A Closer Look at Safety Covers – Right For You?

Any pool owner who’s dealt with a spring setup following a fall and winter with their pool uncovered can attest to the fact that a pool cover will have a huge impact on maintenance costs and effort as well as on the spring setup of a pool. But when you’re closing down the pool this season, it could be time to invest in an upgrade and purchase a Safety Pool Cover.

If you’ve got children or pets, it’s well worth doing. But before you decide, just take a closer look at what safety covers are all about and how they’ll help your pool. It should help you decide whether or not they’re worth it for you. Basically, safety covers are heavier duty covers than the standard ones people put on their pools. 

They also use a much different attachment system. While most Winter Pool Covers are fixed in place by little more than a series of sandbags or weights, safety pool covers are actually attached to anchor points around the pool with a system of cords. This helps them hold up the weight of a child or pet that stumbles into the pool, and are much easier to attach and set up than they may sound.

Safety pool covers should also not be confused with Solar Pool Covers, which float on top of the pool’s water and helps heat the water and maintain the heat in swimming pools. Take a look at safety covers’ scrim numbers. This refers to the weave within the very makeup of the cover, and the higher it is the better quality the cover will be. Higher numbers mean more weaves, which in turn mean denser material that will be more durable and stronger. 

All safety covers that meet today’s minimum standards will be rated for more than four hundred pounds per square inch. Combined with proper anchors, that’s more than enough to ease most parents’ minds about their kids or dogs being near the pool. Safety pool covers come in two forms – mesh and solid.

Solid doesn’t mean that it’s as rigid as a board, of course, just that there are no perforations within the material. Basically, it’s a solid cover that allows no drainage. The advantage here is that it allows no light and absolutely no debris to pass through the cover, which helps with algae and hygiene issues, however solid safety covers will either have a small mesh drain panel in the middle of the cover or a small pump will be necessary to keep water from building up on the cover.  

A mesh safety pool cover will have perforations throughout it, and it’s essentially just what its name suggests. This may allow some light to pass through, but it won’t be weighed down by rainwater,  or other problems. For areas with heavy rain, that drainage is very important to the overall stability of a safety cover. So how do you know if a safety pool cover is the right choice for you? There are a couple of things to think about.

First of all, those with above ground pools may not need them. It depends on whether or not your pool is surrounded by a deck or just accessed by a ladder. In the latter case, you may not need a safety cover since you can often remove the ladder. Those with in ground pools or above ground pools with a deck around them will be much more likely to need a safety cover. This is especially true if you have children or pets.

75 percent of children who die in swimming pool accidents are under three, and drowning is the second leading cause of death among those under 14. In other words, having a safety cover will help prevent the unthinkable from becoming a reality. Even if you don’t have young kids, a safety cover may be worth it.

An icy deck can be very hazardous, and one slip could lead to death or serious injury. A safety pool cover is a kind of investment that delivers added safety as well as peace of mind other covers won’t give you. No, they may not be for everyone, but for many pool owners they’re an upgrade that you can’t ignore.