behind the spillway, onto the face of the weir wall. Spacers slightly lift the track from the wall, allowing water to flow over the edge and behind the track.
“If the pool cover is closed, the water can escape between the tile and track and fall down into the basin below,” says Darren Gillhouse, president of Cover Biz, a cover installation firm in Valencia, Calif.
Place the track about 1 inch below the weir’s edge. This should shield it from view when viewed from the house side. “You don’t want to drop your track too low, because you want it to be close to the elevation of the other track,” says Joe Dempsey Jr., COO of Aquality Construction in Broomfield, Colo.
Powder coat the track so it better blends with the veneer material on which it sits, Dempsey recommends.
For these installations, Gillhouse prefers to plumb the vault so it drains into the vanishing-edge catch basin rather than the curb. This conserves water that otherwise would go to waste.
Sometimes a pool has so many interior features that the cover will want to drag over it. For instance, Scott Cohen recently did a 75-foot-long pool with several stepping pads. With so much length and fabric, the cover could get stuck on the stepping pads when the user went to open it. He and his team discovered that the spa blower could help.
“If you just ran the spa blower for 5 minutes before opening the cover, it would billow up and lift the cover with the air ... and then it would just pull off really easily,” says the president of The Green Scene, an outdoor design/build firm in Chatsworth, Calif.
When an automatic cover factors into the equation, waterfeature use is restricted but not prohibited. “Some people think that when you have a covered pool, you can’t have any waterfeatures,” Cohen says.
They can be included as long as they don’t create a protrusion that will interfere with the cover rolling along the track. Some builders like to use deck jets on these installations, as they don’t interfere with the pool’s footprint at all. Others might spill water from a raised wall into the pool. If a homeowner prefers a rock waterfall, the boulders can’t drop below the coping.
Dan Lenz, vice president of All Seasons Pools, Spas & Outdoor Living in Orland Park, Ill., likes to keep waterfeatures or spillover spas completely separate from the pool in these cases. The falling water might sit directly adjacent to the pool or spa, but will spill into a separate basin.
If a waterfeature or spillover spa will flow into a pool that has an automatic cover, be sure to include an override switch that will turn off the pump when the cover is closed, Cohen recommends. Otherwise, the pool can drain out as water spills out the waterfeature, hits the cover and runs off.
Safety mesh covers
When it comes to safety mesh pool covers, any elevated item within 3 feet of the pool’s perimeter is considered an intrusion. A number of solutions exist for these scenarios.
The simplest and most common involves using foam to protect around such protrusions, Gillhouse says. This is suitable for simpler obstacles such as rocks. The manufacturer places foam under the cover where it will cover the rock, to seal around the element and protect the cover from wear against the hard surface. Then the straps can attach to the deck behind the protrusion.
Features such as large rock waterfalls, grottoes or especially jagged boulders may require the most complicated and difficult workaround — a system of pad eyes and carabiners. Pad eyes, metallic devices that serve as a loop, are drilled into the feature. Then the carabiners attach to the cover fabric and hook into the pad eyes. Advanced planning is needed for these systems, to determine where to drill.
This system can leave a gap between the edge of the cover fabric and the pool wall, Lenz adds. If that’s the case, use bumpers to bridge that space and block dirt and debris from entering the pool.
Gillhouse often uses the pad eye/carabiner system to work around a lack of hard deck. Say, the pool is surrounded by lawn. He may drill pad eyes to the back of the coping.
When installing safety covers over unusual features, try to avoid setting it over hard angles, as they will wear the fabric more quickly. Lenz has had occasion to reconfigure walls to prevent a cover from having to drape over a hard corner, for instance.
Additionally consider how wind will interact with the cover. In some cases, Lenz and his team have had to pull the fabric farther out to make sure it’s secure to a horizontal surface. This can prevent a flapping effect, where the wind repeatedly raps a piece of the fabric against a hard surface.
Important partnerships
When performing these unusual cover installations, consult with the manufacturer and a cover-installation specialist.
Check with the cover installer well before excavation begins, Gillhouse advises. This is especially necessary if the pool will have an automatic cover as it likely will alter construction of the pool itself.
Don’t wait until after the pool is built. “You probably won’t have the pool built correctly,” Gillhouse says. “All this has to be planned before you dig.”
Review the design with manufacturers to make sure the installation plan will work and see if they have a more appropriate solution, Dempsey encourages.
Also ask if your method will alter the cover’s safety rating or warranty. If the fabric will rub against concrete more than normal, it could affect the longevity of the product.
Leaving gaps between the edge of the fabric and the pool perimeter, raising the fabric over elevated elements, or using different anchors can affect the safety rating. If that’s the case, Lenz uses different terminology.
“We refer to them as spring-attached winter covers,” he says. “We never refer to them as safety covers if they’re not ASTM safety covers. Our contracts even spell it out that way. ”
Communicate this clearly with the client to avoid liability, he advises.
