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SPN JUN 2011 InMyView
www.swimmingpoolnews.co.uk
‘WE ARE CLOSING POOLS UNNECESSARILY’
Pool consultant Allen Wilson says more swimming pools could and should be saved. Too many, he says, are being decommissioned when sensible, cost effective and workable management systems could save them
E
very time a pool closes it closes forever, they just don’t mothball them. It’s for good! These pools could and should be saved, otherwise we are just letting down the next generation. One of my last jobs, before I retired, was to commission an old pool to enable it to take on a huge educational and recreational swimming load.
This pool had to take over the bathing load for an inner city while the local leisure centre was being pulled down and rebuilt, a project scheduled to take three years. This 1960s pool had a ribbon system, two inlets in the shallow end and one bottom outlet in the deep end. No scum channels, no skimmers, so no surface water removal. The bathing load of this pool was to be in the region of 1,500 users a week, the majority of them, generally unwashed and apparently dying for a pee when they entered the pool. First thing was to check the suction from the single outlet and I found it would not pull your grandmother’s hat off. Further investigations indicated a turnover time in the region of six to eight hours. That may have been acceptable when the pool was built but not in 1997 with an increased bathing load.
Although the local authority was
chucking millions at the new complex they appeared reluctant to contribute more than the bare minimum of expenditure.
Yet again, reminiscent of the 60s, there were no showers and our riposte to this was to lease two ex- railway network shower trailers and implement a strict ‘no shower, no swim’ regime. At the risk of seeming uncouth, this dramatically lowered the amount of urine, sweat and gels being taken into the pool and something all pool operators should insist on.
With help and advice from Rob Perry of Advanced Pools, we came up with a scheme to treat the water from the top 150mm where evidence indicates 80% of dangerous pollution will lurk. The reason why the majority of biological pollution will predominantly be in that area is this is where the pool user’s orifices are when swimming. This is why, it is also essential that samples for pool testing should be taken from 75 to 100mm below the surface and not an ‘elbow’s depth’ as those rooted in the past advocate. Rob suggested we tried an alternative filtering media to sand; zeoclere, a form of zeolite as it would contribute to a reduction in ammonia, the biggest single problem in pool chemistry.
“... any pool that closes is a loss to society and I would like to feel that there are measures to avoid unnecessary closures”
As a field trial I made up a filter out of a soda bottle by cutting off the base. I screwed an underdrain into the neck of the bottle and inverting it, filled the container up with zeoclere. I then poured pool water with high combines through this improvised contraption. After passing the water through the vessel, three or four times I was able to measure a reduction in the combined level of mono and dichloramines, result!
We removed the sand, replacing it with zeoclere. The new leisure centre eventually opened up but many of the users stayed on at the ‘temporary’ pool due to diverse reasons; the excellence of the teaching, the ease of parking, but also the quality of the water. The operators are still managing to keep down their levels of combines and I’m glad (and proud) to say the water looks great. Bacteriological results are fine and the users experience very little problems. Without decent filtration, disinfection and pH control, you
have little chance and to that I would add flocculation which I believe is a must. Now I cannot categorically claim that the addition of zeoclere cured all of the problems but in similar circumstances I would and have used it again. The filters are regularly inspected and the media revitalised every six months by a simple process of adding a salt solution to the filter after the pool closes and backwashing it out the following morning.
I’ve just actually done some ‘proper’ work, decommissioning another old pool and it nearly killed me. A beautiful old tiled 20 by 8 yard pool built in the 60s and still fit for purpose but sadly sacrificed. Too expensive to run and to staff, so pull it down.
At least I managed to place a lot of the redundant equipment to where it was, both wanted and appreciated. My personal feeling is that any pool that closes is a loss to society and I would like to feel that there are measures to avoid unnecessary closures. spn
Allen J Wilson FISPE, MInstMPSA, Tech IOSH is a pool consultant, employed by Studies In Work. His book, Wilson’s Essential Pool and Spa Plant Handbook, is available from his website at
www.studiesinwork.co.uk
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