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Free Shipping On Orders of $50 or More At InTheSwim.com

November 29th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Heads up for free shipping deals! Image via WikipediaLooking for swimming pool supplies to close your pool? Wanna snag some pool toys and accessories for next season? Been scoping out portable hot tubs or spas for Christmas so you can relax like the folks at right? Don’t want to fight rowdy holiday crowds? You’re in luck. Online retailer In The Swim is offering free shipping on orders of fifty dollars or more on Monday, December 1st. Use coupon code I7CYBMO at checkout to get the discount. You’re welcome! Hope your Thanksgiving was joyful and fun. Now check out the free shipping at In The Swim.

Thunderstorm Coming? Get Out of the Pool!

July 29th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Saw this story today in the Arizona Republic and thought the information might bear repeating for some folk who for whatever reason may be unaware. If there’s a thunderstorm anywhere in the vicinity of your pool, get out of the water ASAP.  Seems a guy wrote in to the paper about a disagreement he had with his wife over the safety of pools when a storm threatened. The advice given is right on target.

It’s not just that lightning is attracted to water, and that water is a fairly good conductor of electricity. It’s the fact that you are out in the open just like you were on a golf course or standing out in your yard.

And your [inground] pool is reinforced with metal rods under the concrete, and they could attract lightning, too.

Even if the bolt did not make a direct hit on your pool, a strike nearby could travel along the ground to nail you.

Your wife also is correct in urging you to leave the water at the first signs of the storm. Lightning can strike from as far as 10 miles away. So even if the storm looks like it’s a long way off, you need to get out of the pool.

So take heed and stay safe. Get out of the pool as soon as you see the storm coming.

Wife Is Right About Swimming During A Storm; Arizona Republic (azcentral.com)

Natural Swimming Pools: In The Swim With Nature

July 20th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

I had read about natural swimming pools a while back on an environmentally-oriented blog. I understand they are popular in Europe. This feature story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO, USA) looks at such a natural pool built by a family in Illinois and nicely covers the concept.

Natural pools are intended as ecologically balanced systems that rely on plants and microorganisms, rather than chlorine and commonly used pool chemicals, to clean and purify water.

[The featured] pool is cleaned naturally, filtered by plants and aerated by a stacked limestone waterfall. Skimmers installed at the edge of the pool collect larger debris, and a ultraviolet filter completes the process to ensure safe water. Two electric pumps alternately circulate water about 14 hours a day during the summer.

It looks like a huge natural pond, complete with turtles, aquatic plants and frogs (no fish); but it’s a swimming pool. The owners say they love the swimming experience. There are photos and a fair amount of detail on how the pool was put together; along with resources for more information. If you’re interested in a chemical-free pool and like the concept of introducing plants and select wildlife to your home swimming experience, check out natural swimming pools.

Swimming With Ecology - STLToday

In The Swim Coupon Savings - $10 off

July 15th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Internet retailer In The Swim is offering savings of $10 off a $50 purchase through July 31st.  In The Swim carries a wide range of products and accessories for your pool, from pumps and chlorine generators, to pool chemicals, to toys, games and pool lounges; all at competitive prices. So if you’ve been coveting that floating deluxe lounger, blackjack game; or just need to stock up on pool chemicals, now’s a great time to buy. Click here for your savings.

New Florida Law to Make Swimming Pools and Pumps Energy Efficient

June 26th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

It’s reported that Florida Governor Charlie Crist will sign a new bill into law this week requiring that swimming pool pump motors run more efficiently to conserve energy.  The new law will require that by 2011 all new Florida pools have variable speed pumps. Pools in California already are required to have pool pumps with at least two speeds.

Florida Swimming Pools To Be Greener in 2011 - News-Press.com (Fort Meyers FL)

Swimming Pool Pump Motors: At the Heart of Your Pool’s Cleanliness

June 17th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

What happens when your swimming pool pump motor dies? Well, I found out a little over three weeks ago. Truth be told, it was on death watch for weeks before that. A bad storm came through months ago, blew lots of tree branches and debris into the yard and pool and produced massive lightning that shorted the pump. As it was way past pool season, hubby and I didn’t really care much at the time. It worked, but made terrible screeching and rattling sounds - “the death rattle”, we’d joke, as we fished for limbs in the pool’s deep end.

Well, opening the pool this year has been h*ll.  There’s new construction in back of the house, and dust and new debris constantly blows through the yard and, of course, into the pool. Wanna manually vacuum Georgia red clay out of your swimming pool? It ain’t fun. My cartridge filters are begging for mercy. The pool pump got slower and harder to start until it finally quit. We were gone for a weekend, and came back to a ominously cloudy pool. We’ve decided to replace it with the same model swimming pool pump. Of course, no one has that pump in stock, it has to be special ordered, and there’s a three week wait for service thanks to pool opening season being in full swing. No, not even the local Leslie’s Pool Supply had it (!). Seems it’s a pretty fancy model I inherited - a 2.5 HP Hayward Super II two-speed pump - that I understand isn’t usually stocked in the back room.

So I’ve been manually adding chlorine shock to my swimming pool these past weeks in a slowly failing effort to keep 30,000 gallons of clay laden H2O from turning green under 90+ degree heat. These woes, plus a bout of ill health, make for a lousy start to summer.  As swimming pool pump motors and researching them are at the top of my mind, thought I’d post a bit about them.

The swimming pool pump motor can be considered as the beating heart of your pool’s filtration and sanitization system.  As I can personally attest, any still body of water sitting outdoors in hot weather becomes a steaming soup of algae PDQ. The pump is necessary to move your pool’s water through the filters to sift out debris (like bugs and clay silt) and in my pool’s case through the salt system cell that converts the salt in my water to chlorine and through the gas heater for cooler fall evenings. My auto pool cleaner also runs off the pool pump motor (happy, happy joy…) so if the pump is out, my beautiful salt water swimming pool is effectively DOA.

Swimming Pool Pump Sizing
When it comes to choosing a pool pump, bigger is NOT necessarily better and horsepower is not always what it’s hyped up to be. When replacing a swimming pool pump motor a real constraint is the size of your filter system and the pipes. A pump that is too big and powerful can blow out your pipes and damage your filter and heater with the force of the water. It’s safe, and generally recommended, to match what you already have; which is what I’m doing.

If you’re replacing your filter system along with your pump, by all means look into a different size. There’s no way to know if the builder sized the pool pump properly from the beginning. Oversized swimming pool pumps can consume lots of electricity needlessly; too-small pumps won’t keep your water as sparkling as it should be. So it may pay to question if you need to change pump sizes.

First, you want a pump that can circulate all the water in the pool through the filters within 8 - 12 hours. This is called the “turnover time”. The more use your pool gets, the shorter the turnover time needs to be. For Read the rest of this entry »

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