Question:
Anyone out there with advice on safety covers for inground
pools, esp. for pool season, i.e. now? Anyone have any direct experience with
this kind of cover from coverpools?
Answer:
We are having a pool put in so have done a lot of recent research on
this. I (and many others) recommend having more than one item of
protection. Absolutely have a fence around the pool. The recommend
minimum height is 4 feet. You can get removable mesh ones but they look
tacky. We will probably elect to get a permanent wrought iron fence
around the pool with a self latching, locking gate (yes, our child
eventually won't need it but it will help keep out the neighbor's kids
and help prevent accidents in the pool area). You can also get pool
alarms. Outside doors to the pool should be alarmed. An intriguing idea
is getting a buzzer that is mounted high on the door and if the door
opens it goes off until someone hits the buzzer (much noisier than a
chime that goes off once when the door is opened).
My perception on covers is that they work best with rectangular pools and
less well with free form pools (especially the automatic ones). The
manual ones are cheaper but they are such a pain to put on and off that
people tend to use them only when closing the pool for an extended period
of time. The bottom line is that a cover is no substitute for a fence
since very few people are willing to put a cover on after every single
use of the pool throughout the year.
