Thinking about a solar cover reel for the oval, worth it

Started by Rick Dominguez · · 1 reply
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#1
Feet in the tub right now, beer's cold this time so no rush typing. My oval above-ground never had a reel, I just drag the solar cover off and let it puddle by the ladder which my wife hates. Looking at one of those reel setups that mounts on the end and you crank it like a garage door. Anybody actually run one on an oval, not a round pool. Worried about the tracking on the curve at the ends, seems like it'd bind up or the cover would slide off center every time. Also wondering if it's worth the money versus just building a little rack out of PVC and eyeballing it. Not trying to get fancy, just tired of the puddle and the dog rolling on the wet cover every morning.

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#2
I'm round so I can't speak to the oval tracking issue directly, but my brother in law has an oval and went through basically your exact debate two summers ago. He built the PVC rack thing first because he's cheap like me, and it worked fine for about a month until the cover started sliding off one end every time he unrolled it, said the curve at the ends just doesn't want to sit square on straight pipe, you're constantly nudging it back center. Ended up caving and buying an actual reel made for ovals and it fixed the sliding, so if you go the DIY route just know the curve is the part that'll bite you, not the straight sides.

As for the puddle and the dog rolling on it, buddy I feel that in my soul, mine used to just get dragged into a heap by the ladder too and it was gross by day three. Once he had the reel he said it's a two minute crank each way and the cover actually dries out some sitting up off the deck instead of folded on itself. Probably worth it for you just on the marriage peace treaty alone, forget the dog.