Most pools today are designed with an attached spa that shares the same circulation pump as the swimming pool. In many cases, the spa is elevated above the level of the pool to create a nice waterfall effect as the spa spills over into the pool as it circulates. You might think adding an automatic pool cover to a pool with a raised spa is not possible as the water spilling from the spa would fall onto the pool cover, but there are many ways to design a pool with a raised spa and still integrate an automatic safety swimming pool cover from Poolsafe.
One option is to eliminate the spa’s spillover completely by installing equalizer lines into the spa wall at the time of construction that will allow the maximum circulation to simply spill through the pipes inside the wall into the pool. This does not give you the soothing sounds of the spillover waterfall effect, but if desired, you could add a sheer descent or custom cascade type of water feature outside the spa wall on a dedicated pump. This can be controlled with a small magnetic “water feature sensor” that is wired to the water feature control. Doing so will only allow the water feature to be operated when the cover is completely open.
Another method is to put the spa at the end of the pool where the cover closes and notch the face of that wall back so that the spillway doesn’t spill onto the pool cover. The width of the spillway should be wide enough so as to not spill the water beyond the face of the notched wall. This can also be fine-tuned with a spa bypass valve. You can also get more creative and set the spa back from the edge of the pool creating a small trough or a few channels in the deck that would still allow the water to spill down the face of the spa, but it would travel along small channels in the deck and continue under the pool’s coping and pool cover track. This not only solves the issue of not spilling water onto the top of the cover, but it also allows you to get creative with a unique style of water feature.
The raised spa can also be covered with an automatic pool cover so it would match the pool and provide the same level of safety.
Happy Swimming!
-Dan Newbold
