By LaMont Drechsel
Since automatic covers were first invented, they have been installed on thousands of pools around the world. They minimize energy costs, lower maintenance requirements and enhance safety by limiting pool access to children and pets. Further, automatic covers can help pool owners save up to 70 per cent on water, energy, and chemical costs as they prevent approximately 681 L (180 gal) of water per week from evaporating. These covers conserve heat and keep pools clean by preventing dirt, debris, and pests from getting into the water.
So that begs the question, why are covers not included in every pool build?
The answer may lie in the technology. For decades, rope has been the mainstay material used in automatic covers, but the introduction of stainless steel cable technology offers pool professionals added durability, freedom, and flexibility for designing one-of-a-kind custom pools.
Traditional automatic pool-cover technology
First, it is important to understand how automatic pool covers have been designed for nearly half a century. Traditional systems are engineered with a rope pulley mechanism, with a separate rope pulling each side of the cover along tracks mounted on either side of the pool. A large motor and pulley system—including the reels around which the ropes and the pool cover’s roller tube wrap when the cover is not in use—must be installed at the base of the pool, and is typically concealed beneath a lid or large tiles that disturb the uniform lines of the coping surrounding a pool.
That said, the motor and mechanism offset in traditional pool cover systems are usually quite large and take up a significant amount of space, requiring pool designs to be altered to accommodate them. This limits designers from creating sleek, streamlined pools for customers.
Further, while rope is an inherently flexible material that lends itself to easily wrapping around the pulleys and reels of the system, making for a forgiving pool cover system that can accommodate imperfectly built pools, rope is prone to shrinking and stretching over time—particularly when exposed to water, weather, and mechanical damage.
Since traditional systems consist of two separate ropes that do not stretch and shrink at the same rate, this affects how the pool cover functions as one rope could eventually stretch or shrink more than the other rope, causing the two sides of the pulley system to become misaligned and the leading edge of the pool cover to run askew, requiring frequent adjustments and repairs. Further, the costs needed to maintain a traditional, rope-based automatic pool cover can be a concern for many pool owners.
Although traditional systems are effective, rope is the weakest component, which ultimately leads to costly repairs and maintenance over the lifetime of the cover. That alone can make many pool owners and builders hesitate when including an automatic pool cover in their designs. Combined with compromised esthetics due to the amount of physical space required to house the mechanism of a traditional system, it altogether deters them.
