Safety Pool Cover vs Winter Pool Cover: Which One Belongs on Your Ontario Pool?

The Four Types of Pool Cover: Winter Tarp to Automatic

"Winter pool cover" gets used for everything from a $150 tarp to a custom anchored cover, so start with what each type is and how it holds on.

1. Solid tarp-style winter cover with water bags

The traditional winter pool cover is a sheet of woven polyethylene laid over the water and held at the edge with a ring of water bags (water tubes) sitting on the deck. It keeps leaves out and blocks sunlight, so the water stays clean. It does not hold weight. Rain and snowmelt collect on top, and that pond of water on a sagging tarp is a real drowning hazard for a small child or a pet. It is a debris cover, nothing more.

2. Mesh safety cover

A mesh safety cover is a tightly woven polypropylene mesh, custom made to your pool, stretched across the water with straps and springs that clip to brass anchors set into the deck. Water drains straight through it, so there is nothing to pump. It is light, quick to put on and take off, and the most common anchored cover in Ontario backyards.

3. Solid safety cover

Same anchors and straps, but made from a solid vinyl-coated fabric that blocks all light and debris. Because water cannot pass through, solid safety covers either need a pump or come with a mesh drain panel in the middle that lets water out while keeping most debris on top. They are heavier to handle and store.

4. Automatic cover

A motorized cover that runs in tracks along the pool sides and rolls onto a drum at one end, operated with a key switch. Its main value is daily use during the season: safety whenever it is closed, heat retention, less evaporation and fewer leaves. Winter use depends on the model. Some manufacturers allow it with water pumped off the top regularly; others recommend a separate winter cover in heavy snow regions. Ask before you buy.

What Makes a Pool Safety Cover Safe: ASTM F1346

The word "safety" on a box is not enough. The benchmark for a real pool safety cover is ASTM F1346, the performance standard safety covers sold in Canada are commonly tested and labelled to. A cover that meets it is tested to support a substantial weight on its surface, to stop a small child slipping under the edge, and to keep dangerous amounts of standing water from building up on top. Look for the label on the cover itself, not just in the brochure.

Two cautions matter as much as the label:

• The rating only holds when the cover is installed properly. Every anchor engaged, every strap tensioned, no gaps at steps or corners. A safety cover with three straps unclipped because they were "a pain" is not a safety cover.
• Tarp-style covers with water bags do not qualify. They are not designed to keep a child or pet out, and water pooling on them is a hazard in itself.

Mesh Safety Cover vs Solid Safety Cover

Most Ontario owners who move up from a tarp end up choosing between mesh and solid. The difference shows up in two places: how much work the cover is in winter, and what the water looks like when it comes off in spring.

Why mesh pools open greener

Mesh lets water through, and with it comes fine silt, pollen, tannins from wet leaves and some sunlight. Through April that is enough to start algae once the water warms. Expect more vacuuming and a bigger shock dose at opening. Denser mesh grades block more light and help noticeably. Rain and snowmelt also raise the pool level under mesh, so the water may need lowering in spring before you start up.

Why solid covers mean more winter work

A solid cover keeps everything out, and pools under solid covers usually open clear or close to it. The trade-off is that every rainfall and thaw leaves water on the cover. A drain panel handles most of it; without one, you are pumping. If you cannot check the pool through the winter, for instance at a cottage, mesh is the safer choice.

Safety Pool Cover Cost in 2026

The safety pool cover cost depends mostly on pool size, shape and how many custom details the cover has to work around. These are typical 2026 Ontario ranges for an average residential inground pool, not quotes.

What pushes a safety cover price up: freeform shapes, a raised wall or spa, rock waterfalls, steps that extend into the deck, lawn or garden edges where anchors need concrete footings, and interlock decks that need extra work at each anchor. Automatic covers climb fastest on large pools and on retrofits where tracks are recessed under new coping. On the honest value question: a $3,000 mesh safety cover that lasts twelve years costs about $250 a season, before counting the tarps, water bags and pumping it replaces.

Anchors and Your Deck

Every anchored safety cover means a ring of holes drilled into your deck, roughly every metre around the pool, set back from the edge. The anchors are brass inserts that screw down flush in summer so nobody trips on them, and pop up with a hex key when the cover goes on. What that means depends on your deck.

• Poured or stamped concrete. The easiest case. Anchors are drilled straight into the slab. The installer keeps them back from the coping and away from control joints so the slab is not cracked.
• Interlocking pavers. Pavers move with the frost, and an anchor set only in a paver can loosen or tilt the stone under strap tension. Good installs core through the paver and set each anchor deeper, often in a small concrete footing in the base below.
• Wood or composite decks. Anchors must fasten into joists or added blocking underneath. Decking boards alone, especially composite, will not hold the tension for long.
• Lawn, gardens and stone borders. Where the cover crosses soil, anchors go into concrete footings, or straps are lengthened to reach solid deck.

Before drilling, the installer should locate deck drains, lighting conduit and any buried plumbing. If you are building a new pool or deck, plan the anchor ring at the same time. Our guide to pool coping and deck materials explains how each surface is built.

Ontario Snow, Meltwater and the Pool Cover Pump

Ontario winters load a cover in ways southern catalogues never mention: heavy wet snow in December, a January thaw, a hard freeze straight after, and spring meltwater in March. How the cover handles that cycle decides how long it lasts.

Solid and tarp covers: keep the water off

A pool cover pump sits on top of a solid cover and moves meltwater and rain off to the lawn. Automatic units switch on when water reaches them, which is far better than remembering to run a hose siphon. The rules are simple:

• Never let water or ice build up. A few inches of water across a large cover weighs a great deal, stretches the fabric, pulls water bags into the pool and can stress the liner and coping.
• Check after every thaw and heavy rain, not just in spring.
• Do not chip at ice on the cover. Let it melt, then pump.
• If the pumped water looks like pool water, the cover is torn and you are draining the pool. Stop and repair.
• Check water bags after freezes. Burst bags let a tarp shift or blow in. Fill them most of the way, not to bursting, so ice has room.

Mesh covers: watch the water level

Snow sits on a mesh cover and melts through. The cover is designed to sag a little under load, and the pool water beneath helps support it, so do not drain the pool far below the level your cover maker specifies when closing. Blow or rake off heavy leaf piles in late fall so they do not stain the mesh or rot into the water.

Sizing, Measuring and Lifespan

Measuring

A tarp-style cover is bought by pool size from the manufacturer's chart, which adds overlap so the edge can drape onto the deck under the water bags. A safety cover is custom made. For a plain rectangle, length, width and step details may be enough. For freeform pools, installers use a triangulation method: two fixed reference points on the deck and measurements from each to dozens of points around the edge, plus every obstacle. Small errors become gaps or wrinkles, which is why measuring is worth leaving to whoever installs the anchors.

Making a cover last

• Clean and dry the cover fully before folding. Storing it damp causes mildew.
• Store it off the floor in a sealed bin or bag. Mice love chewing pool covers in sheds and garages.
• Keep chemistry balanced before closing. Very high chlorine or low pH against the underside shortens fabric life.
• Replace worn springs and straps as they go. They are cheap; a strap failing under snow load is not.

Which Pool Cover Fits Your Pool

There is no single best pool cover. These are the situations we see most often and the cover that usually suits each.

The cover is also the last step of closing and the first step of opening. Our pool closing and winterizing guide covers water level and chemistry before the cover goes on, and the pool opening checklist starts with getting it off cleanly. Swimpool 360 can measure for and install mesh and solid safety covers as part of our pool closing service.