Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I ordered this SOLAR Pool Cover for 3 reasons. #1 - I liked the thickness and weight (12 mil) because my previous 8 Mil solar covers, while they performed okay, would sometimes wind up in my neighbor's yard with high winds. #2 - I liked the darker color because I thought it would heat the pool water better. #3 - The SEVEN (7) year "limited" warranty. Wow! The cover arrived quickly in a big box (my 8Mil covers showed up in large baggies) and must've weighed 20 + pounds all boxed up. After rolling it out, it was definitely heavier and much harder to cover and uncover the pool. In fact, no one in the family wanted to deal with it, so I was always 'on-call' to remove and replace it, when someone wanted to swim. I figured it was a small price to pay to not having to apologize to my next door neighbors for damaging their freshly planted flower bed with my airborne cover. The pool cover helped heat the water up nicely, even with the fact that about 1/3 of my pool is shaded by an awning. So, everything went well for most of the summer. But that was about to change by the end of summer. We're not big pool users - just weekends only, mostly...but I do keep the pool clean and balanced. We have a Salt Water system and don't use any Chlorine pucks or liquids, or other chemicals. I started seeing these blue plastic disks in the skimmer basket and floating in the pool. Not many, at first, but I did notice that where the sun was the hitting the cover, there were missing blue disks, exposing the black "bubble" underneath. Where the pool was shaded - no issues, at all. The black side of the cover, touching the water was doing fine. No deterioration. I kept my eye on it and over a few weeks, the problem got worse and worse - to the point where there were bald spots on the cover and dozens and dozens of these blue dots in the filter inlets. By the end of the summer, there were major bald spots where the Sun shined the most, but it was fine where the cover was shaded. So, it was obvious that the UV (from the Sun) was deteriorating this "SOLAR Pool Cover". So, I removed the cover completely and called up "In the Swim" to report the problem to take advantage of the amazing 7-year warranty! I was informed by the pleasant lady on the phone that what I was describing wasn't UV damage it was "Chemical damage" caused by the fact that my "Pool water was not balanced properly"...and, thus, wasn't covered under that amazing 7-year warranty. I tried to explain that the shaded part of the pool cover was fine - so it was obviously UV damage. Not so - "In The Swim" must've been testing my water while I was at work, because they were 100% certain that it was chemical damage, because that's what their warranty says. I understand that the "limited" warranty DOES exempt "Bubble damage" and, the wording eliminates any other possible explanation than chemical damage...and, of course, the Amazon site doesn't have any of these exemptions listed, before you buy the cover. I suppose the SUN deteriorating the blue laminated plastic could be considered a "chemical reaction", or maybe they could use their "Nature/weather" exemption for the UV Damage. Sunny Day does equal "weather", I guess. So, the "In the Swim" 7-year warranty has as many holes in it as the Solar Pool cover does now. If you live in a climate where the sun shines most of the year, I would avoid this product. It has taken hours to clear my filters and pool water of hundreds of the little blue dots that fell off because of, yes, the Sun. This Solar Cover is allergic to the Sun!