ARTICLES Archives - Page 137 of 315

Big-Shouldered Fountain

My family moved away from Chicago when I was just four years old, but I have three vivid, very specific memories of the place: icicles hanging from the eaves of our home in Evanston; the long freight trains that ran constantly on tracks at the far edge of the open field across the street; and Buckingham Fountain in downtown Chicago’s Grant Park. When I returned to the Windy City on business in the early 1980s (several years before I became directly involved with watershaping), it wasn’t to Evanston I went; instead, once I’d checked into my hotel on that bright spring day, I made a beeline to the

Exploring the ‘Acid Column’

When I conduct seminars at pool and spa industry trade shows, I regularly get asked about the validity of a water-management technique known widely as the “acid column” approach. Those who believe in this application method say that if acid is poured into a swimming pool in a concentrated area – producing what adherents variously call a column, slug, well or cloud – the alkalinity of the water will be drastically reduced, but the pH will not drop as much as it otherwise would. By contrast, they say, if that same volume of acid is added by walking it around a pool and evenly distributing it throughout the water, the pH will be

Rocking Good Times

I’m generally a low-key guy, but I love almost everything about building waterfalls. I like discussing a site’s potential with my clients. I like going to the supply yard and selecting stone. And while I don’t mind letting others take the lead with the digging, I do like laying out shelves and setting the pond’s interior contours in ways that will maximize

Ponds on the Level, Part 3

This is the third and final article in a series on auto-fill systems for ponds and watergardens. Although relative cost is certainly a key factor in the selection and installation of an auto-fill system for a pond or watergarden, there are practicalities that come into play in the decision – not the least of which will have to do with how the device is to be mounted. Float valves, for example, come in a variety of forms – some with large float bulbs attached to pivoting arms (as with common toilet valves). Not only are these devices fairly unsightly, but they also operate in a horizontal plane and need

Giant Steps

I’m beside myself with satisfaction – and no small amount of pride: After months of painstaking development, we have within the past week launched two major initiatives within the WaterShapes.com web site: [ ] First, the system by which we categorize and file articles has been completely revamped. When the site was originally mapped out, we worked with

Test Your Knowledge #56

Security Breach: Goldfish Found Swimming at U.S. Nuclear Reactor

Ripples #67

Compiled and written by Lenny Giteck Two American Tourists Forced to Swim 12 to 14 Hours to Survive

#5: Flush Spa

For a while there, it seemed like most pool/spa combinations were being built with raised spas – that is, systems in which the level of the spa was set above the level of the pool, with the connection between the vessels made by means of a spillway of some sort. Recently, however, some of our clients have opted for a different approach in which the pool and spa appear to

Test Your Knowledge #55

Billionaire Stands in Pool for Television Commercial

Exotically American

I visited Washington, D.C., for the first time in 1978. I had stopped to see my brother, who was living there at that time, and was intent on taking in as much as I could before heading back home to California after many months of travel that had carried me all over the northeastern United States and Europe.