safety
Every year at about this time, I survey my backyard and make certain everything is ready for summer - patio furniture, grill, deck, shade sails, misting system and, probably most important given our usual summer lifestyle, the pool and spa. This year, however, my examination of the watershapes in particular
As becomes clear in watching this series of videos, pond installation involves a bunch of specialized skills, from working with the liner and circulation system to moving large rocks and, as we'll see soon, arranging aquatic plants. But completing the project also involves a range of common job-site skills. As we've seen time and again, for instance, you need to know how to measure, fit and glue pipes, and you also need to
Installing a pond pump is a fairly simple process - and, as you'll see in the video linked below, represents one of my last big chances to sound off on the importance of basic pipe-connection skills. Yes, I'll admit that I'm a perfectionist and maybe a bit compulsive about making my pipe connections look right in addition to fitting right. In the operation covered here, however, there's good reason for care: If you're sloppy with glue application while installing a check valve, there's always the possibility that
There's a common misperception among designers and builders whose projects carry them beyond a pool and spa and out into the landscape: In large numbers, these professionals believe that low-voltage landscape lighting systems are perfectly safe for use in close proximity to the water. The truth of the matter is that the National Electric Code (NEC) has defined an exclusionary zone of ten feet around pools and spas for these fixtures! That's right: Even with low-voltage
Of all the messages I've tried to convey in this video series and its introductory texts, one of the crucial ones is my observation that the people who buy and own ponds will spend lots of time enjoying their watershapes after it gets dark. The only way to make that happen, of course, is to include an effective in-pond lighting system to make the watershape's best features
Through the past 15 or 20 years, designers of custom swimming pools and spas have focused considerable attention on aesthetics and on making their clients' backyards easy on the eye. In crafting all of those integrated spaces in which nothing is out of place, they start by dismissing project elements that might stir up otherwise calm visual seas. For lots of designers, this has made them reluctant to consider such things as
I don’t want to come across like a grumpy old man, but I don’t think kids today are experiencing anything like the aquatic childhood I did. I grew up swimming and bathing and playing in commercial and private swimming pools; wooden, plastic and concrete hot tubs; streams, lakes, rivers, oceans, seas, bays, sounds and gulfs. I still swim and know I always will. I grew up taking
InCord (Colchester, CT) offers many styles of netting and rope for tree houses, driveways, stairs,…
