sodium bicarbonate

Working with sodium bicarbonate in starting up a newly finished watershape involves more than turning on a tap, concedes Kim Skinner. But once a barrel is prepared, the method is simplicity itself -- and truly kind to new plaster, quartz and pebble surfaces in pools and spas.
Bicarb Start-Up ABCs
WaterShapes recently published a pair of my articles on techniques for filling newly plastered swimming pools with water and starting them on the path to a long, successful service life.   In the second of those articles (click here), the focus was on the bicarb start-up method and the effect this approach has on the establishment of a durable plaster, pebble or quartz finish.  But rather than being a step-by-step description of how the bicarb start-up works on site, the article was about
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8-7 feature skinner art
How Big Is That Pool?
Almost anyone who’s spent much time around swimming pools is familiar with the classic method for measuring their water volume – that is, by multiplying length by width by average depth and then multiplying that result by 7.5, which is approximately the number of gallons in a cubic foot. That’s all well and good for basic rectangular watershapes, but what do you do when the pool in question has a truly irregular shape?  The answer, as we’ll discuss here, has to do with
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