pool technology
There’s nothing like a good breeze to turn swimming pools and other watershapes into magnets for debris – especially if there are still plenty of leaves on the trees. We had gusting winds of record strength here in Southern California the other day – enough, in fact, to make the national news. When I walked out into my backyard the next day, the skimmer basket was full and the pool cleaner had
{Multithumb} Ever since people decided to contain and control water for recreational and decorative uses, there have been competing ideas about how to treat it so that it remains safe for human contact. That environment has become even more intense in recent years, as questions and concerns have arisen about the continuing use of traditional chlorine chemistry to get this important job done. Today, for example, we hear a lot about “natural pools” – systems using plant material to absorb the nutrients that feed algae and bacteria. There’s also ozone technology, which needs to be combined with stabilized halogen to treat water effectively. Then there are copper/silver ionization systems and their cousins, the saltwater chlorinators, which have taken root and gained support in many quarters. My career working with alternative sanitizers began a few decades ago. About three years ago, my firm – Fluid Logics of Upland, Calif. – entered this arena with the thought in mind that the watershaping industry needed to take a broader view of the last of those alternatives, digging back through the 100-year history of electrolytic chemical generation and expanding the capacity of these systems to oxidize organic compounds and sanitize the water. For several years before then, I had
There's no room for guesswork when it comes to structural engineering, says Ron Lacher of Pool Engineering, Inc., and that's especially true when it comes to concrete structures designed to contain water. Here, he opens a series on structural fundamentals related to watershapes by defining the need for precise structural planning and careful attention to workmanship - the keys, he says, to achieving a project's aesthetic and functional goals. Despite the apparent intricacy of any good set of engineering drawings and contrary to what many people think, structural plans for concrete watershapes are pretty cut and dried. At the most basic level, the art and science of structural engineering deals with predictable forces placed upon structures and with the construction techniques and materials required to counteract those forces. The basic mathematic calculations are straightforward stuff, and everything runs in accordance with building codes that
