Daisy rollers are the best thing since pool covers! In fact, in most cases a pool cover can be put on or off in less than 30 seconds. But if it’s not installed or used correctly, it can be difficult. Are you doing it right?

Rollers are designed to make pool owners’ lives easier in deploying and rolling in a pool cover. Except if you are doing it wrong!

Believe it or not we get calls, even complaints that the rollers are hard to use. There are a few points we want to share and some tips for you to pass on at installation to help our customers get it right.

Here are some tips you need to know:

1. Always roll the pool cover OVER the roller tube…not under. Why we are asked? Well when you roll the pool cover UNDER the tube it makes it very hard to pull the pool cover on and off the pool. UNDER means you are ‘lifting’ the hand wheels to roll up the cover. It is a lot harder to ‘pull’ the hand wheels back to you when you are standing behind the roller to roll in the pool cover. Then there is the geometry, yes there’s geometry with pool covers! When you roll in the pool cover OVER the tube, it increases the recovery angle from where the pool cover exits the water to the top of the roller. Adversely if you roll in the cover under the roller, the angle is reduced dramatically meaning you need to increase the force to recover. When you try deploying the pool cover when rolled UNDER…it takes a lot more effort to pull the cover back onto the pool when it has been rolled UNDER compared to the ease of deploying when rolled correctly OVER the tube. This is because when the cover is rolled UNDER you are pulling the roller more towards you than unrolling the pool cover. So always roll the cover OVER the roller tube to make using your roller easier. In short, OVER IS BEST!

2. Don’t cut the pool cover too big. The higher it is up the wall of the pool the harder it is for the cover to exit the pool area and if you have headers that extend out over the pool this just increases the force needed to remove a larger pool cover sheet out of a smaller opening.
3. Create a line of sight. For kidney shape or step areas away from the roller…always fold in the section poking out from the roller to create a ‘line of sight’ back to the roller. This makes rolling up the pool cover a lot easier and avoids the pool cover being caught on headers or parts of the pool – see below.
   
4. Place the roller at the water edge. The closer to the water, the easier it is to use. If the roller is set up too far away from the pool it makes it harder to use because you are pulling the pool cover against the edge of the pool towards the roller. Rollers are easy to move.
5. Keep the cords as long as possible. The roller cords should be left at full length to allow the cord to wrap around the roller tube, don’t adjust the cords as short as possible. When the cords are wrapped around the tube they align themselves to the pool cover making it easier to pick the cover up off the pool. The other reason is to take the weight off the feather plugs. By wrapping the cord around the roller tube when recovering it will stop any undue breakage or pulling out of the feather plug during operation.
6. Don’t get fancy. To put the cover back on the pool, for most pools you really don’t need any other tools like a haul cord or any weird or wonderful techniques. Simply take hold of the pool cover with your hand.

Tip #1: Fold over the corner opposite to where you re pulling the cover to cause a bow effect. This is up to you as in most instances the other side will fold under the cover to cause a bow effect anyway!

7. Always use the supplied over cover to avoid damaging the pool cover!

Tip #2: Install the pool cover bubble side down so the flat surface is to the top.

If you need any assistance with your pool, check in with one of our Daisy Experts for advice.