New pool owner here. I bought a solar cover two weeks ago (over-sized that I cut to size) and installed the thing in about 10 minutes. Cost on amazon was about $170. Its a blue bubble cover 12 mil. I keep the cover on all the time unless we are going to swim or do my weekly scrub and vacuum. I can pull the cover and fold it up in 10 minutes on my own. I can pull it back onto the pool on my own but with my 8 yr old it takes about 5 minutes.
In terms of performance, my neighbor has a smaller pool and has solar panels on the roof cycling his water (both pool and panels are roughly a year old and all of our specs other than size are the same). I cover both the pool and the spa that dumps its water into the pool for 8 hours a day. I open the skimmer 75% (close the robot to 25%) and open only the floor return. I am not sure if this is helping cycle the water from the top of the pool through the bottom but its what I am doing. Last Friday, my pool temp (on the heater and the floating temp gauge) was 78 degrees. My neighbors hit 78 as well that day. Today, my temp is at 84 degrees while my neighbors is at 82.
Im not telling you to avoid solar because I will probably put it in eventually but the other benefits of the cover are things to consider. The chlorine stays constant with the cover on, the heat loss at night is non existent and I have not added water to the pool since I put the cover on. The last point on evaporation is huge considering our water restrictions.
