Thinking about an automatic cover pump before I close her up this year

Started by Tom Brennan · · 6 replies
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#1
Twenty five seasons with a safety cover over this pool and I have always used the same basic submersible pump I drag out and plug in whenever rain pools up on the cover. Works fine but it means me walking out there every time we get weather, and some Octobers out here in Huntington that is more often than I would like.

I keep seeing the automatic ones that sit on the cover and kick on by themselves when water collects. Before I put one in the binder as a buy, anybody running one through a full winter on Long Island. Mostly want to know if they actually shut off clean and do not run dry and burn out, and whether they hold up under ice at the edges. Not looking to replace a good system just to replace it, want to know it is worth the money first.

6 Replies

#2
Honestly Tom, twenty five seasons of dragging a pump out there and nothing's burned out or flooded on you, that's not a system that's broken, that's just New York weather being New York weather. I don't deal with safety covers down here so I can't speak to the ice question, but if yours still shuts off clean when you're standing there watching it, I'd want to know the automatic one actually senses low water before I trusted it to run itself all winter unsupervised.
#3
Chuck, fair point on the manual one not being broken, it is just me being the backup system instead of a float switch. Before anybody chimes in with a brand, the question I would ask first is what happens to the sensor housing when the water around it freezes solid overnight, because that is a nightly event out here from December on. A float switch that works fine in a November rain is a different animal when it is sitting in an inch of ice at six in the morning. Anybody running one through an actual Long Island or similar winter, not just a rainy fall, that is the stretch I care about.
#4
We dont get real ice here in Round Rock so I cant speak to that specific freeze test, but Chuck's point about the float switch actually sensing low water is the part id push on too. Any float switch is just a mechanical arm, and if that arm gets stuck even a little, from ice or from leaves and gunk, it wont know the water is gone and it just keeps trying to run. Thats the dry run burnout people warn about, not usually the pump itself failing.

Anyway, if your manual one has never let you down in 25 seasons I might just be tempted to keep being the backup system honestly, sounds like youve got a better track record than most automatic setups would give you out of the box.
#5
Tom, I can't speak to Long Island ice since Mobile don't freeze like that, so take this for what its worth.. but Dana's point about the float arm sticking is the real issue, not the pump itself. My safety cover days are long behind me, I got no cover at all, but I had a float switch freeze up on a old sump pump once and it just sat there humming trying to pump nothing, burned up the seal inside it in about a week before I caught it. If that float so much as hesitates from ice rime it don't know any better. Twenty five seasons being your own backup system is a pretty good track record, I'd want to see that automatic one prove itself through one bad January before I trusted it unsupervised overnight.
#6
Can't speak to ice at all, Orlando doesn't give me that problem, so I'm the wrong n=1 for the freeze test specifically. But the float arm sticking point Dana and Earl made matches what I've seen with any mechanical sensor on my own equipment, anything that relies on a physical part moving freely is the failure point, not the motor. My screen enclosure means I barely deal with standing water on anything so I've never needed this gear, but if I did I'd want someone local confirming the switch housing itself is rated for freeze, not just the pump internals.
#7
Earl's seal-burning-up story is the one that'd keep me up at night if I had a cover to worry about, that's exactly the failure mode that doesn't announce itself until you smell it. The thing nobody's mentioned yet is even if the switch itself is rated for freeze, Tom, you'd still want to know the pump can take running dry for a few hours without damage, because a float that's iced up isn't shutting anything off, it's just letting the motor spin on nothing till you walk out there and find it. I'd ask whoever sells it straight out what the dry run tolerance is before worrying about the housing rating at all.

Good luck with it, glad I just have to hose leaves off a screen cage down here and call it a day.