I am a cold person. I am the type of person that will go into the hot tub on a 100 degree day. I HATE going in a cold pool! When we bought our house I didn't realize that the pool that we fell in love with did not come with a heater. We had contemplated putting a heater in, which would have cost a fortune, but decided to just bear the cold pool because after the cost of putting in a heater we'd still be paying a fortune to actually run it. We kicked around the idea of a solar cover, but the only experience I had with a solar cover was a friends pool when I was a child. I just remember that her pool was always freezing so I assumed they just didn't work very well.<br /><br />Now we have been in this house for 3 years now and with a 3 and 5 year old we use the pool A LOT!! I started hating my decision to buy a house with a pool because it was always so cold and while my kids didn't seem to mind, using the pool was a dreaded part of my day. Finally I decided it was worth trying the solar cover. WOW, I cannot believe how well it works!! We put it on when the temp was at 75 and the weather was upper 60s-low 70s an very cloudy. It raised to 80 within a couple days. Then we hit a heat wave and after 1 day of it being at 100 degrees our pool is now staying at 90-95 degrees! WE CAN ACTUALLY GO NIGHT SWIMMING!!! No more inching our way in and having to "get used to it".<br /><br />I've never had a solar cover before so I cannot offer a comparison, and we've only had it for 2 weeks so I don't know how long it will last. For your own comparison - our pool is average size but fairly deep (11 feet) and not much of a shallow end. The 95 degrees temp was taken close to the bottom of the shallow end and I feel the water temp is evenly dispersed. Our pool is usually in full sun until about 3 in the afternoon so I can't attest for the effectiveness if your pool is more shaded.<br /><br />Obviously the one downfall of a solar cover is how difficult it is to take off and put back on. We cut it in half, but I think I'll even cut it more. It takes about 5 minutes to put it back on by myself, so it's not too bad. We got a pool box to store it in so it doesn't look awful bunched up on the side of the pool when we have guests over. I plan on putting colorful stickers or some kind of arrows to make it easier to figure out which side goes where. Overall I'm glad we went with this option over a pool heater. It looks ugly, but we take it off when we have company and I would prefer to have an ugly pool that we can use than a pretty pool that I dread going in.
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]