Pool water

Pool care in winter

During the cold winter months pool water tends to stay clear with very little help. Generally algae does not appear and I hardly ever see a pool turn green. Any algae growth that does occur is extremely slow.

Of course winterizing is ideal, but many of our pools are not winterized. To these we add an occasional dose of chlorine and run the pump at least once a week. Vacuuming requirements are negligible – once every 3 or 4 weeks is plenty under normal circumstances.

Winterized pools? We cover them and forget them until April or May, which is so much easier.

At the end of the day it is the pool owner who makes the decision and either way we are happy; our pools are always clear and blue.

After the thaw

All the lovely snow has melted, adding valuable water to the the ground water table and the lakes nearby.

A quick tour of nearby pools showed no sign of snow of freeze damage and everything appears to be in great shape.

The extra precipitation with the snow also means more water for filling our pools this summer. I can hardly wait to go swimming again.

Calculate pool volume

Whenever you get pool supplies, the instructions say x ounces per 1,000 gallons or something similar. So how many gallons of water does my swimming pool hold?

There are a lot of sites on the internet that tell you how to work out your pool volume. These easy to use pool volume calculators from the Pool Wizard make life so much easier.

You just put in the measurements and it spits out the answer. I tested it out and it consistently gives ‘clean’ results to the nearest 100 gallons. I found this very nifty, after all, who wants a result like 11,489 gallons. It seems unwieldy and unnecessary to have such an accurate result as opposed to 11,500 gallons, which is just as good when it comes to swimming pool volume and chemical dosing.

The Pool Wizard site have also made provision for those who use metric values. You put in the measurements in meters and it gives metric pool volume results (in cubic meters) as well as the conversion into gallons.

I think the volumes are given in US gallons, though they do not say. Perhaps I’ll send them a note and get them to confirm (or deny) this.

Drought in Georgia

Citizens of North Georgia have been anticipating a dry summer and empty swimming pools. The Governor’s office, among much speculation, had ruled that pool owners would not be given permission to use the State’s precious water resources for filling their pools.

A recent announcement has helped to allay some fears:

Citing risks to public health and safety, Governor Sonny Perdue announced plans today to modify state restrictions on the filling of swimming pools in drought-stricken north Georgia, but will still require that water conservation goals be met. Under a Level Four Drought Response, the filling of outdoor swimming pools is prohibited. Today Governor Perdue announced the lifting of this restriction, allowing outdoor pools to be filled from April through September 2008.

That’s some relief for the 6,500 public pools and 92,000 private residential pools in the affected area, that manage to use seven million gallons of water per day from April through September. The Governor’s office went on to observe that:

Some potential impacts if outdoor pools were left empty include collecting stagnant water, cracking or collapsing of pools and posing a safety threat of falling into the empty pool.

Here’s hoping for some of that much needed rain in Georgia.