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Options / Decision Points

When building a pool, there are naturally a lot of decisions thatneed to be made concerning various aspects of themaintenance, aesthetics, equipment, etc. I'll try to cover thethought process of some of the bigger decisions that had to bemade:

1. Filtration System - Sand vs. DE vs. Cartridge : The firstpool builder that I talked to as a huge cartridge fan.The first thing the salesperson tried to do hen I alked

into their sho room as to sell me on the virtues of thecartridge filtration system. !e sho ed me charts aboutho much better they are at filtering out smaller particlesover sand and ho close they are to almost matching thecleaning po ers of "#. !e then sho ed me articlesabout ho inhaling "# as a health ha$$ard and ho Ididn't ant to be messing stuff that can get lodged inyour lungs. I told him that I'm not big into spending a lotof time on maintenance and anted something that Ididn't have to fut$ around ith a lot on the eekends.!e immediately mentioned ho little maintenance it as%e.g. spray it off every couple of months, no back ashingever& and ho it much better it filters ater than sand.

fter about a half hour spiel, I as sold on the cartridgesystems. (onths had gone by and I as still convinced I

anted to go ith a cartridge system until I startedreading postings in poolforum.com. "# filters, hile they

ere hands do n the best for ater quality, still seemedto require the most maintenance time. )eople seemed to

be forever messing ith their filters, changing stuff out,back ashing, breathing the stuff in. *ince lo -maintenance as a key issue for me, I kne "# asn'tfor me. s far as +artridge systems, I found that hile it

as true there as no back ashing involved, thereseemed to be a lot of people ho had huge problemstrying to get the cartridges clean ithout tearing thefilter. *ome spent up ards of an hour trying to get itclean enough to be able to put it back into the housing.(y mind immediately ent back to an e perience I had

ith the + filters for our house ...*ince time began,

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e've al ays ent ith those cheap-o .// cents +filters from !ome "epot. 0ne day I sa this ne fangled

+ filter for 12 that stated that it ould forevereliminate the need to buy any more filters. It as one of those 2( plastic frame deals ith special grilles that hada multi-layer micro-fiber core that ould eliminatemicroscopic allergens, reduce maintenance, solve orldhunger, etc. It said that every fe months all I had to do

as spray it off, let it dry, then pop it back in. I ended upbuying one. fter about a year, I had enough. #venthough it as every fe months, it as such a painhaving to take it out to back, remove the grills, spray itoff, then notice that it asn't quite clean, then doing it

over and over until I had spent close to hour trying to getthe darn thing clean. Then I had to dry it off beforebringing it back in. The maintenance as driving mecra$y. fter dumping it in favor of the .// !ome "epotspecials once again, I came to a reali$ation that *imple isoften times better than 3e and Improved.Initially, theidea of having to clean the cartridge filters every femonths over back ashing eekly had huge appeal tome. I'm not a maintenance kind of a guy. (y ife illbe the first to tell you that. 4ut after reading aboutpeople's negative e periences, I pictured myself sittingin the backyard, spraying the snot out of these cartridgefilters, then tearing it in my impatience, then having tospend a hundred bucks or so getting it replaced.(oreover, I started to talk to people ith *and filters. Iasked them hat is really involved ith back ashing: I

anted to kno ho hard it really as . Their responseas some hat of a surprise to me. 5ery fe of them

said they actually back ashed eekly. It as like t ice a

month, depending on ho heavy pool usage is. Thenthey said that back ashing as nothing more thanflipping a valve and turning on the ater for a couple ofminutes. Thats it6 7ou mean you don't have to scrubanything or change out anything eekly6 3ope. *omesaid they considered bringing out a ne spaper to read

hile doing it but changed their mind because it ouldprobably be done before they finished the first article.87eah, but hat about the ater quality6 I heard that

cartridge systems filter out t ice as fine particles assand.8 )eople started to tell me that its all relative. It

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may be true that they are better, but if sand alreadyproduces crystal clear ater in the first place, hat's thereal advantage6 I read of ho some people could read adate off a coin in 9ft of ater filtered by sand using ascope. Wo . 0ne pool maintenance guy put it all inperspective for me. !e said that about the only time hecan notice a difference is at night hen you look at the

ater through the pool light. 7ou ill tend to see morefine-grained particles floating in the ater ith a sandfilter vs. a cartridge filter or "#. That's it6 0nlynoticeable under that condition6 That as it for me. Ihad converted from cartridge to sand.

2. Cleaning System - In-Floor System vs. Pool Vac - 4ecause

I as e pecting to save thousands by +'ing this poolmyself, I figured that I could afford to spend more onbetter quality components on the pool. I had found outabout in-floor cleaners from friends ho had their poolsdone ith them and they absolutely loved it. The in-floorsystems basically comprise of a series of no$$les thatpop-up in different $ones of the pool and propel ater ina s eeping, 2; degree circular motion parallel to thepool floor. 0ther 8directional no$$les8 hich remain in afi ed position then pop-up and influence the movementof dirt and debris %being blo n around by the otherno$$les& to ard an active main drain that sucks it all up.The basic idea is that it 8pushes8 debris to ards thedrain, hile the standard pool vac is like a littleunder ater vaccum cleaner that alks the pool and8pulls8 or sucks debris into it. The in-ground no$$les canbe installed on benches, love seats, steps, spas so mosteverything is kept clean. The difference bet een the t osystems as I started getting quotes back from the

plumbing subs as appro imately 1< . )art of thereason is from all the e tra plumbing that's required.

lso, there are only a fe places that are authori$ed todesign the placement of the no$$les for your specificpool. They put your pool through a computer programthat determines the optimal number of $ones for yourpool, the number of no$$les per $one, and the placementof each of the no$$les in each $one. The thing that stillbothered me about in-floors as that you still needed to

brush the sides of the pool. the in-floors ork bys eeping ater in a hori$ontal motion so that means that

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pool alls are e cluded. What a bummer. I spent a lotof time debating hether 1< as orth it if I still hadto brush the sides every eek. I also found out later thatstandard pool vacs like the !ay ard 3avigator or =ltracan be configured to actually climb up alls to somee tent. I'm sure its probably true of most if not all poolvacs. t that point, I decided that 1< ould be betterspent getting some sorely needed furniture for ourhouse.

2.4. Chlorination System - Ozone vs. Salt Water vs. Standard

Chlorinator - 7ou've probably noticed that all my choices

so far have been back-to-basics. iven that, you ouldthink that this decision ould be a no-brainer. I probablyould have been totally happy going ith the standard

chlorine tablets that have done people >ust fine for solong. I decided instead to go ith a salt- aterchlorinator. salt- ater chlorinator orks by takingslight salted %have to add salt to your pool ater& aterand passing it through a housing unit that contains aseries of metallic plates that a current runs through.+hlorine is produced hen the electrical field bet eenad>acent plates separates the sodium from the chloride.The separated chlorine is then used to disinfect your pool

ater. What this means is that all your chlorine isautomatically produced and replenished each and everynight hen your filtration system turns on - i.e. no moreaddition of chlorine tablets and chlorine maintenance.The unit that as recommended to me %?odiac+lear ater @(-<A& also has a super-chlorinate option

hich performs the same function as shocking a pool.

This can be achieved by pressing a button on the unit,hich ill increase the amount of chlorine producedduring that cycle to 'shock' levels. Brom hat I've readabout 0$onators, o$one acts as a po erful o idi$er andreacts ith organic and nitrogen containing compoundsmuch faster. It does not combine ith other compoundsbut instead causes these compounds to break apart.Thus, through the use of an o$one system the need forchlorine is reduced by a significant amount. !o ever, myunderstanding is that you CstillC have to add chlorinetablets to supplement the system. If that's the case, then

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competing off-brand pebble product is close to 1< inmy case. I think that as enough to s ay me from going

ith real )ebble-Tec. *hucks - I can't technically tellpeople I have a )ebble-Tec pool. I have to say its >ust apebble-interior pool. :& The same company that does)ebble-Tec also came out ith a product in recent yearscalled )ebble-*heen. Its supposed to be a higher-endform of )ebble-Tec that uses smaller pebbles and doesn'tcause the same kind of abrasiveness as )ebble-Tec. I'vetalked e tensively to pool builders, )ool +ontractors, andsubs alike about this. They all tell me unanimously thatthe >ury is still out on this product. (ost say that onlyabout H -D of their customers request it. They say

that they are still perfecting the technology. The biggestcomplaint I've heard about it is that because the pebblesare smaller, the product give it a very unappealing lookfrom far a ay. It has a 8shattered8 look to it, lookingvery similar to regular concrete from far a ay. They saythat no one ants to pay the e orbitant premium for thisand have their pool look like concrete. ny ays, I didn'tpursue this heavily. I heard so many negatives aboutthis product that I figured it asn't even orth hile to doresearch into it.