Solar cover reels
The most under-rated purchase in this whole category. Every saving figure assumes the cover is on the pool, and the reel is what makes that happen.
Quick picks
Two picks, because this is a category with little published specification and the argument is about owning one at all rather than which one.
| # | Product | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No photo Best overall Blue Wave Solar Cover Reel The straightforward wheeled reel that fits most pools and gets out of the way. | Any inground pool with a cover you are not using enough | |
| 2 | No photo Best on price VEVOR Solar Cover Reel Nothing published about the materials, but having a reel beats not having one. | Getting a reel at all when a name-brand one is out of budget |
#ad We earn a commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. It never changes the ranking. How this site is funded. Prices last checked September 2, 2026.
The argument, in one calculation
Every saving in this subject — DOE’s 50 to 70% of heating cost, 30 to 50% of make-up water, 35 to 60% of chemicals — is contingent on one thing: the cover being on the pool when the pool is not in use.
That is not a technicality. It is the entire mechanism. A cover in the shed does nothing, and the honest failure rate here is high: a full-size blanket that needs two people and five minutes gets deployed enthusiastically in April and abandoned by June.
| 349,860 BTU a night | the evaporation share of a 3°F drop |
| x $10.75 per million BTU | heat pump |
| = $3.76 a night | |
| x 150 nights |
$564 a season on a heat pump, $1,488 on natural gas
A reel that costs a couple of hundred dollars and converts a five-minute two-person job into a thirty-second one-person job is not an accessory purchase. It is the purchase that makes the cover real.
What to look for
There is very little published specification in this category — no load ratings, no material grades, no wall thicknesses that we could retrieve — so this is a shorter list than we would like it to be. The things that actually differ:
- Width range. Reels are sold to a span, and a reel at the very top of its stated range flexes under a wet 16-mil cover. Buy one with your width comfortably inside the range rather than at the end of it.
- Wheels or fixed. A wheeled reel rolls out of the way when you are swimming and out of the weather in winter. A fixed reel is more rigid and permanently in your deck space. Wheels are the right default unless you have somewhere out of the way to mount one.
- Tube diameter and material. Thicker aluminum tube resists the sag that makes a reel awkward to crank. Nobody publishes wall thickness, so this is a judgment you make by handling one or by reading what purchasers report about flex.
- Strap count. More straps spread the load and keep the cover rolling straight. Two straps on a large cover leads to the cover walking off-center as you crank.
The thing to do first
If you already own a cover you do not put on, do not buy a better cover. Buy the reel. The cover is not the problem — the five minutes is the problem, and no amount of extra mil fixes that.
If a reel genuinely will not work at your pool — no deck space, an awkward shape, a pool you cannot get a reel alongside — the honest alternatives are solar rings, which you place one at a time, or a liquid cover, which you pour in. Both are worse than a blanket on paper and better than a blanket you never use.
Every pick, in detail
What each one publishes, what is good and bad about it, and — the section this category usually omits — what we could not judge without owning one.
Blue Wave Solar Cover Reel
A reel is the single highest-leverage purchase in this whole category and almost nobody frames it that way. Every DOE saving figure assumes the cover is on the pool when the pool is not in use. A cover that takes two people and five minutes comes off on Friday and goes back on in October. A reel turns that into thirty seconds alone, which is the difference between the savings existing and not.
Best for Any inground pool with a cover you are not using enough
| Type | Wheeled above-ground-style reel for inground and above-ground useThe manufacturer publishes no retrievable specification sheet; figure is as listed at retail. | Retail listing |
|---|---|---|
| Why it matters | Converts a two-person five-minute job into a one-person thirty-second jobOur framing, not a manufacturer claim. The published savings all assume the cover is actually on. | Our arithmetic |
- Turns the cover into something you will genuinely use daily
- Keeps the cover off the ground, which is where covers get damaged
- Wheels, so it moves out of the way
- Costs a real fraction of what the cover itself costs
- Takes up deck space permanently
- Assembly is fiddly on every reel in this category
- How the tube and hardware hold up outdoors across seasons
- Whether the width range covers your pool without a wobble
- Assembly quality and hardware fit
These need a unit in hand across a season. We do not have one, so we do not have an opinion worth printing on them.
#ad We earn a commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. It never changes the ranking. How this site is funded. Prices last checked September 2, 2026.
VEVOR Solar Cover Reel
The budget reel. The argument for buying one is the same as for any reel — a cover you can deploy alone in thirty seconds is a cover you will actually use — and the argument for buying this one specifically is price. Nothing is published about its materials or load rating, so the saving is real and so is the unknown.
Best for Getting a reel at all when a name-brand one is out of budget
| Type | Wheeled reel, sold across several width rangesThe manufacturer publishes no retrievable specification sheet; figure is as listed at retail. | Retail listing |
|---|
- Cheapest route to actually having a reel
- Several width ranges including large rectangles
- No published specification of any kind
- Aluminum and hardware quality is the usual question at this price
- Tube wall thickness and whether it flexes under a wet 16-mil cover
- Outdoor durability of the fittings
- Whether the stated width range is usable at its extremes
These need a unit in hand across a season. We do not have one, so we do not have an opinion worth printing on them.
#ad We earn a commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. It never changes the ranking. How this site is funded. Prices last checked September 2, 2026.
Questions people actually ask
Is a solar cover reel worth it?
What size reel do I need?
Can I use a reel on an above-ground pool?
- U.S. Department of Energy pool-energy figures (evaporation share, BTU per pound evaporated, cover savings, recommended temperatures, wind effect)Recreonics, reproducing and attributing the U.S. Department of Energy · read 2026-09-02
- U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Saver: Swimming Pool Covers (archived — the live page now returns 404)U.S. Department of Energy via the Internet Archive · read 2026-09-02
- Hands-on solar cover comparison: 4 to 5°F measured in one hour of 2pm sun on 89–92°F days, with the method statedBob Vila · read 2026-09-02
- Solar cover guide: 0.7°F per hour under noontime sun, 10–15°F held, and published lifespan tiers by thicknessSwim University · read 2026-09-02
- Water density: 62.424 pounds per cubic foot at 39.2°FU.S. Geological Survey, Water Science School · read 2026-09-02
Every URL above was fetched and returned content on the date shown. Where a figure is ours rather than somebody else’s, the arithmetic is on the page and on the methodology page. If you find an error in it, we would genuinely like to know.
Read next
Solar pool covers worth buying
Ranked on the specifications that actually differ between covers — thickness tier and published lifespan — because the only hands-on test in this category found no heating difference at all.
Solar covers for inground pools
Which covers suit a full-size inground pool, why handling weight outranks material at that scale, and the overnight loss math for a 16-by-32.
Solar sun rings
Floating rings you deploy one at a time. What the gaps between them cost you in evaporation, what they cost per square foot covered, and when they are the right answer anyway.
Liquid solar covers
How liquid covers actually work, why the mechanism means they help overnight and not in daylight, and the honest limits of what anybody can tell you about them.
Does a solar cover pay for itself?
The full payback derivation from one measurement you can take tonight, plus a sensitivity table for people whose pool is nothing like the example.