ARTICLES Archives - Page 297 of 314

To homeowners, swimming pools have always represented fun and relaxation. But they also can mean overwhelming energy bills, especially when heating cold water with fossil-fuel heaters is required. As energy efficiency and conservation reclaim prominence in our national consciousness, inventor and manufacturer Mark Urban sees a brave, new world – one in which pools become a resource, not an energy drain.

Filling the Energy Gap

Everyone is concerned these days about electricity, gasoline and natural gas and all other forms of energy. What is amazing is that, despite this surge in interest, very few people have considered ways in which swimming pools can be built to reduce the energy required to heat them - and by substantial amounts. This dearth of energy consciousness has nothing to do with the manufacturers of heating equipment. It's fair to say that most heater manufacturers - whether they pursue combustion heating with fossil fuel, compression heating with heat pumps or passive heating with radiant solar, absorbent solar panels or solar covers - all have optimized their own products and made them remarkably energy-efficient. The same is true of recirculation systems: Pumps of all kinds are optimized to very high efficiencies, and the pool and spa industry has made positive improvements in acknowledging the necessities of hydraulic efficiency (although it's fair to say we

First created for use in the supercharged, hyperactive environments of aquatic theme parks, interactive waterplay systems now offer the designer of public and semi-public spaces an arsenal of fun-inducing features. They work in just about any setting, says Pam Pasotti of manufacturer SCS Interactive – anywhere you think people might take up the invitation to get wet in the name of pure, unadulterated fun.

Invitations to Play

Interactive watershapes are all about invitations to play. For designers, interactive watershapes provide invitations to use water and the control of flowing water to create unique play environments. For children, teenagers, parents and other adults, they are invitations to play with one another in a safe and exciting aquatic playground. It's a form of invitation that's rapidly gaining popularity in an era when playtime for both children and adults has become excessively passive and dominated by surfing the net, playing computer games or staying glued to

Art from the East

If you've been looking for a well-written, beautifully illustrated book that cracks the code when it comes to the design principles of Japanese gardening and introduces the full range of styles found in this ancient art form, you can't go wrong with Japanese Garden Design. Written by designer Marc P. Keane (and published by Charles E. Tuttle in 1996 but still in print), the book offers a detailed examination of this most influential of styles. For watershapers, landscape designers and

Stretching Out the Hand-Off

As with every other step along the path of true quality in watershape construction, a good start-up is critical - a key transitional step requiring supervision, teamwork and passion for the work. This is the point where a watershaper's vision becomes reality, where construction becomes maintenance and where the clients' dream is finally realized. It's another important detail, and getting it right requires complete trust and wide-open lines of communication among builder, service technician and homeowner. That puts a premium on finding the best possible person in your area to take on the responsibility. In my case, I consider myself very fortunate to work with a

Edibles by the Water

Imagine your clients in this scene: It's a warm, summer evening, dinner for two on the patio is almost ready, the waterfall is on, and candlelight is reflecting on the surface of the pond. But the salad isn't quite complete, so this evening's chef steps into the yard, clips some chives from a clump near the water's edge and adds a finishing touch to the composition. Later, they pick a few plums and apricots for dessert, relaxed and about as happy as they could be in their backyard. Though the setting is delightful, it's the edible plants that complete the experience. And as was mentioned last time, with more and more people wanting

To the Good Life!

It's a statement that draws no argument: If you work hard, you should get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. For all of the obvious truth of that idea, I wonder how many of us hard-working folks in the watershaping trades take the time for those things that bring us enjoyment and a sense of reward. To be truthful, my guess is that far too many of us let the hard work get in the way of keeping promises we've made to ourselves to stop and smell the roses every now and then. Years ago, I hosted a radio program with my brother, Guy. It was called "The Good Life," and the tagline was, "The Bower Brothers sharing their enjoyment of food, wine and the good life." Neither my brother nor I were

Echoes of Laughter

When I was kid in the '60s, my mom would take my sisters and me to a place called Penn Park near our home in Whittier, Calif. It was a beautiful old hillside city park with towering trees, winding paths and

Beauty and tranquility are words on the lips of more and more consumers these days, and they’re discovering with greater and greater frequency that ponds are just what they’re after. Critical to meeting this rising demand, says zoologist and horticulturalist Jeff Rugg, is knowing what goes into creating healthy, clean water in the presence of plants and animals – and into setting these mini-ecosystems up for the long haul.

Nature’s Balance

It's a tale of two professions: Pool and spa people are taught to keep things dead; pond people are taught to keep things alive. Pool people sell chlorine; pond people sell de-chlorinator. Pool people sterilize; pond people fertilize. This contrast in approaches to basic water maintenance is perhaps the most significant difference between two trades that are coming into closer and closer contact with one another every day. At issue between the two groups is whether to work against nature in a sterile system, or work with it to create an ecosystem. Each discipline has a foundation in the science of water chemistry and both have a place in the world - but beyond that (and as the table below demonstrates), things really couldn't be much different. As more and more pool/spa professionals move into water gardening and more and more landscape designers and architects get into pools and spas, there's an increasing need for all of us to understand these water-treatment distinctions and the basics of each approach. I come from the pond side, so I'll cover things from that perspective in a pair of articles - a science-oriented overview this time before we

They’re big, bold and colorful – a natural magnet for kids seeking thrills and fun. And they’re downright beautiful to operators of commercial and public pools, who have turned to closed-flume slides as a way to offer a safe and affordable alternative to the high-cost entertainment found at the big waterparks. The outcome, says slide manufacturer John Stupfel, is the revival of community pools and a whole new reason why slides are back on track.

Splash Factors

When today's kids show up at a municipal swimming pool for a day of fun and excitement, they're not looking to swim laps. To be sure, the standard for what can be called "aquatic fun" has been set pretty high in recent years by huge water theme parks, with their wave pools and whitewater rides and huge, twisting, open-flume slides. Nowadays, older "flat-water pools" just can't compete for summertime attention among active, thrill-seeking children - except in one arena. Indeed, the availability these days of

Today’s consumers are keen on a number of watershape ‘looks’ that call for unusually high degrees of precision in design and execution – with full-perimeter overflows riding high on many lists. The construction challenge in these projects will always be substantial, but the hydraulic puzzle may find its solution in a prefabricated flow-over system that promises to bring the wet-edge look to more and more mainstream builders, projects and clients.

Precision on Deck

The consumer's appetite for beautiful water and creative watershape design has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years - and expectations, it seems, are rising right along with the hunger for exceptional details and impressions. Perimeter-overflow pools and basins are what an increasing number of consumers are after these days, and there's special interest in what are called "wet-edge applications," where the water rises to deck level and flows into a channel slot at the back edge of the coping. It's an amazing look - and harder to