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“We don’t swim in your toilet, so please don’t pee in our pool!” You might have seen this sign at friends’ houses on occasion. As amusing as it is, it highlights a real issue. People think that because swimming pools contain a lot of water, a little bit of urine isn’t going to hurt anyone. And anyway, who really pees in a pool, right? Wrong! A recent article in the New York Times referenced a report by a doctoral student in analytical and environmental toxicology at the University of Alberta in Canada. The student, Lindsay Blackstock, found artificial sweetener in all 31 samples of pool water taken from public swimming pools. The sweetener could only have got there via people’s urine. Yup. Eeeeeew. Urine and faeces are far more common contaminants in public pools than anyone is comfortable with. Every year, hundreds of people contract recreational water illnesses (RWIs) from swallowing pool water. The most common of these illnesses are gastrointestinal, such as diarrhoea, but can also include respiratory illnesses, as well as skin, ear and eye infections. The best way to combat the microscopic nasties that cause these illnesses is to make sure the levels of chlorine, or other disinfectants, are where they should be. Chlorine is used in pool water because it kills germs and bacteria, oxidises organic debris from sweat and other body fluids and oils, and fights algae. However, chlorine in itself is not always our friend, and we need to be careful not to swallow too much chlorinated pool water – even if it is completely bacteria free.

What You Should Know About The Chemicals In Your Pool Water

Firstly, don’t panic! Most of the tap water we drink has chlorine in it to kill harmful bacteria. Water filters can eliminate much of this chlorine, but we don’t have this option in our swimming pools. However, it is important to remember that the immediate benefits of disinfection that chlorine provides far outweigh any potential long-term exposure risks to chlorinated pool water. We are definitely far better off having chemicals in our pools than not, provided the levels are monitored. You may get a stomach ache if your drink a glass of chlorinated pool water, but accidentally swallowing the odd mouthful is generally not harmful. Having said that, it’s still good practice to do the following, especially if you swim professionally, or for a school team, and so spend a longer-than-average amount of time in the pool:

• Shower before and immediately after swimming.
• Drink plenty of filtered water before you swim so that you are nicely hydrated.
• Try to eat foods high in anti-oxidants, such as dark-skinned fruit and vegetables.

Don’t let any of this worry you or gross you out. Come and chat to the experts at Pool Spa & Filtration. We can advise you on the best products to use to make sure your pool water is completely safe for you and your loved ones to swim in. We’re also experts when it comes to fish ponds, aquariums, Jacuzzis and spas, and we stock a wide range of submersible lights and transformers.

As we ease into summer and look forward to lazy days around the pool, it would be wise to take a few minutes to remind ourselves of some of the dangers. Safety first, as a rule! When talking about pool hazards, most people think: drowning. And yes, that is a major factor. But did you know that there are at least four other considerations which cause significant injuries every year?

Swimming Pool Chemicals

The chemicals that we use in our pools are strong and dangerous to pets and children. They should always be locked away and out of reach from little hands. Keep your pool tools maintained and make sure that there are no leaks or cracks in the storage containers.

Electrics

As we know, electricity and water aren’t the best of friends. So it’s up to Dad, or your maintenance people, to make sure that lighting, pumps and heaters are all well maintained and checked regularly. Anything electrical needs to be properly installed – there are no shortcuts.

Drowning

Sadly, too many children are lost each year through drowning. Which is why local laws insist that a swimming pool needs to be covered or inaccessible to little people. A pool fence or a strong pool net – or both – are vitally important. A solid pool cover needs to be firmly anchored around the edges and children should be taught from a very young age not to play around the pool.

Drains And Pumps

Even a modest-sized pump in a jacuzzi or swimming pool can trap hair, feet or arms near to its suction area. A good sensor will shut down the pump in this event, and a strong and safe drain cover will limit access to these tricky suction points.

Diving Boards

We all know that somehow, the boys in the family become professional divers in the presence of a diving board. If you suspect that your pool may be too shallow for a diving board and you find that people are making contact with the floor of the pool, then remove it. It’s too easy to slip or fall awkwardly, and to injure your spine or break bones. With that out of the way, we at Pool Spa wish you the very best holiday season and look forward to being of service in the new year.

Many people have swimming pools at home, and they’re great for cooling off on hot summers’ days, or for just splashing around in and having fun with friends. They’re not usually so great, though, for swimming training or swimming lengths as a form of exercise. This is where a training pool is really useful. We usually find a training pool in large gyms, at schools, or in municipal swimming facilities. They often have movable booms, which can be moved to transform it from one 50m pool into two 25m pools. A training pool is a perfect place to give swimming lessons, as well as for swimming training, fitness swimming, stroke correction or simply for fun family time. It is often divided into separate sections for these activities.

What Are The Benefits Of A Training Pool?

Swimming is one of the best forms or primary or secondary exercise, but you need to be able to swim for a sustained amount of time. The short length of the average residential pool isn’t of much benefit, so for the best results, swim in a training pool.

Heart Health

Regular swimming, using a good technique, is fantastic for cardiovascular conditioning. It’s especially effective when combined with running or cycling, as part of a cross-training routine.

Physique-al Fitness

Activities such as weight training give you shorter, denser muscles, but swimming builds long, lean muscle. This also helps to keep calories burning for longer as it boosts your metabolism.

Feel The Flex

Swimming in a training pool after an endurance workout, such as running or using weights, flushes out toxins. This prevents sore, tight muscles the following day. This benefit is enhanced if the pool is heated, as the warm water relaxes your muscles, which increases your flexibility, making stretching easier.

A Core Benefit

Although 70% of the effort used in swimming comes from the upper body, you can get an excellent total body workout by using fins. Using all your muscles at the same time is a great way to develop core body strength.

Don’t Weight, Swim Today!

Swimming hard enough so that you’re out of breath when you’re finished means you’ve elevated your heart rate enough that you’re burning calories. Swimming is the perfect exercise for people wanting to lose weight as it doesn’t place pressure on your knees, ankles and hips. This is also why it’s also excellent for people with osteoarthritis. Pool Spa & Filtration offers comprehensive solutions for your residential swimming pool or commercial training pool needs. We are also experts when it comes to fish ponds, aquariums, Jacuzzis and spas. Not to mention our wide range of submersible lights and transformers. Come and chat to us today and let’s get you into the swim of things!

In South Africa, drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death, after vehicle accidents. Of those drownings, between 60 and 90 percent occur in residential pools! That is an extremely sobering thought, especially as we head full tilt into summer when tens of thousands of people will be spending plenty of time splashing around in their swimming pools. To avoid tragedy these holidays, please take the time to make sure you know the legislated pool safety rules. It’s vital to take every possible precaution to keep your loved ones safe this summer. It’s not enough for you to stand and watch your children while they swim. According to medical aid service provider Fedhealth, 90% of children who drown in swimming pools do so while under supervision. In most cases, the adult gets distracted just long enough for the child to drown. Children only need 5 cm of water to drown, so you simply cannot afford to take your eyes off them for a second.

What Are South Africa’s Pool Safety Regulations?

According to Section D4 of the National Building Regulations, owners of properties with swimming pools must comply with the following rules:

• The swimming pool must be enclosed by a wall or fence that has a self-closing and self-locking gate attached to it.
• This wall or fence must not be less than 1.2 m high, measured from ground level.
• The gaps between the railings of the fence must not be wide enough to allow a ball, with the diameter of 100mm, to pass through.
• The construction of any steel fence or gate must comply with the requirements in SANS 1390.

The frightening thing is, although these pool safety regulations are not difficult to comply with, a disconcertingly high number of homeowners either don’t know what they are or fail to adhere to them. In a survey conducted recently, 44% of respondents had experienced a child drowning, either in their own family or in their neighbourhood or social circle. Yet only 14% were aware of the laws concerning the access control of residential swimming pools! And 15% didn’t have any kind of safety measure in place around their pool at all, relying instead on inflatable swimming aids to keep their children safe. These measures are simply not enough, so please come and talk to the experts at Pool Spa and Filtration supplies. We’re more than happy to go through all the pool safety regulations with you, and see how we can help you make your swimming pool safe for your loved ones – and their friends, - this summer.

Surely there can be nothing more pleasurable than soaking away the stresses of the day floating weightlessly in an outdoor Jacuzzi in a garden setting? With SPA dreams comes a fair amount of consideration. On the plus side, while Jacuzzi’s, in general, require good ventilation, the great news about an outdoor Jacuzzi is that the fresh air will naturally take care of the ventilation issue for you which lends itself to a considerable cost saving. Another weight off your mind is that the humidity caused by your outdoor Jacuzzi won’t result in mildew build-up or peeling walls, which one would otherwise experience with an indoor Jacuzzi. Instead, some of your garden plants may even more happily thrive in the more humid environment. Outdoor Jacuzzi’s do present some aesthetic challenges, however, as in order to keep your Jacuzzi in ship shape, it would need to be covered when not in use to prevent leaves and other unwanted debris from landing up in the water. Admittedly a vinyl cover is not exactly attractive, so here are a few tips to help integrate your outdoor Jacuzzi into your garden and still have it look good.

Clever Camouflage in 3 Ways

Unlike in-ground pools, Jacuzzis don’t require a large paved space for access. Planting a mixture of tall and short shrubs right up to the edge of your hot tub can both merge it into the garden surroundings and make it more aesthetically pleasing to look at as a garden feature of sorts. Consider using existing garden walls and railings to help hide as many sides of the Jacuzzi as possible so that less of your hot tub is exposed. Masking the remaining sides with something like a wooden enclosure along with the addition of wooden steps would better blend your outdoor Jacuzzi into the landscape. Custom-built Jacuzzi’s can be concealed in such a way as to appear to almost not even exist. Consider a stone wall that hides the tub from the patio area, while the wall continues on to form part of a terraced garden.

A Few Focal Points

With some ingenuity and expert modifications, an outdoor Jacuzzi can be housed in such a way as to also behave as a relaxing water feature when not in use and thus serve as both a pleasurable and functional focal point in your garden. An ingenious and attractive way to cover an in-ground outdoor Jacuzzi on a small patio is to have a custom made sliding wooden slatted cover made that can double as a sundeck while both on or off your hot tub. Rolling or sliding jacuzzi covers are not only pleasing to the eye, but it also means no flipping back of a wet and heavy mess. While on the topic of sundecks, consider building a raised wooden deck around the edge of a sunken Jacuzzi with a reasonable gap below the deck for a sliding cover to be easily pushed underneath and out of the way. When the hot tub is not in use, the clever cover will form part of a terraced sundeck.

Watch where you Step

A final word of wisdom. Believe it or not, when you step out of your outdoor Jacuzzi, there is simply no way to avoid the gallon of water that follows you which naturally lands up on the floor. It is thus quite important to avoid installing any paving or grassy patches around your Jacuzzi that can become slippery when wet because nothing would ruin your new found relaxed state of being quite like an unexpected crash to the ground. Pool Spa is at the cutting edge of technology. Chat with our experienced team today to get advice on turning your terrace or garden space into your own private SPA. You can also visit us at www.poolspa.co.za

In South Africa, unlike those poor Game of Thrones people who are continually preparing for the coming of winter, we are excited because summer is most definitely on the way. Longer days, plenty of sunshine and temperatures in low 30s all signal the start of our very favourite season. Summer in South Africa is when we braai, boost our vitamin D levels and make good use of our swimming pools. However, summer is also the time of dramatic thunderstorms. Thunderstorms bring much-needed rain, so we have to love them, but they can also cause one of the biggest headaches of the entire summer season – a green pool.

Why Do Thunderstorms Give You A Green Pool?

Essentially, there are two main reasons for this annoying phenomenon. Firstly, although rainwater itself isn’t bad for your pool, the sudden addition of extra water can dilute the existing chemical levels. This can result in the dreaded green pool. The other reason is all a bit science-y. As you know, thunderstorms are made up of lightning and thunder. Apart from giving us a spectacular, if somewhat scary, show, lightning creates nitrogen in the atmosphere. The accompanying rain washes this nitrogen down to the ground – and into your pool. Now, nitrogen is like catnip for plants – they love it. Algae is no exception, so when nitrogen washes into your pool during a thunderstorm, the algae gets very excited. Even the best-maintained pools have some algae in them, although they are invisible to the human eye when their numbers are small. But after feasting on the nitrogen so thoughtfully provided by the thunderstorm, they quickly bloom and multiply until their numbers are big enough to give you a green pool.

How Can I Fix My Green Pool?

As the saying goes “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This basically means it’s much quicker and easier to keep your pool as algae-free as possible than it is to fix a post-thunderstorm, algae-infested green pool. So make sure your water is properly balanced at all times, keep sanitiser levels (such as chlorine) constant, and use an algaecide regularly. However, if you do find yourself faced with a depressingly green pool after a storm, there are two key things you can do to help get it back to its usual happy blue as quickly as possible:

• Shock it with chlorine – do this as quickly as possible after the storm before the algae really have a chance to take hold. Just remember not to use your pool for 24 hours after you’ve shocked it.
• Dose it with algaecide – this helps starve your pool water of oxygen, which then makes it impossible for algae to survive.

If you’d like any professional advice on restoring your green pool back to blue, why not chat to the friendly experts at Pool Spa & Filtration Supplies. We have everything you need to fix your pool so you can enjoy a sparkling summer!