Thanks for the info. I called Pentair to confirm the part # as well if it would be interchangeable, which they are. Sorry if I had to verify but after getting the wrong info on the original purchase I didn't want to repeat my mistake. I will be ordering the part this afternoon from my supplier. I'll try a post an update after I change it out. Thanks everyone for your help.

I'm not sure I understand your question. With a pool cover, you actually lose less water because it's not evaporating. When you say "cover housing", I think you are referring to what I call the "trough" -- the hole that the cover retracts into. There should really not be any pool water in that trough. When it rains, you will use a pump (like a sump pump) that will sit on top of the cover, it will have a water house attached and you can direct the water it pumps off to go wherever you want. We alternate between pumping it into our yard, or pumping it to the deck drains which is tied into the underground gutters and directed to the street. When you retract the cover with any water on it, it may slosh into the trough -- BUT if there is much water, the water gets heavy and the cover will not operate. It's trial and error but once you do it a few times, you will figure it out. You can back up the cover and then start it again and let it dump into the trough. Our trough is covered with Trex (plastic wood-look). Our builder thought it would be better than using concrete coping because the coping would be so heavy to remove when you need to access that trough. But our builder has not built many pool covers, so I'm not sure that was the best advice. I sort of wish we had a different design there. I haven't looked under there in a long time to see if there is much standing water (could be mosquito problem??) but I don't notice mosquitos coming from there, and when we have looked in there, nothing has concerned us. My husband removes the Trex in the spring after the oak trees are finished with all their mess and cleans / vacuums the trough out. We have the crepe myrtle that sheds and so there is debris that will get dumped into that trough throughout the year. Obviously if there are lots of debris, after a storm, we clean that before retracting the cover, but we don't clean it every time by any means. Overall -- I still love having the cover. BIG piece of mind on the safety front with 2 kids now! We can still enjoy our yard in the winter without safety concerns. The pool stays much cleaner. We use less chlorine and water.

First check your total alkalinity. If it is outside of a rand of 80-100 use bicarb to adjust it. If a pH adjustment is still required, use soda ash (sodium carbonate) to raise the pH.

listening to that guy is not a bad idea. He has more knowledge in terms of maintaining a pool isn't he? well if its not, then he should not be working in a pool supplies shop after all.