Swimming pools and spas are great family-friendly activities to have fun and get healthy exercise at the same time. You definitely want to have a safe swimming experience for your children while preventing drowning, diseases, and the negative effects on swimmers of swimming pool chemicals.
Preventing Drowning
You certainly don’t want a child to drown in your swimming pool and you want to have the safest environment possible for kids of all ages at your home. A few tips can help you to prevent this type of tragedy.
Parents can keep their children and friends’ children safe by teaching them to swim. If a child knows how to float in water, then even if they get in trouble without an adult seeing them, they can float on their backs with their head out of the water and be safe until help arrives.
It’s a good idea to have at least one adult that is certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on-site when anyone is in or near the pool. When anyone is under the water for too long, they can experience a near drowning. The body is deprived of oxygen and it can cause the bodily systems to shut down and even cause brain damage. This is more common in children than adults, but it can also occur in adults. CPR can save lives if someone has been submerged too long and especially if the water in the swimming pool is cold.
You should have a fence around your pool with a gate that locks to prevent small children from wandering near it and falling in. The height of the swimming pool fence is different from one state to another and you should also check with your city laws as well.
If small children that don’t know how to swim are at your swimming pool, insist that they wear either life jackets or floaties on their arms that won’t slip off. It might not look fashionable, but it saves lives.
Prevention of Sickness and Diseases
Swimming pool water should be clean so that no one gets sick or contracts a virus and has to stay home from work or school.
It’s a good idea to shower before swimming to wash off body oils and hair products that react with the chlorine in the water. These contaminants make the chlorine less effective at cleaning the water and it also causes skin and eye irritation. You should never swallow pool water because of the possible contamination in it.
Advanced Oxidation (AOP) is a supplementary sanitation system to help disinfect your pool water and destroy harmful contaminants, such as viruses and bacteria. These products are readily available at a swimming pool supply store. It helps your chlorine to be more effective at its job and creates a safer and healthier pool. Swimming pool and spa germs can cause ear and lung infections as well as skin infections in some individuals.
Cryptosporidium is a particularly nasty infection that is caused by parasites in water. An AOP system will eradicate 99.9% of these germs in your swimming pool to maintain healthy water. Crypto is treatable by a physician, but it can last several days or weeks with watery diarrhea and dehydration. This is more common in children that are 5 years of age or younger when they swallow infected swimming pool or spa water.
Other Swimming Pool Tips to Keep Your Water Healthy
There are more common tips to keep your swimming pool and spa water healthy that you most likely realize as a pool owner. Here’s a quick run down though. Keep your water clean and clear by removing leaves and debris daily and vacuuming it regularly. Clean your pump baskets and skimmer daily and make sure you have the correct balance of chemicals in the water to fight infections and diseases. Repair any cracks in the shell of your pool and the tile that surrounds it. You should service your pool
equipment at intervals according to the manufacturer’s directions and keep the electrical system in good working order. Enlist the help of an automatic pool cleaner to maintain good water conditions. If you are a new swimming pool owner, you can hire a trained swimming pool and spa technician to teach you exactly how to balance the chemicals for your peace of mind.
Conclusion:
Being proactive in the cleanliness of your swimming pool and spa water is much better than being reactive after someone gets ill. We’ve been your premier swimming pool installer, maintenance, and repair company for over 60 years in this area. We are happy to help you with any questions or to help you shop for a pool paint, restoration, and repair products that you may need. Contact us for any questions you may have about maintaining a safe and healthy pool for your family and friends
