Swimming Pools McAllen TX (Howe, Hamlin: how much, buying, live in)

[recrossler]

I am thinking about buying a solar blanket for my swimming pool in McAllen, TX. The salesman tells me that it should significantly extend my swim season in both the fall and the spring. I have been looking for information online to verify this. Does anyone on here live in S. Texas that can share with me how much a solar blanket does for them to extend the season.

Thanks.

[iceshots]

I have a pool down here, but do not have a blanket on it. I have had two pools up north (Ontario) and had blankets on both. I can't talk about how long it would extend the season down here, but can tell you the advantages and disadvantages of the blankets.

The solar blanket will help extend your season by keeping the heat in the pool water instead of letting it release into the cooler night air. The key thing is, what temperature is your pool at when you put the blanket on? Blankets will trap and retain heat from the sun, but they will not increase the heat of the water by more than 10 degrees unless it is very sunny outside. With the weather we have been having lately, even a pool with a blanket will have become cold sue to lack of sunshine and lots of new water coming down.

If you have a heater on your pool, the blanket will help retain the heat your heater added.

The downside of blankets is that they are bulky, can be hard to store depending on the shape of your pool, and will deteriorate quickly if not protected when taken out of the water.

I said I had two pools with blankets. The first pool was unheated, plain rectangle and the blanket simply sat on its roller at the shallow end. Easy to get on and get off. The blanket would sit on its roller at the shallow end all the time. Never got in the way. I would leave it on most of the time since the summer sun up north does not heat things up that much. I think I took it off halfway into July if the water temperature started climbing into the high 80s.

Second house. Heated rectangle pool, but with cut out stairs at the deep end and roman steps at the shallow end. The blanket roller had to be positioned about 8 feet in from the shallow end and you roll from two ends at once. This was a pain to get on and off. Then you had to get two people to carry it away from the pool so you did not have to keep ducking under it. I used it for the first year and decided it was not worth the savings in gas. It would actually discourage s from taking a quick swim, which is all you really do in the cooler weather.

So a blanket can actually dissuade you from using the pool in the extended season you bought it for. But if you have a straight rectangle pool with a place to permanently put the blanket, go for it.

A compromise is a chemical "solar blanket". These are called tropical fish, and I have also seen balls down here with the chemical in it. It forms a thin layer over the top of the water and prevents it from evaporating. Evaporation is the main contributor to heat loss. Do a search on POOL TROPICAL FISH or LIQUID SOLAR BLANKET and you should find the web site. A lot of pool owners up north (me included) used them. In the fall it is easy to see who uses them. The pools without the fish have steam coming off them as the pool loses the heat.

Sorry for the long post.

[HamlinPools]

recrossler,
Solar blankets will increase your swim season in both the fall and the spring. However, the extent of increase depends on your temperature tolerance. Here in the Valley, we generally don't have deep cold winters, but we (Hamlin Pools) suggests an extension of a month of swimming at the end of the "season" and an increase of a month in the spring. Be prepared to store this cover properly to get more than one use out of it. Our summers are quite hot as you know and storage may cause the material to compromise and melt. Completely dry your cover before rolling it up and even a bit of baby powder could aid in the storage. If you have anymore questions we'd be glad to help you. Please feel free to reference our website for more information. [url=http://www.hamlinpools.com]Hamlin Pools[/url]
Sincerely,
Hamlin Pools

Originally Posted by recrossler

I am thinking about buying a solar blanket for my swimming pool in McAllen, TX. The salesman tells me that it should significantly extend my swim season in both the fall and the spring. I have been looking for information online to verify this. Does anyone on here live in S. Texas that can share with me how much a solar blanket does for them to extend the season.

Thanks.

[hellpaso]

I had one and hated it. I ended up throwing it away, it was a total pain to use--it was heavy, bulky, and like previously posted, would discourage you from using the pool.

[scrub85]

Originally Posted by recrossler

I am thinking about buying a solar blanket for my swimming pool in McAllen, TX. The salesman tells me that it should significantly extend my swim season in both the fall and the spring. I have been looking for information online to verify this. Does anyone on here live in S. Texas that can share with me how much a solar blanket does for them to extend the season.

Thanks.

Hello if you want solar system for the pool we are the authorize seller here in texas pls give me a call at my no. 281-905 4382 to discuss the detail. Thanks Lee