Swimming pool care and equipment

If you own or are thinking of installing an outdoor swimming pool, you have a number of additional items that need to be added to the equipment list. At least if you want a clean warm pool that you can use throughout the year – whatever the weather.

Outdoor swimming pools can be great fun, but they can also be cold and unappealing for much of the year in cold climates. For this reason a pool heater is an important necessity as it can bring the temperature of the water up to pleasant bathing levels. This means that you can swim out of season or in the evenings, even if it is cold outside. Heat sources include solar power, heat exchangers, boilers and electric heaters.

To benefit from the heat generated by a heater the warm water needs to circulate around the pool and this requires a pump. A pool pump quite literally pumps the water from the heater into the pool and back again. This way the water is circulated form pool to heater with more top up heat on a continual basis.

If you want clean water, then you also need a filter. The filter removes impurities and dirt and this is done as the water is passed through the filter, courtesy of the pump. There are a number of different filtration methods, the main ones being sand, D.E. and cartridge. A cartridge is suitable for a small pool, but larger swimming pools need sand or D.E. filter systems.

Another consideration is the way in which the pool walls and floor are lined. The old way is to cover the entire internal area of the pool with tiles sealed with a special water resistant grout. However, the popular method for most home based pools is to use a vinyl swimming pool liner that is made to the exact measurements of the pool. These liners can be fitted quickly and they are much cheaper than the old tile method.

There are two types of liner. One hangs over the top of free-standing pools whilst the other has a much tidier finish and uses a liner with a beaded top the slots into a special track.
Other pool equipment includes cleaners. These can be manual vacuum pumps, brushes and nets. But there are also automated pool cleaners that do the cleaning job without any help from a human. These cleaners are called pool cleaning robots.

Chemicals are need to keep the pool water clean, healthy and sparkling and they need to be added very carefully based upon water quality testing. These chemicals are evenly distributed throughout the pool by the action of the pump.