circulation
The death in 2002 of the granddaughter of former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker brought the problem of suction entrapment to unprecedented public attention. That incident - and others in which bathers have become stuck atop pool drains - have led to development of new legislation and pool-construction standards as well as increased awareness of the hazard. To me and some others, however, the new rules represent a reactive, regulatory solution to what might better be approached as a proactive matter of technology and engineering. In stepping back and carefully examining the anatomy of these terrible accidents, it becomes clear that, although steps can be taken to reduce risks, there is no single approach, given current design and construction practices, that will eliminate risks altogether. So far, in fact, all of the industry education and media attention we've witnessed is focused on solutions that at best mitigate entrapment hazards but do not eliminate them. These are not, unfortunately, approaches that lead us to complete and effective solutions. As an industry, we have not grappled with what I see as the true, addressable core of the issue
The death in 2002 of the granddaughter of former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker brought the problem of suction entrapment to unprecedented public attention. That incident - and others in which bathers have become stuck atop pool drains - have led to development of new legislation and pool-construction standards as well as increased awareness of the hazard. To me and some others, however, the new rules represent a reactive, regulatory solution to what might better be approached as a proactive matter of technology and engineering. In stepping back and carefully examining the anatomy of these terrible accidents, it becomes clear that, although steps can be taken to reduce risks, there is no single approach, given current design and construction practices, that will eliminate risks altogether. So far, in fact, all of the industry education and media attention we've witnessed is focused on solutions that at best mitigate entrapment hazards but do not eliminate them. These are not, unfortunately, approaches that lead us to complete and effective solutions. As an industry, we have not grappled with what I see as the true, addressable core of the issue
The death in 2002 of the granddaughter of former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker brought the problem of suction entrapment to unprecedented public attention. That incident - and others in which bathers have become stuck atop pool drains - have led to development of new legislation and pool-construction standards as well as increased awareness of the hazard. To me and some others, however, the new rules represent a reactive, regulatory solution to what might better be approached as a proactive matter of technology and engineering. In stepping back and carefully examining the anatomy of these terrible accidents, it becomes clear that, although steps can be taken to reduce risks, there is no single approach, given current design and construction practices, that will eliminate risks altogether. So far, in fact, all of the industry education and media attention we've witnessed is focused on solutions that at best mitigate entrapment hazards but do not eliminate them. These are not, unfortunately, approaches that lead us to complete and effective solutions. As an industry, we have not grappled with what I see as the true, addressable core of the issue
Recent times have seen the introduction to the pool/spa industry of a new breed of hydraulic pumps that use what is known as 'variable frequency drive' technology. Here, watershaper, hydraulics expert and Genesis 3 co-founder Skip Phillips describes why he believes these devices, which have been used successfully for years in other industries that demand hydraulic efficiency, represent the future for pools, spas and other watershapes. For all the progress made in recent years to change the nature of the game, to this day I still see situations in which pumps, filters and other system components for pools, spas and other watershapes have, hydraulically speaking, been completely
If you're like me, news stories in magazines and on television that cover innovations in science and technology are far more interesting than about 95 percent of the stuff featured in the mainstream media these days. To me, few things are more intriguing than peeking in on the
It's truly a diamond in the rough: a huge, sparkling blue pool set in the middle of nowhere in a country that is probably best known for being the gateway between two grand oceans. For a time before I arrived on the scene, however, the enormous rectangular swimming pool at Palabra de Vida, a Christian missionary camp in Chame, Panama, was anything but shimmering. The mission operates a camp for the region's underprivileged children, who visit the facility in shifts that stretch across several months each year. There are times when
The watergardening business has exploded in North America in the past few years - so much so that it's easily the fastest-growing segment of the watershaping industry. This wave of interest in naturalistic watershapes means that hundreds of people new to the craft of pond and stream building are now out there, working on all sorts of residential and even a few commercial projects. Some of these are landscape contractors working with water in a significant way for the very first time. Others are pool contractors who've
