Hey everyone, Al here! In the last post, we compared solid winter covers with mesh safety covers. If you use a traditional solid cover, you may already know its favorite trick: one hard rain arrives, the center sinks, and the water bags start creeping toward the pool. I’ve seen a small sag turn into a big problem after just one more storm. A sagging cover gets heavier fast and can pull, tear, or slip into the water.
Remove Surface Water First
Start by removing water from the top of the cover. Place the cover pump in the deepest puddle and route the hose away from the pool foundation. Before walking away, make sure the discharge cannot circle back toward the pool or create an icy patch on a walkway.
Never stand on the cover or drag a pump across it by the cord. If leaves are blocking the intake, use a soft pool brush from the deck to move them aside. For cover-pump hose connections, we carry the Little Giant garden-hose adapter for the APCP-1700.
Reset the Cover Without Pulling One Corner
Once the weight is off, straighten the cover a little at a time from opposite sides. Pulling hard from one corner can shift the whole cover, expose the waterline, or stress a seam. Aim for even overlap around the pool before resetting any water bags.
Fill Water Bags the Right Way
- Fill each chamber only about halfway to two-thirds full so freezing water has room to expand.
- Place the bags end to end with no large gaps for wind to catch.
- Point the fill caps away from sharp coping edges.
- Replace leaking bags instead of stacking a good bag on top of a bad one.
Double-chamber bags are useful because one side can still hold if the other chamber is damaged. Match the bag length to each straight section around the pool rather than forcing a bag around a corner.
Find Out Why It Sagged
A little dip is normal because a solid cover rests on the pool water. A deep, sudden sag is different. Check for missing bags, low pool water, a torn cover, or a pump that stopped working. If the pool level also dropped, return to the leak checks from the first post in this series.
After every major rain or wind event, take a two-minute walk around the pool. I like this habit because it catches most cover problems while they are still easy to fix, and it is the same quick check our technicians make. In the next post, we’ll move underneath the cover and look at protecting the skimmer from freeze damage.
