Swimming Pool Store

There are many reasons to use a pool cover, such as cleanliness and protection.  Another important reason is that you can save a lot of expense in heating your pool.  Pool covers reduce the amount of time you need to run a pool heater, and they reduce the size of pool heating system you need in the first place.  Here are some facts about the energy savings you can expect from using a swimming pool cover.

One of the ways a swimming pool loses heat is through evaporation.  By definition, a Btu is the amount of energy needed to raise a pound of water one degree F.  That may not sound like much, but when one pound of eighty degree water evaporates, the pool loses 1048 Btu of energy.  It makes good sense to try to keep that warmth in the pool.  The use of a pool cover is one of the ways to reduce evaporation.

Evaporation rates are worse when the surrounding air is less humid, when the weather is hot, and when their are high winds across the surface of the pool.  It is a good idea to plant a windbreak of trees or construct a privacy fence if your pool happens to be sitting in a windy area.  Holding back the winds will make wet swimmers feel less chilly between swims, too.  The windbreak needs to be close to the pool, but not close enough to shade it from the warmth of the sun.

Obviously an outdoor pool is going to lose more energy to evaporation than an indoor pool, but a pool blanket will help an indoor pool stay warm, too.  One way a cover on an indoor pool helps save energy is that it reduces the amount of humidity in the room, which reduces the amount of humid air that must be conditioned or ventilated out of the building.

It may sound like the simplest cover for reducing energy costs would be a big sheet of plastic from the hardware store.  There are problems with this approach, however.  Plastic sheeting tears easily, decomposes under the sun, and is very difficult to handle.  A better type of cover is a bubble cover, a specially made pool cover that resembles a sheet of bubble wrap.  It is better than bubble wrap, however, because it is made of heavier plastic and includes a UV inhibitor.

You can opt to cover your outside pool with an opaque cover, but it will reduce the amount of solar warming you get from the sun.  The see-through bubble covers are better at letting this warmth into the pool.