Solar cover reels for above-ground pools

When a reel matters on an above-ground pool

The Department of Energy puts the heating-cost saving from covering a pool when it is not in use at 50 to 70%. Every word of that figure depends on the cover actually going on. A solar blanket that takes two people and a wrestling match to deploy stops going on within a few weeks, and from then on it saves nothing at all.

That is the whole case for a reel, and our main reels page makes it in full. On a small above-ground pool the case is weaker: the cover is lighter and often a one-person job without help. It gets strong again on the larger ones — an 18 ft or wider round pool carries a cover that is awkward to handle alone — and on any pool where the cover has already stopped going on. This page is about the part that page leaves open: which reel fits an above-ground pool, because most of them only fit one kind.

How we judged these

Five criteria, in the order they rule reels in or out:

• Pool type. Frame and soft-sided pools on one side, steel- and resin-wall pools on the other. Several reels exclude one group outright, and that settles the matter before anything else does.
• Width. A reel has to span your pool. The maximum is published for every pick here, and some are sold in fixed widths you must match.
• Mounting, and getting it clear to swim. Lift-and-swing, top-rail and frame-attached designs behave differently beside a real pool, and a deck changes which ones work.
• What is not in the box. No reel here includes the cover, and one does not include the tube that spans the pool.
• What the listing will tell you. Materials, bearings, warranty, cover-thickness limits. Some publish these; some publish almost nothing. We say which.

Start with your pool, not the reel

The single most useful thing to know is that the reel market splits along the same line as the pool market. The Sun2Solar above-ground reel states in capitals that it is not compatible with Intex, Bestway, Coleman or soft-sided pools. Horizon’s 24 ft reel says the same about soft-sided pools. Those designs lift off and swing away on a rigid pool wall, and a frame or inflatable pool does not give them one.

So: if you own an Intex or Bestway rectangular frame pool, the Intex 28051E is built for it and the lift-and-swing reels are not. If you own a steel-wall round or oval pool, the reverse is true. Owners of Intex and Bestway round frame pools are the group this category serves worst: the Intex reel is rectangular-only, and the round reels exclude their pools.

Width: measure the right dimension

A reel’s tube spans the pool across its width, and the cover rolls onto it along the length. For a round pool the width is simply the diameter. For an oval pool it is the short side, which is why an 18 by 33 ft oval pool needs an 18 ft reel, not a 33 ft one.

Then check two things beyond the headline number. Reels sold in fixed widths — the GLI here is the 18 ft version — must match your pool. And telescopic reels have a working range, not just a maximum: Horizon’s 24 ft reel, for example, adjusts to 19 to 24 ft, so it is the wrong buy for a 15 ft pool despite being “up to” 24.

Mounting, decks and getting it out of the way

Lift-and-swing reels, the Sun2Solar and Feherguard here, sit at the pool edge and pivot or lift clear so nobody swims under a tube. Sun2Solar specifies its 24 ft reel system for pools without a deck around the edge, because the swing needs somewhere to go; its above-ground reel listing does not address decks, so check before buying if your pool has one.

Top-rail reels like the GLI mount on the pool’s top rail. That keeps them off the ground but asks the rail to carry them, which suits a solid steel or resin rail and rules out frame pools.

Frame-attached reels like the Intex clamp to a rectangular frame. Simple, but the frame and the reel have to match.

What is not in the box

The cover, always. Every reel in this roundup is sold without one. The above-ground cover picks cover that half, and fit matters more than thickness on a soft-sided pool.

On the Swimline, the tube. The HydroTools 52000 is the lowest-priced reel system on this page, and its listing says clearly that the tube kit is not included: you pick a kit sized to your pool and buy it separately. That makes the listed price the price of the ends, straps and hardware rather than of a working reel. It may still be the cheapest route once the kit is added — the point is to price the kit before deciding. Generic “reel ends only” kits sold by other sellers work the same way and are worth reading just as carefully.

The picks, briefly

Sun2Solar Above-Ground Pool Solar Reel System is the default for a steel-wall round or oval pool up to 24 ft. It publishes its materials — resin and commercial-grade aluminum — and nylon bearings, which is more than most, and it is the most direct about what it does not fit.

Intex 28051E is the answer for rectangular frame pools from 9 to 16 ft wide, and it is sold by Amazon itself. Its listing says almost nothing about construction, which we note rather than paper over.

Feherguard Premium is for pools wider than 24 ft, up to 30, with the longest warranty here at five years. It is also the most expensive reel on the page by some distance.

GLI Whirlwind is the all-aluminum build with a sealed bearing, for owners who would rather mount on the top rail than stand a reel beside the pool.

Swimline HydroTools 52000 is the budget route, with the tube-kit caveat above.

The order to buy in

1. Identify your pool type. Frame or soft-sided, or rigid steel/resin wall. That decides which half of this list is open to you.
2. Measure the width — diameter for round, short side for oval — and check whether a deck surrounds the edge.
3. Choose the cover, and note its thickness and width.
4. Then choose the reel that fits the pool type, the width and the cover. If its listing publishes no thickness limit, find out before pairing a 16-mil cover.

A reel is the part of pool heating that costs the least and changes the most, because it is what turns a cover you own into a cover you use. If you are working through the rest of the problem, every loss path ranked by effect per dollar and the solar heaters sized for above-ground pools are the next two pages to read.