Posted by Bruce Hudson on September 1, 2009 at 7:27pm
As I'm watching HGTV tonight about homes with pools in Texas, I'm stunned by the young lady describing the automatic cover as a negative to the pool environment. She described it as ugly and that the home would be more desirable without it.To his credit, her counterpart brought up the safety aspect.This was instead, an opportunity for HGTV to broadcast to a sizable audience the total benefit of covered pools (not to mention the convenience of motorized covers). At this, they failed completely.As an industry we are under constant assult from many sides regarding energy consumption, water consumption, and safety.These assults are not without merit despite all the great work and effort put toward making our product the safest swimming experience on earth. The young lady's ignorance should not go unchallenged and my hope is that more of us can unite as a group and challenge HGTV and realtors to become better informed and let the public know what a huge benefit covered pools offer as opposed to uncoverd pools.
I can apprediate everyone's frustration with HGTV and pool discussions. There are often inaccurate statements made and even inappropriate like the one Bruce describes. I went on their web site and you can send them feedback. http://www.hgtv.com/contact-us/package/index.html They also have message boards that industry members could monitor and post; people are probably asking pool questions and it would be good to have a pro responding. http://boards.hgtv.com/eve/ This is a monster to tackle, but you have to start somewhere!
Our own 16,000 gallon residential pool can be seen with its opaque electric safety cover closed and open. Though we originally wanted the cover to be blue, our Pool Builder recommended against blue since it would show dirt and really wouldn't look like water so we decided on tan and are happy with the result since it blends in with the simulated flagstone (troweled cement) and coping.
The use of a pool cover has cut down chemical usage (mostly chlorine) probably by half and it has cut down heat loss at night by about half (a better-insulating bubble-type cover would cut overnight heat loss by roughly another factor of 2). It has also minimized evaporation and therefore refill. We don't have children, but if we did then it would provide safety as well (we do have 2 cats, but they avoid getting into the pool for obvious reasons!). This cover was built-in so has an under-track, but it is still visible when open; there are other covers one can get that are completely hidden when open.
The only downside to our cover is that it seems to develop folds on the sides that result in small holes where the water seeps through after about 2 years of use. Also, the part of the cover that is on the leading edge that is lifted up from touching the water is drying out (you can see it darker in the photo). The cover in the photo is about 4 years old. Also, with an opaque lighter cover, one does not get the additional benefit of heating from the sun during the day that one gets from a more transparent cover. The ideal cover would be opaque to UV but transparent to visible and infrared. Anyone make something like that?
I too saw that segment on HGTY. Equally frustrating was the realtors comment that the salt pool shown required no Ph adjustment or addition of chemicals to this trouble free pool. The magic of salt and the myth prevails once again. If I hear one more customer tell me that they don't have a chlorine pool but rather a salt pool I am going to jump off a cliff. This realtor gave the perfect advice to scale a pool and by virtue of not correcting the Ph the perfect over chlorinated pool.
The show is "Bang For Your Buck" and the host is Monica Pedersen. The episode was titled Austin $95,000 Outdoor Renovations and featured a negative edge pool with auto cover. Her "counterpart" is a local realtor show guest.
My objection to her comment about the cover being "ugly" and a detractor from sellability is obvious enough I think.
Contrary to her opinion, that auto cover is a huge enhancement, adding value to the pool and home.
Unlike many of my peers on PGN, I'm not very media savy and have'nt a clue about ways to get the message out there. Only hoped to generate some interest. I will enthusiastically follow someone's lead.
First, maybe correspondence with the show itself to get information flowing? HGTV may have unwittingly planted a counterproductive seed. I believe that as an industry there is genuine concern and effort made to create and preserve the safest swimming experience on earth. I seem to recall Rex making comment about art being allowed to alter, or slow, good functional design. While he was addressing suction entrapment specifically, the two issues are the same.
Bruce,
I love your idea about grouping together to present a strong front line against negative media, but do you have any suggestions as to where to start?
Being as fascinated with Social Media as I am, I could certainly publish the other side of the story, and point readers in the direction of others who are doing similar education, but I would need to know more details about the show. What was it you were watching? Was the "young lady" in question a regular on the show, or a guest?
Do you have any counter-arguments that you would like me to offer to the mainstream public? In fact, anyone reading this, please fee free to email me any content you currently have published on a site, or would like me to do a guest feature on my blog. monique@flexiblesolutions.com
Working for Flexible Solutions and offering a liquid pool cover myself, I certainly have a strong argument against her initial impression. I will happily do a series of posts on my blog, flexiblesolutions.wordpress.com about this subject, with your help.
This is great to have as a continuing discussion here on the PGN, of course, but by taking off the site AS WELL, we will be able to approach the general public, who may not be members of the pool industry.
I can't wait to hear more about this, I think it is a great opportunity to share new an innovative techniques to the general public and, hopefully, to HGTV watchers!
Comments
The use of a pool cover has cut down chemical usage (mostly chlorine) probably by half and it has cut down heat loss at night by about half (a better-insulating bubble-type cover would cut overnight heat loss by roughly another factor of 2). It has also minimized evaporation and therefore refill. We don't have children, but if we did then it would provide safety as well (we do have 2 cats, but they avoid getting into the pool for obvious reasons!). This cover was built-in so has an under-track, but it is still visible when open; there are other covers one can get that are completely hidden when open.
The only downside to our cover is that it seems to develop folds on the sides that result in small holes where the water seeps through after about 2 years of use. Also, the part of the cover that is on the leading edge that is lifted up from touching the water is drying out (you can see it darker in the photo). The cover in the photo is about 4 years old. Also, with an opaque lighter cover, one does not get the additional benefit of heating from the sun during the day that one gets from a more transparent cover. The ideal cover would be opaque to UV but transparent to visible and infrared. Anyone make something like that?
The show is "Bang For Your Buck" and the host is Monica Pedersen. The episode was titled Austin $95,000 Outdoor Renovations and featured a negative edge pool with auto cover. Her "counterpart" is a local realtor show guest.
My objection to her comment about the cover being "ugly" and a detractor from sellability is obvious enough I think.
Contrary to her opinion, that auto cover is a huge enhancement, adding value to the pool and home.
Unlike many of my peers on PGN, I'm not very media savy and have'nt a clue about ways to get the message out there. Only hoped to generate some interest. I will enthusiastically follow someone's lead.
First, maybe correspondence with the show itself to get information flowing? HGTV may have unwittingly planted a counterproductive seed. I believe that as an industry there is genuine concern and effort made to create and preserve the safest swimming experience on earth. I seem to recall Rex making comment about art being allowed to alter, or slow, good functional design. While he was addressing suction entrapment specifically, the two issues are the same.
I love your idea about grouping together to present a strong front line against negative media, but do you have any suggestions as to where to start?
Being as fascinated with Social Media as I am, I could certainly publish the other side of the story, and point readers in the direction of others who are doing similar education, but I would need to know more details about the show. What was it you were watching? Was the "young lady" in question a regular on the show, or a guest?
Do you have any counter-arguments that you would like me to offer to the mainstream public? In fact, anyone reading this, please fee free to email me any content you currently have published on a site, or would like me to do a guest feature on my blog. monique@flexiblesolutions.com
Working for Flexible Solutions and offering a liquid pool cover myself, I certainly have a strong argument against her initial impression. I will happily do a series of posts on my blog, flexiblesolutions.wordpress.com about this subject, with your help.
This is great to have as a continuing discussion here on the PGN, of course, but by taking off the site AS WELL, we will be able to approach the general public, who may not be members of the pool industry.
I can't wait to hear more about this, I think it is a great opportunity to share new an innovative techniques to the general public and, hopefully, to HGTV watchers!
Monique