Portable Above Ground Inground Swimming Pool Hot Tub Spa Heating Accessory Circular Heater Solar Cover, Blue (6 Pack)

Just ordered 6 more. Then I'll have 1-2 extra so when my terriers puncture it, I'll have a backup. I'll write back with info on "heating" capability once I have more of the pool covered (75%-80%). Reason for Purchase: We purchased to keep evaporation down and to keep heat in at night. In Napa, it dips down into 50s/60s all summer. Also, the very small possibility they will help extend our swim season. We just installed a new energy efficient gas pump heater to save on our crazy gas bills and water usage. PROs: (Partial list until further observations) 1. Magnets hold them together and make it easier to retrieve 2. Has handles for easy hanging (small) 3. CONs: 1. Price points are high for essentially a piece of floating plastic. $30-32/each ($300 for our pool) 2. Instructions have pictures but there should be more clarity on "over-filling". Examples: Fill "halfway" and see if they will float. Or... They WILL appear grossly under inflated...so test before continuing to fill. 3. Not a CON as much as a caution: Unfold all of them and lay flat as the instructions say (I stacked mine). 4. Take the time to work out the crimped edges, especially the magnet pockets and the folded handles. WAIT for them to soften (sun helped). NOTE: This step will allow the air to distribute more evenly and easily .... You Will NOT regret this step because it takes SO little air that you'll NEED the air to be able to move very easily while inflating. 4. It is NOT reasonable to instruct people to manually blow to inflated. I could NOT do this...got dizzy too fast and I have 12 to fill!!! Logical Solution: a. Follow what I said in #3; b. BE CAREFUL AND METHODICAL and use a pump. IMPORTANT: First Determine the number of seconds needed and use that number for all the rings. NOTE: I counted to 10 (one one thousand, two one thousand, etc.); c. Depending on your pump, you might need to count only to 5 or so. d. Determine your count by looking at the ring and if it looks like it is ONLY a quarter full, STOP!! e. They will look pitifully under inflated. f. PROOF: I filled one for 12 seconds and it looked under inflated; HOWEVER, it curled!!!! I pushed some air out and it is still curled a little. See my pictures. That's it folks... no sinkers, leakers or fly aways .. all good. More later....

Still too soon to tell if they work or not as we are still in the 90s here. But one thing for sure, they definitely reduce the effectiveness of the skimmer and make maintaining a clean pool overall more difficult. When we determine if they helped to hold temperature stars may go up. Jury ia still out on that. UPDATE*** one sprung a leak within a day. Seller replaced it straightaway so good on them. Within about 6 weeks a second sprung a leak. They can be patched and the supplied patches DO work. Above I mentioned that they complicate cleaning. This is for sure. They very much reduce the effectiveness of the skimmer and overall make maintenance more difficult. Now the big question: Do they work? Sadly I don’t believe so. Despite putting them in in late August when we are still in the low to mid 90s air temps & the pool as in the middle 80’s, as soon as the shorter day and cooler weather crept around in early October, the pool did drop to the mid 70s. It DID hold there for a while. But the first cool nights we got, the pool dropped to the mid and then low 60s with just two cool nights (temps in the 50s). Perhaps they got us an extra week or two of swimming. Perhaps not. The water became too cool to swim comfortably this year with these devices as last year without. As the leaves are beginning to fall here in earnest from our trees that DO drop leaves in South Louisiana (which is no all of them) our pool technician informed us that they will HAVE to come out in order to maintain the pool. I agree. They just get too much in the way during the leaf drop season. What did they do? I do believe they helped significantly with evaporation. That normally isnt an issue here as out tropical to sub tropical climate gives us 70-80 inches of rain a year, but this year we are in an extremely unusual (for us) drought so I do know that the slowed evaporation and kept us from having to refill as often. Ultimately I really WANTED these to work. The “common sense” and skeptical side of my brain said they wouldn’t. The scientific side said they might, and of course the reviews here (many of them) said the definitely did. Perhaps an extra week of swimming? Question is, is that worth almost $400-500 and the maintenance headaches they caused? We have them in storage now and plan to re deploy them in the spring hoping that hey may warm the pool a few weeks earlier! Since we have them, why not try. But I dont think I would buy them again or replace them when they wear out.

These work well, enough to slow down the pool cooling down at night during the winter and whenever there is sunlight, will boost the temperature by about 10 degrees. However, 6 of the 18 I purchased came with small pinhole leaks, 3 which were easily fixed but 3 that occurred at the seams and will not seal using a variety of sealants. Product support is virtually non-existent, with a link to a support website that doesn't exist.

Main reason I bough these over a real pool cover was safety and ease of use. Compared to a full cover, I think there's less chance of this ring wrapping around someone to the point where they couldn't get out if someone fell on it. These rings are real easy to remove and put back. No need for a large pool cover reel. I put 5 rings in the pool (only 50% coverage) and 1 in the spa. Comparing temp when the rings were in all day, to the day where no rings are in the pool (cleaning day), I've seen a 6 degree difference. This doesn't sound like much but it's noticeable. After fully inflating all 6 rings, 5 will deflate after a day or so, 1 is completely deflated; but all still float so not a big deal. If your pool water level is low these will block the skimmer opening and if its too deflated it will get sucked in if the pump is running. For my pool, I can put one ring at the end of the pool, connect another ring to it and the gap between the two lines up with the skimmer opening so it no longer gets sucked in. I've also used a brick and some twine tied to the large loop on the ring and connect the others using the magnets. The magnets are strong enough to keep the rings connected while the pump is running and on some windy days. Does it help with evaporation? Can't really answer that until I get more than 50% of the pool covered. 6 more rings would cover the rest of the pool, but not sure if I want to pay another $150. I'll be looking for cheaper alternatives to cover the other half of the pool.

We have a large, irregular shaped pool (500 sqft, 16,000 gallons) and bought these after trying a traditional solar cover (last year) that we hated. Had them 1 week now and seen a 10 degree average temperature increase. Easy to inflate but be careful when using an air compressor with the inner section as you can easily overinflated and pop it. I did this and since the outter ring was still good, used it anyways. I like the magnets that allow you to "attach" the rings to each other so they stay together. Only takes a few minutes to remove them when we want to jump in and only a few minutes to put them back once we are done. Pricey since we needed so many (22) but we are happy with them so far.

Yes it does heat the pool. Maybe better than a standard solar cover. When they lay flat and don't blow off. However, The width is not 60 inches, it is ~40. So you end up having to buy way more than you would think to get the surface area covered. Additionally, it is very hard to hit the inflation sweet so that they actually lay flat. The materials are not very durable, and they deflate quickly. Any type of wind causes them to collect then crush into each other. The magnets do help but there are not enough of them and they are not strong enough to stand up to much movement due to weather. Sad part is, with just a little more quality I think this product would actually work. Cost is just not worth the product, I suggest sticking with the normal solar cover, glad I didn't throw mine away.

We purchased some of these from a pool company last year and they were great! We purchased some additional ones this summer but this time we got them on Amazon and they are horrible! The plastic is thin and cheap, they won't stay inflated, they are super flimsy so they fly all around with just a little bit of wind. They just don't work. The ones we got last year from Doheny Pool Company were so much nicer. Not sure what's going on because they are all the Solar Sun Rings but we just wasted so much money because once they are opened, you can't return them to Amazon. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THESE!!

Last year I bought 10 of these to cover my kidney shaped pool. Because I live in the coastal zone in California where we were in a bad drought, I got a rebate from the city to help preserve evaporation. The 10 rings covered about 80% - 90% of the pool and did exactly as they said. They reduced the evaporation substantially and warmed up the pool nicely. Because the temperature here is not super hot they did not make the pool too warm but just comfortable, and certainly better than no cover. Also they are easy for one person to take on and off. Much better than a full cover. The down side was that last year one of the covers lost air immediately and by the end of the summer several more had deflated. I didn’t bother with what I thought would be a hassle in trying to get replacements. This year I ordered 9 more. I inflated and put them on the pool right away. Within 12 hours 2 had deflated. I blew them up and tried again and again they were deflated within a day. This time I followed the warranty directions and called Solar Sun Rings. A live person answered right away. Within a day of filling in the online paperwork I got the two replacements. They are working beautifully and fill my need perfectly. The customer service was amazing.