Latham Pool Builder Academy-Camp Penuel

Sterling Pools has once again participated in the Latham Pool Builder Academy.  The pool builder academy was organized to give pool builders from around the country an opportunity to receive hands on experience and instruction as they participate in the entire process of building a vinyl liner pool. 

When Latham International first introduced the pool builder academy, it was held in the yard of a homeowner that had purchased a pool and agreed to have the academy at their home.  Several years ago, Latham decided that the pool builder academy provided the perfect opportunity for them and other companies to give back to the community.  Now, each pool builder academy is held at the location of a charitable organization that would really benefit from having a pool.  The entire pool kit, automatic cover and circulation and filtration equipment are donated for the cause. 

This most recent pool builder academy was held Sept 25-29th in at Camp Penuel in Ironton Missouri. Camp Penuel is a Christen camp that provides over 1500 inter-city kids each summer the opportunity to spend a fun filled week at camp. 

While at camp, these kids experience the beauty of the outdoors as they participate in water sports on Lake Killarney, going on nature hikes, singing songs around the camp fire, playing team sports, and reading.  Camp Penuel gives these youth an uplifting environment, away from the city streets that they came from, where they can learn more about themselves.

Now, thanks to the pool builder academy, the youth that come to Camp Penuel will also enjoy swimming in a new swimming pool.

We are proud to give back to the community and will continue to do so semi-annually for every Pool Builders Academy we host.

Mermaid Pool, Spa & Patio Give Back!

Brenda Murr, Vice President, Mermaid Pool, Spa & Patio, Muncie, Ind. and one of our own Strong Support Sterling dealers has been spotlighted in the October 3rd edition of the Aqua magazine online e-news for their ongoing charitable efforts!

Congratulations and click here to read the full article - Aqua October 2011 Spotlight!

Albion Liner Tech Talk

An interesting article from one of our customers regarding liner fading.

In the many thousands of liners we process each year at WW Adcock the vast majority give many happy years of service.

Failures or problems are in low single digit %. However as you can imagine even 1% of 1000 liners is 10 liners, 2% 20 liners etc., so we are probably subjected to more issues  than the average builder/service company.

Today I was conducting a measure class for Adcock personal and here is a photo.
The damage you see here is something we encounter 3 or 4 times a year.

It is 4 years old. This is why this liner is damaged:

This pool has two skimmers, both located at the deep end. The main drain and the skimmers are plumbed together so the pump suction pulls through them all.

The homeowner loads up the skimmers with 3" chlorine tabs. They only run the pump for a few hours per day because of the cost of electricity.

The chlorine tabs then dissolve without the pump running. The heavy chlorine solution then sinks down the skimmer pipe and out through the main drain grate. You can see how bleached the liner is right at the edge of the grate. There is also some PH wrinkling that is hard to see. This is because high concentrations of chlorine has a very low PH and will cause the liner to absorb water and expand, hence PH wrinkles.

So for the cost of running a pump. A typical 1 hp pump uses 746 watts per hour. Average electricity rates are 10 cents a kilowatt hour. So this pump running 24 hours.... uses just shy of 18 kw hours x 10 cents = $1.80

The pump would cost $324 to run 24 hours a day for 6 months. If you only ran it for 8 hours a day you would save $216. The ruined liner cost approx $3500 to replace and lasted 4 years. In four years they saved $864. Net cost of saving electricity was $2636 for a new liner.

I really felt bad for the lady homeowner because she was very nice. My recommendation to her was;

Run the pump more or put in a two speed pump and run it on low half the time or plumb in a chlorinator. Without these precautions the replacement liner would also suffer the same fate.

Actually when building pools, is it a much better idea to have separate main drain and skimmer lines to stop this problem and also down the road it helps to isolate plumbing leaks.

If you have any head scratching liner failure questions we would be glad to give you an honest assessment and if we use your problem for our Tech Talk we shall give you a liner for half price.

PS There is still the possibility that the chlorine has also damaged the lines below the skimmer, especially if it was plumbed with flex pipe which will fail with high chlorine concentrations. In which case I would have to re-do the math above!

Nigel Leach
Director of Package Pool Sales
WW Adcock
Philadelphia PA

 We thank Nigel for this helpful information.