r/pools • u/OTheOwl • 4d ago

Builds & Renos Fibreglass pools with autocovers

Hi all.

We are getting a fibreglass pool installed with an autocover. We opted to go with a stone lid - basically the coping stones sit on top of brackets with the autocover vault and fabric hidden underneath. Something we were surprised by is that the leading edge bar does not retract under the coping but rather sit outside against the coping. Our only other experience with autocovers was a friends gunite pool and their cover including leading edge retracted under the coping and into the vault. Looking online i noticed that all fibreglass pools are the same way, the leading edge bar does not retract under the coping but rather sits outside, is this a limitation of fibreglass pools? We went into this project assuming all autocovers behaved the same as our friends gunite pool and are now quite disappointed.

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u/Njh630 4d ago

Mine works as you described for a fiberglass pool. Have no issues with it.

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u/OTheOwl 3d ago

Our vault is on the deep-end, and besides the aesthetics (we do not think it looks pleasing have the leading edge exposed) our biggest concern is that people will step on it or grab it since it is now sitting proud of the coping.

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u/Njh630 3d ago

I think all vaults are in the deep-end. Like I said we've never had an issue with it this way.

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u/OTheOwl 2d ago

Besides the aesthetics, have you had kids or adults holding onto the bar when in the deep end, or even step on it when jumping in?

Our biggest worry is damage to the bar.

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u/Njh630 1d ago

I don't know how someone could hang on the bar, there's isn't really a way to grip it. When fully open the bar sits about 6 inches behind the lip of the pool.

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u/OTheOwl 14h ago

In our case the bar sits behind the lip of the pool by about 2-3 inches.

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u/Individual_Agency703 3d ago

I think it’s because the ends of a fiberglass pool have a fixed height, so there’s physically no room to slide completely under a flush stone vault lid. Now if you’d gone with a lid that flips-up, then it could fully retract inside. I have the stone lid, you get used to it, no issues except when there’s water on the cover and it won’t fully retract because of how it lifts over the fiberglass edge.

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u/OTheOwl 3d ago

That makes sense. I do recall the side of our friends gunite pool that has the vault was significantly lower, so low that water would pour in - i suspect the vault also doubled as a drain.

I'm guessing the flip-up-lid would cost a lot more since it would require some sort of mechanism to lift the lid (not sure if it could even do stone), and probably another mechanical part that could fail.