Spa Cover Broken Again?
We get a lot of inquiries from spa owners that are replacing their cover due to hail damage. Traditional rigid foam covers get hammered by hail because they do not absorb impact very well. The foam inside the cover is rigid enough to form a bridge over the spa, however it does not allow for impacts.
Falling debris like branches and hail will pulverize the foam hard enough to break the cover. As people who live in areas of heavy hail storms know, anything rigid is going to take a pounding. If you have been replacing covers because of this type of damage you have to ask yourself if there is some better way of covering your spa.
Let’s look at a few options. You might look at an Aluminum cover. This would be stronger than a foam filled spa cover, but it could be a little unwieldy because a one piece cover that size would need significant storage space. Not to mention even the slightest wind would make it a very large destructive frisbee.
A roll spa cover would be one possible option. These are very strong and essentially work like a portion of deck that you roll over the spa. The down side is they tend to collect small debris and allow it to get into the spa. Though strong they also offer little in the way of insulation.
Then you could choose to go for a reinforced rigid foam cover. The latest actually have plywood glued to the rigid foam to add strength. Naturally this will handle all but the most severe hail storm. Only two caveats on this type of spa cover, it still will fly in a wind storm and with the added mass it will do serious damage to anything it lands on and it will still eventually become saturated. Once it is saturated a cover like this will be a four person job to open the spa.
The solution to this would be something that is able to give or absorb impacts. In Hollywood when a stunt man falls from a great height, he wants to land on something that will absorb his impact like an air bag. The air bag principle would work as a spa cover to guard against impact damage. Like the stunt person lands on a cushion of air, likewise hail and other debris.
The stunt bag is designed to dump air quickly on impact to catch the stunt person so you should not use your air filled spa cover this way. However if your house is on fire and you have to jump out of the window aiming for the large air bag would probably save your life. I need to mention that jumping on Any spa cover would not be covered as normal wear.
No matter how fierce the storm or the hail stone an air filled spa cover will give or catch it without damage. We have tested them by driving golf balls into them at close range, dropping bowling balls on them and just having them in use around the country in areas that get severe hail storms. Before you replace another rigid foam spa cover because it broke shop online for a spa cover that will not end up the same way.