Is My Tub's Cover Ruined?

[ne_skier]

Is my tub's cover ruined? I suspect the answer is yes but I thought I'd post and see what people have to say.

(Apologies in advance for the long post. I hope at least someone gets entertainment value from my foibles!)

I did something stupid last December (2013). A weather event left my tub with a good 3/8 to 1/2 inch layer of crusty ice glued to the cover's surface, with another 4-5 inches of loose snow over the ice. The snow was no problem.

The ice was pretty well attached to the cover surface, but I really wanted to remove it since it's heavy and I thought my wife would want to use the tub that weekend, and I'd be away.

I started to scrape it off with a plastic snow shovel. The shovel was effective but unfortunately the ice was stuck to the cover surface stoutly enough that patches of the cover's outer surface peeled away with the ice. And unfortunately I didn't see what was happening until 20 to 30 small holes had been torn away from the outer surface. (The holes form sort of a clawmarks-like pattern; maybe 1" wide by several inches long, over a 2ft x 2ft area roughly.) A mesh layer is visible in the holes where outer layer got torn away.

Coincidentally, in subsequent months we've been noticing a tendency for the tub's water level to rise randomly. Hmmmm.... I can't say for certain that we never had inexplicable water-rises before this past winter, but we don't *think* it happened.

Fast fwd to early July. Wife and I go away on vacation for 2 weeks. Before leaving we checked the chems (all ok), treated it with a hefty dose of chlorine and noted the water level. We returned a couple days ago. We open up the tub and find the water level had risen more than an inch! (in an 8ft square tub), and the water was really murky. Sh!t!! (I'll note also this is the first time we've gotten murky water like this; in previous summers we've left the tub for the same amount of time, with similar pre-dosing, and come back to clean water. Chlorine-depleted, but visually clear.)

Water is definitely leaking through the holes in the cover. I confirmed that by pouring water over the holed cover surface and seeing water drip into the tub through the underside of the cover. I have to assume that rainwater soaked through the cover, maybe picked up some bio-yuckiness that's taken residence inside the cover since it's no longer water-tight, and carried it into the tub water.

We've refilled with fresh water and I've got a layer of 2-mil plastic sheeting duct taped over the entire cover, so the current water should be safe temporarily.

I think now my questions are:

- Is my current cover repairable or worth trying to repair? I have no experience patching vinyl, or... anything really. (Assuming the cover is vinyl.) But it seems like a stretch to try to patch a 2ft square piece of vinyl. And patching all those small holes individually... no way.

So I suspect I need to buy a new cover. (Or live with my tub wraped in plastic sheeting LOL! :-)

- How do you deal with ice that gets stuck to the cover surface? (I know the obvious answer is keep the surface clear during the snow/sleet event but sometimes that's impossible.)

Is melting it away with warm/hot water a viable approach? Or would that damage the cover another way?

Or just wait it out till it eventually melts? (Deep-freezes usually don't last toooooo long in Massachusetts.)

I appreciate any thoughts, even if only to tell me I'm a dumbass!

[Gatubber]

Cover is shot.

[ne_skier]

Yeah... sigh. Thanks. :-)