I am in the market for a pool cover and had what I thought was a healthy budget for this. The quote I got for a Loop-Loc cover was 2X+ what I was even imagining for the high end and that has me questioning the entire pool cover industry. When I look through past, but semi-recent threads here, I see some people say things like "Loop-Loc is not cheap, but it is worth the $4K price". Then I see other threads of people saying they got quotes of $10K with feedback from others saying that seems reasonable. My quote was for $8K+. That's a crazy range and yet I suspect it may be a reality with the markup and current, local market conditions being highly variable.
I would be fine to pay $4K for a high-quality cover, but at $8K+ it almost seems cheaper to just let the pool go to Crud and completely empty and start over every year and you'd be financially better off. Now, I wouldn't want to do the "start over" every year, but that perspective makes me start to thing then whole expensive pool cover thing is a scam and that there must me a more reasonably priced solution out there.
This viewpoint maybe be colored by my particular situation. The "safety" aspect of a cover is a non-issue for me: I have no small children or pets, and a well fenced in backyard. For me, a cover's only purpose is to keep out the sun in the summer when I am away and keep out the debris in the other season when a lot of Crud is falling down.
It seems like if I can find the right material in bulk, which is a commodity in other industries, and thus relatively inexpensive, then with a little bit of drilling and anchoring hardware I would have something nearly as good as these high-end pool cover solutions. I am sure that a big piece of high-quality, lightweight, UV resistant fabric is not cheap, but I bet it is "relatively" cheap when staring at the alternative $10K cost. Has anyone gone down this same thought process, or am I missing something fundamental in my analysis here?
Commercial tarps, shade tarps, sun sails, marine fabrics seems like some good candidates. Add some good quality stainless steel anchors and that seems all there is to it.
I would be fine to pay $4K for a high-quality cover, but at $8K+ it almost seems cheaper to just let the pool go to Crud and completely empty and start over every year and you'd be financially better off. Now, I wouldn't want to do the "start over" every year, but that perspective makes me start to thing then whole expensive pool cover thing is a scam and that there must me a more reasonably priced solution out there.
This viewpoint maybe be colored by my particular situation. The "safety" aspect of a cover is a non-issue for me: I have no small children or pets, and a well fenced in backyard. For me, a cover's only purpose is to keep out the sun in the summer when I am away and keep out the debris in the other season when a lot of Crud is falling down.
It seems like if I can find the right material in bulk, which is a commodity in other industries, and thus relatively inexpensive, then with a little bit of drilling and anchoring hardware I would have something nearly as good as these high-end pool cover solutions. I am sure that a big piece of high-quality, lightweight, UV resistant fabric is not cheap, but I bet it is "relatively" cheap when staring at the alternative $10K cost. Has anyone gone down this same thought process, or am I missing something fundamental in my analysis here?
Commercial tarps, shade tarps, sun sails, marine fabrics seems like some good candidates. Add some good quality stainless steel anchors and that seems all there is to it.
