Safety Cover vs. a Cheap Winter Tarp: What You're Really Paying For

A cheap winter tarp and a real safety cover are not the same product. A tarp lays loose on the water, holds no weight, and slowly turns your pool into a swamp by spring. A safety cover anchors into your deck, pulls drum-tight, holds the weight of a child or a pet, and keeps the pool clean all winter. One is a sheet of plastic. The other is a barrier that protects people and saves you money every spring.

What a Cheap Winter Tarp Actually Is

A tarp-style winter cover floats on the surface and is held down with water bags or weights around the edge. That's the whole system. It is not a safety barrier — nothing stops a child, a pet, or a grandkid from sliding under it or falling through. It just sits there.

• It lays loose on the water instead of being anchored to anything.
• Rain and snowmelt pool on top, so it sags into the water and pulls debris in with it.
• Leaves and dirt collect in the low spots all winter and rot.
• Water bags split, freeze, or slide, and the cover blows partway off in a hard Oklahoma wind.
• The material is thin — one or two seasons and it's torn or brittle.

Come spring you pull it off and you're staring at black water, a layer of sludge, and a long cleanup before the pool is usable.

What a Real Safety Cover Does

A safety cover is built to your exact pool. It anchors into brass anchors set flush in your deck and pulls tight with springs so the surface stays flat and firm all winter. Step on it and it holds.

• It anchors into the deck and pulls drum-tight — no sag, no floating.
• It is rated to hold the weight of a child or a pet that walks out onto it.
• Mesh sheds rainwater and snowmelt straight through; solid keeps light and debris out entirely.
• The pool stays clean and sealed all winter instead of collecting a season of rot.
• It looks sharp across the deck instead of looking like a tarp held down with sandbags.
• Built right, it lasts years — not a season or two.

The Cheap Option Costs More Over Time

A tarp looks cheaper on the day you buy it. Over a few winters it isn't. You replace it every season or two as it tears and sags. Every spring you pay — in time or in a heavier service bill — to clean up the swamp it left behind. A pool that sat under a sagging tarp opens slow: more water to drain and refill, more chemicals to clear it up, more labor.

A safety cover is one cost that lasts years, and it makes every spring opening lighter because the pool was sealed and clean the whole time. Add up the repeat tarp replacements plus the heavier openings and the "cheap" cover ends up being the expensive one.

Who Especially Needs a Real Safety Cover

If anyone walks through your backyard who can't be watched every second, a tarp is the wrong call. A safety cover is the right one when you have:

• Kids at home, or grandkids who visit.
• Dogs or other pets with run of the yard.
• Neighborhood kids who could wander back there.

A floating tarp gives none of these any protection. A properly anchored safety cover is a real barrier between them and the water.

Get a Cover Built for Your Pool

Oklahoma Pool Cover Company builds custom-measured Latham safety covers for inground pools across the OKC metro and Central Oklahoma. Every cover is measured and quoted per pool, so it fits tight and anchors clean. See the details on our inground pool safety covers page, or call Kenny at (405) 384-9660 to get your pool measured for a real cover that protects your family and pays you back every spring.