Swimming pool advice required
Discussion
We are in the process of building a new house and the plot that we are building on has a swimming pool. We are planning to keep it. My architect wants to use rainwater harvesting to top up the evaporation from the pool. I do not know if this is a good idea or not. I have had one pool guy say it is not a good idea but cannot see why as it is an outdoor pool and will get rained on anyway.
Any advice on this would be appreciated.
Any advice on this would be appreciated.
rex said:
We are in the process of building a new house and the plot that we are building on has a swimming pool. We are planning to keep it. My architect wants to use rainwater harvesting to top up the evaporation from the pool. I do not know if this is a good idea or not. I have had one pool guy say it is not a good idea but cannot see why as it is an outdoor pool and will get rained on anyway.
Any advice on this would be appreciated.
Your architect should be spending more time worrying about you are going to heat the darn thing!! Look into Heat pumps & Solar panels if you have the space somewhere to put them. If you keep the pool covered when not in use (especially at night) you will reduce evaporation considerably (as well as reduce heat loss). Any advice on this would be appreciated.
To be honest, unless you plan to drain the thing regularly (and there is no reason why you should!), water "usage" is a bit of a non-issue - especially in comparison to energy usage.
Besides that, as others have pointed out, if you get an inch of rain, well, funnily enough your pool level will rise by an inch! (regardless of whether its got a cover on or not). Indeed if you get a sustained period of wet weather you may well end up pumping water out of the pool to waste to bring the level down.
give your A a dry slap
if the water is filtered and chlorinated correctly, using grey water is a fantastic idea to keep a pool topped up
if you really want to take maximum advantage of your water harvesting then you could also use it for toilet flushing, garden watering, car washing, etc, etc
have completed a few schemes recently where we've run two supply systems in a building - one off the main checked supply and another off the grey water system
the payback isn't too bad as long as you own the house long term
if the water is filtered and chlorinated correctly, using grey water is a fantastic idea to keep a pool topped up
if you really want to take maximum advantage of your water harvesting then you could also use it for toilet flushing, garden watering, car washing, etc, etc
have completed a few schemes recently where we've run two supply systems in a building - one off the main checked supply and another off the grey water system
the payback isn't too bad as long as you own the house long term
My parents's place has a pool and the rain has never done any harm to the pool, last weekends rain topped it up nicely in fact following the previous fortnights good weather!
As an aside, I'm sure I remember my sister mentioning that you can get a discount or rebate from your water company if you have an outdoor pool - I'm pretty sure I'm not talking b
ks, will check next time I talk to her!
As an aside, I'm sure I remember my sister mentioning that you can get a discount or rebate from your water company if you have an outdoor pool - I'm pretty sure I'm not talking b
ks, will check next time I talk to her!I think you may have misunderstood one of the statements, rain water directly into the pool is absolutely no problem. Difficult to avoid really
Rain water run off is obviously not desireable.
Depending on your rain, you may have to watch your PH. For example in the USA the rain on the east coast is slightly acidic, so we add PH+ to compensate. The West coast rain is more alkaline....No I don't know why
Generally speaking....if you have abilty to afford a pool, you should have no problem maintaining one.
Rain water run off is obviously not desireable.
Depending on your rain, you may have to watch your PH. For example in the USA the rain on the east coast is slightly acidic, so we add PH+ to compensate. The West coast rain is more alkaline....No I don't know why
Generally speaking....if you have abilty to afford a pool, you should have no problem maintaining one.
Spoke to pool guy this morning. Does not advise using harvested rainwater due to acidity and bacterial contamination.
Bacterial contamination not a problem with rainwater straight into pool but harvested water has been over all sorts of surfaces. Can't do much about pH of rainwater straight into pool.
Bacterial contamination not a problem with rainwater straight into pool but harvested water has been over all sorts of surfaces. Can't do much about pH of rainwater straight into pool.
Well that's fine, but I would imagine he's talking about rainwater flowing off roofs and into the pool. If you have the water collected into underground storage (not above ground as the water can get brackish), you will have a filter and pump which means the water stays clear and perfect for use in your pool. You can get state of the art filters which can make the water drinkable. I doubt you'll need that though, we're not quite third world yet.
Edited by dmitsi on Wednesday 10th June 10:22
sleep envy said:
I personally reckon it's feasible
It certainly is, and very viable. I'm really not sure why this pool guy is against it. We used to install small kits which collected the rain water from the solar covers. The water was cleaned/filtered and stored underground. You had to consider your soak away, but there was no other hassle and the water showed no extra signs of unbalanced ph. Same treatment as any other pool.We had a couple of customers who had 6500 litre tanks which supplied the house and the pool and well everything other than drinking water. No problems with the water quality.
The company I worked for is in Sussex, but I'll speak to him later and see if he has any good recommendations for the Bucks area.
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