Archive for the ‘Above Ground Pools’ Category

Comparing the Reprieve Pool and the Oracle Pool

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

There are two new names in the above ground pool market for 2011 and they are the Reprieve and the Oracle.  [Don't blame us - we didn't come up with the names!] They have replaced the Reggata and the Equinox Pools. The Oracle Pool is just the Equinox re-named but the Reprieve is a brand new pool. But which is better?

The simple answer is the Oracle, but it is more expensive so you would expect that. Much of the difference between the two pools is in the detailing so, in the end, your choice may come down to which of the pools you prefer the look of.

So what are the differences? Well, the biggest difference is the Reprieve is 48 inches deep and the Oracle is 52 inches deep. The overall design and construction of the pools is very similar in that they are both metal sided with metal struts and top rails. They both come with all the necessary equipment to get them up and running and they both need the same sort of ground preparation before you errect them. The difference is in the detail.

The most obvious detail is the colour of the side walls. The Reprieve Pool has “wood effect” walls and a brown frame while the Oracle Pool has “silver leaf” sides with a Pewter frame.  Each comes with a nice patterned liner, the quality of the liner is equal in both pools but the patterns are different.

The Reprieve Pool has a 6 inch top rail, the Oracle Pool has an 8 inch top rail. The uprights on the Reprive are 4.5 inch on the Oracle they are 7 inch. So you can see that the Oracle is a more solid pool but then it needs to be because it holds more water than the Reprieve.

The 48 inch Reprieve has the "wood effect" exterior

The 52 inch Oracle has a grey exterior

Oracle's Liner is "beach tile"

Reprieve's Liner is "boulder"

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools | No Comments »

Is this the ultimate above ground pool?

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Most people’s idea of an above ground pool is about 4ft above the ground but how about 650ft above the ground?

This new pool in Singapore spans across three huge hotel towers and is 150m long. With an infinity edge  that looks out over the skyline you need a good head for heights to take the plunge in this pool.

Life on the edge

A pool with a view

The last word in above ground pools

If you would like a pool like this it is yours for the bargain price of four billion pounds.

Posted in Above Ground Pools, News | No Comments »

I’ve bought an above ground pool – what else to I need?

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

So you have bought an above ground pool for the garden, you have errected it and filled it with water – what now?

Well, first of all jump in and enjoy it! But you will need chemicals to keep the water clean and maybe you will want to warm the water up as well. This article will tell you what you should get.

Firstly when we say above ground pool for the garden we mean this sort of thing.

An Intex 16ft round Ultra Frame Pool

An Intex 16ft round Ultra Frame Pool

An Intex 18ft Easy Set Pool

An Intex 18ft Easy Set Pool



A pool with its own filter pump and paper filter cartridges. Although the pools above are the bigger type the advice here applies just as well to a pools down to 8ft round.

Keeping it clean

You are going to need to put chemicals in the water to keep it clean.  The easiest way to treat the pool with chemicals is just to drop a floating dispenser in the water. The Ficlor 5 Bouy is ideal. Turn the lid until the holes line up for your size of pool, drop it in the water and that is it. Take it out when you swim, put it back in when you have finished. Inside the 5 bouy are two types of chlorine and a clarifier to kill bacteria and algae and help the filter keep the water clear and clean.

The 5 bouy is ideal for the smallest pools up to about an 18ft round pool. From about a 15ft pool up to the biggest garden pools available you might want to put multifunctional granules in the pool. The granules come in  5kg tub and one tub should last a whole season. The granules contain chlorine to kill bacteria, an algicide and a clarifier to keep the water clear and clean. You will have to test the water to find out how much chlorine is in there and for that you need some 3 way test strips. They also test for pH (acidity) and alkalinity. For a small pool you don’t need to worry too much about the other two. Putting chlorine in a pool is a bit like putting petrol in a car, when the fuel gauge is low you put more in. Test your pool every day and when the reading is low put more chlorine in.

Multifunctional Chlorine Granules

3 Way Test Strips

3 Way Test Strips

Fi-Chlor 5 Bouy



Keeping it warm

Left alone the water in your pool will warm up and cool down each day with the warmth of the day and the cool of night and as the weather generally gets warmer so will the pool.  If you want warmer water than nature gives you then the first thing to buy is a solar cover. This is made with bubbles to make it float on the surface, it insulates the water and has a greenhouse effect of letting the sun’s ray penetrate to warm the water but retaining the heat at the same time. A good solar cover will keep the water about 3 to 5c higher than it would have been without one but the water temperature will still rise and fall with day and night and warm and cool weather.

If  you want your water to always be warm no matter what the weather then you will have to have a heater as well as a solar cover. For pools up to 12ft this is quite easy. You can buy the Intex 3kw heater or the better quality Elecro 3kw heater. 3kw is as much as you can run from a plug socket in the wall so the 3kw heater is a popular size. If your pool is bigger than 12ft then you should buy the 6 or 9kw heater. These have to wired in by an electrician. Above 9kw you will struggle to have enough electric capacity in your house for a bigger heater. Once you get in to the realms of the 12ft x 24ft you should be thinking about a heat pump. These things consume less than 3kw and so can be plugged in to the wall but they generate up to 12kw of heat.  Although they are much more expensive than an Elecro heater they will pay back in electricity savings in two years or less.

Intex 3kw Heater

Intex 3kw Heater

Elecro Heater 3 to 12kw

Ecowarm Heat Pump




See the next article for how to connect a heater to the flexible pipe of your pool (if there is no article below this then the  link to it is above the title of this article).

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools, Swimming Pool Cleaning, Swimming Pool Covers, Swimming Pool Kits | No Comments »

How to connect Intex pipes to standard pool pipes

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Intex make great above ground swimming pools, the best on the market, which is why PoolStore only sell Intex pools but the pipes that come with the pools are a non-standard type and if you ever want to connect any non-intex item to your pool, like a heater for example, you will have to change from the Intex pipes to standard swimming pool pipes. This article will help you to do that.

Intex pools pools have two sizes of pipe. 1.25 inch for their smaller pools and 1.5 inch for their bigger pools

intex 1.5 inch pipe

Intex 1.5 (inch and a half) pipe

intex 1.25 inch pipe

Intex 1.25 (inch and a quarter) pipe

1.5 inch pipe

standard swimming pool 1.5 inch pipe

Standard swimming pool pipe is 1.5 inch class C ABS pipe and is usually white. There is also PVC pipe and that is usually grey in colour. Because pool pipes are 1.5 inch it makes it very difficult to attach the 1.25 inch pipe work to it but the 1.5 inch pipe is fairly easy.

What you need is a 1.5 inch hose tail. There are two types, threaded and plain

plain hose tail

Plain inch and a half hose tail

Threaded inch and a half hose tail

The first thing to note is that the smooth end of the Intex pipe will not fit in to anything other than another Intex fitting. You will have to cut it off. The hose tail will push fit in to the cut end of the intex pipe but it will not be water tight.  You can put a jublilee clip on it but because of the ridges in the Intex pipe it will not squeeze down tight.  It will need to be sealed with a bathroom type mastic sealant.

Having got the Intex pipe on to the hose tail you can now connect to standard swimming pool pipe and connections. You can screw in to a female thread with the threaded hose tail or glue on to any plain ended fitting with the plain hose tail.

For example if you were installing an EcoWarm heat pump, they have 1.5 inch female threads on their inlet and outlet. We would recomend putting a threaded union in to the heat pump and then glue the plain hose tail in to the plain end of the union. Then you can unscrew the union at any time to isolate the heat pump.

threaded socket union

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools | No Comments »

Solar heating for swimming pools – the pros and cons

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Solar Pool Heating – the pros and cons

Heating a swimming pool using solar energy has always been a good idea, free heat from the sun is always preferable to a large gas or electric bill, but just how good are the solar heating products available?


If you really want the best solar heating there is then you need the vacuum tube type heater. They are typically £5,000 to 10,000 per installation so we will not dwell on that type in this article.


For the typical domestic  owner of a small to medium size pool who is  on a reasonable budget there are two main options. The rubber matting type and the new solar pods type. The biggest problem that faces these type of solar swimming pool heaters is that they don’t have a thermostat. You cannot say “I want my pool to be 28C, I’ll just set this dial to 28C” and sit back and two days later the pool is at 28C and it stays at 28C all season long. With solar heating you get what the sun gives you. If it decides to shine then you get 28C but if it decides to stay behind the clouds you get 20C or 15C. If it is important to you that the pool water stays at a constant temperature then solar heating alone is not for you. You will need a back up source of heat and that will mean paying for it.


Nature likes equilibrium. If something hot is surrounded by something cold the hot thing will give up its heat until they are both the same temperature.  Given enough time a large mass of water, like your swimming pool, will reach the same temperature as its surroundings.  This is a major problem in the Middle East where pool water can naturally reach 35C. This is too hot and most pools will have a chiller on them to cool them down. No such problems in the UK where left alone a pool may get to 22C, 25C in a long spell of good weather, but typically 18C to 20C is what you would expect. For most people 20C is too cold but 28C is quite pleasant.  8C might not seem very much to have to warm the water by but it if the ambient temperature is lower than 28C, and that is probably 95% of the time in a British summer, then you are constantly having to add heat to the water while nature is constantly trying to take it back.


The problem we have with solar heaters is that when the sun comes out the weather gets warm anyway.  So is the heat gain in the pool down to the solar heater or would it have warmed up anyway? We have carried out experiments on two pools, side by side and in full sun, one with a solar heater and a solar pool cover and one without. We sampled the temperature every hour and we found, not surprisingly, that the temperature fluctuated with day and night. From a daytime high of 23C the pools could drop to 18C at night but then back to 23C the following day. What we did find was that the pool with the solar heater and solar cover was always warmer than the other pool, usually by about 3C but more in sunny weather. In sunny weather the solar heated pool reached 29C in the middle of the day whilst the non-heated pool was 24C.



During the experiment the weather did turn cool and we had rain. At these times the pools fell back to 18C to 22C but in those conditions no one wanted to use the pool anyway. When the sun came back the temperature of the water rose to 26C and that coincided with a desire to swim.

solar heat graph

Comparison of heated and non heated pools


So we think that, provided you accept the limitations in this climate, solar heating it is worth investing in. We would sum up the pros and cons as follows


Cons

The pool temperature will never be constant
The water will cool considerably at night and in a cloudy spell of weather


Pros

The heat you do get is free
Most people don’t want to swim in cloudy weather anyway, by the time the weather improves the water has warmed up again.

solar pool heating solar pod
Solar Matting on a roof Solar Pod

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools, Swimming Pool Heaters | No Comments »

One of the many uses of an Intex Easy Set Above Ground Pool

Friday, May 7th, 2010



There are lots of ways to relax or have fun in an Intex Easy Set above ground swimming pool.

Here is one that we are not sure we would recommend you try at home.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools | No Comments »

You have got an above ground pool and now you want to heat it

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

So, you have bought an above ground pool, probably an Intex type pool, that sits on your lawn. You have filled it with water, connected up the filter pump and you and your family are all ready to climb that ladder and step in. But then you hear “it’s freezing cold! I am not going in that!”.

Sound familiar? You need a heater. In this article we will discuss the various options for heating a garden above ground pool. We are talking about the type of pool like the one pictured below, you can buy them from us or from Argos, Toys r us, B&Q that sort of thing. Typically 8ft to 18ft round with a combined paper filter and pump.




If  your pool is in the 8ft to 12ft bracket then brace yourself: The heater is going to cost more than the pool. Infact regardless of how big your pool is, if you want a really good, efficient heater it is going to cost way more than the pool. We will not be discussing solar heating systems in this article, we’ll talk about that in another article.

So let’s start from first principles. If you get a cold drink and a hot cup of tea and leave them both on the table for an hour what happens? The cold drink gets warm and the hot drink gets cold. The liquid warms up or cools down to the ambient temperature surrounding it. It is exactly the same with your pool. The only difference is your pool sits there day and night  so whilst it may warm up some in the day it will cool down at night. So if you do nothing the water will reach the average day/night temperature for the time of year. In a typical british summer that is about 17C (63F), not especially warm.

The first thing you should do it buy a solar cover. Even the cheapest type will help but a good quality 400 micron solar cover will help the sunshine to warm water and also help keep the heat in during the colder nights. Using a solar cover should add at least 2C maybe up to 6C to the temperature. That will bring it up to about 19 to 23C (66 to 73C). 23C is not bad, on a really warm day most people would swim in 23C.

If the solar cover does not warm it enough for you then the next stage involves forking out for heater of some sort. There is a big barrier that affects your choice and that is the fact that from a 13amp plug socket in the wall you can only run a 3kw appliance.  3kw heaters are a very popular choice for that reason – you do not need an electrician to wire it in. You plug them in and connect them up and away you go. This is great but unless your pool is 10ft round or smaller you will not get the pool very warm. A 3kw heater will be OK on a 12ft pool but don’t expect anything over 25 or 26C in normal summers. Intex make a cheap 3kw heater. At £69.00 it is good value but it is not hi-tech, it has no thermostat but it will warm up a small pool. Elecro’s 3kw heater at £200.00 is a much better piece of kit.

If 3kw is not enough to heat your pool, i.e. your pool is bigger than 12ft round then you have two main choices. If you are happy to get an electrician in then get a 6kw or a 9kw direct electric heater. Elecro are by far the best manufacturer of these heaters. 9kw will heat a pool up to 18ft round. Bear in mind that when running a 9kw heater and assuming day rate electricity of 13p per unit it will cost £1.17 per hour to run. They typically need to run for 4 to 6 hours per day to maintain the temperature. In a 150 day season your lecky bill could be over £1,000.00. Every season. You will not save electricity by having a smaller heater, it will cost the same and just take longer to heat the pool.

Don’t fancy the idea of paying £5,000 in electricity over the next 5 years? Then a heat pump is what you need. An Ecowarm EW10 gives up to 9.5kw of heat, but it only draws 1.9kw in electricity. It can plug in to the wall socket, no need for an electrician. At 25p per hour to run your lecky bill for the season should be more like £250.00.  So what is the drawback? Well, the EW10 costs £1,200.00 to buy but with a saving of £750 per season it pays back after 1 year.

“£1,200 for a heater, the pool only cost £300!” I hear you say. Yes, that is quite right. Heating up a large volume of water is not a cheap and easy thing to do.

Click the links below to see the products discussed in this article:

Intex 3kw heater

Elecro Heaters

Ecowarm Heat Pumps

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools, Swimming Pool Heaters | No Comments »

Gardipool Wooden Above Ground Pools

Thursday, April 8th, 2010



Wooden above ground pools are becoming more and more popular and in this article we go in to extra detail on the special features of the Gardipool wooden pool.

We think Gardipool make the best wooden swimming pools on the market.  The timber is 45mm thick pine wood treated and guaranteed for 10 years. Many other wooden pools are made from 38mm wood. Gardipools  are the only wooden pool to incorporate dovetail joints using a unique patented system. The dovetail joints don’t just look good they are safer and more child friendly.  The joints are reinforced by a stainless steel threaded bar to tighten the frame  which also makes it easier to take apart. The coping is one piece of wood.  Some wooden pools have a two piece coping, it doesn’t sound like a big deal but when you compare them a one piece coping looks so much better. The coping is held in place by diagonal covering piece that hides the fixings and makes the pool look particularly visually pleasing.

gardipool joint gardipool dovetail joints gardipool one piece coping Gardipool coping support
Patented Joint Dovetail joint One piece coping Coping support

Another unique feature of Gardipools is the extensive range of different shapes and sizes they offer in their range.

Like all wooden pool manufacturers they make a traditional octagonal pool and they call that the Octoo.  In common with most manufactures they make a streched octagon which they call the Oblong.  Unlike any other manufacturer they also make a rectangular wooden pool that they call the Quartoo. To complete the set they make a hybrid of the Oblong and the Qartoo which has one rectangular end and one three sided end like the Octoo. If there is a critism of Gardipools it is that their naming system is confusing!

For each shape there are 2 to 4 different sizes making a total of 11 different pools in the range. The smallest is 3.0m x 5.0m and the biggest is 8.75m  x 4.0m. There is also the optional extra of a wooden housing for the filtration equipment.

To see the full range and the prices click through to the gardipool page on the main website



Of course the great thing about all wooden pool kits is that you get everything you need. Not just the wooden frame but the liner and all the filtration kit as well.

The main items that every pool needs are included such as

Wooden external stairs.
Stainless steel internal stairs.
Pentair sand filter complete with all hoses, connectors and sand.

Pentair pump.

30 thou thick liner.

But as well as the obvious items you also get

A Solar cover.
A Winter cover.
Anti bacterial felt underlay.
Start up chemicals kit.
Cleaning kit (brush, vacuum head, pole, leaf net and thermometer).

Assembling a Gardipool is not as difficult as you might think. You don’t necessarily need to get in experts to build it, anyone who is handy at DIY could put it together over a weekend. In the video below they have excavated a hole and part buried the pool. This is a good idea but you don’t have to go to that much trouble, you only need to remove the topsoil and level the base. You don’t even need glue for the pipe fittings, they are simple compression fittings.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools | No Comments »

The New Intex Sand Filter

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Intex above ground swimming pools are synonymous with high quality and inovation and 2010 sees the introduction of a product that has been long awaited by many owners of Intex pools – a sand filter.

 

 

Up to now all Intex pools came with a combined pump and paper cartridge filter. The pumps are very good and whilst the paper filters pick out the dirt and debris in the water they need cleaning often and should be replaced from time to time.

 

In ground pools and the bigger above ground pools have sand filters. Sand filtration is the best and easiest way to filter swimming pool water. The water is pumped in at the top of the filter chamber and pressure from the pump forces the water down through a bed of sand. As the water passes through the sand bed the dirt and debris is left behind in the sand and clean water emerges via lateral pipes with fine slots in at the base of the filter. When the filter needs cleaning the water is pumped the oposite way, the sand “fluidises”, the dirt is lifted out and the dirty water is sent to waste. This is called backwashing. Sand filters can hold much more dirt than paper filters and don’t need washing as frequently.

 

Whilst there are many pump and filter combinations on the market they are all geared to inground pools with standard 1.5 inch solid pipe fittings. The difficulty always was adapting the fittings on them to work with the Intex pipework. The new Intex sand filter solves these problems because it is made to fit directly on to the non standard pipe fittings that are found on Intex pools. It also comes with adaptors to make it fit all other makes of above ground pool.

 

The filter is easy to assemble and requires just one 25kg bag of  “16-30″ grade filter sand.

 

If you are looking to replace your paper filter with a sand filter then the Intex sand filter is the obvious choice.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools, Bright New Ideas, Swimming Pool Filtration | No Comments »

At last! A light you can use in an above ground pool

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Up to now putting a light in an above ground pool has been just about impossible. Unlike an inground pool you cannot build one in to the wall. Unlike a wooden above ground pool you cannot drill a hole in the wood to hold the light. There are some lights that you can dangle over the side but they are not very attractive.

 

Now Intex have come up with a light that can use on a soft-sided pool. You can use it on any of the Intex above ground pool range or any other pool by other manufacturers.

 

The light gets around the problem of cutting holes in the side by being held in place by a magnets either side of the vinyl wall. Not only does the magnet hold it in place but it also induces an electrical current on the inner part to power the LED light. LED lights do not need much power and the 3 watts generated is plenty for the light and makes the light perfectly safe.

 

The outer part of the light is plugged in to mains electricity, there is a very generous amount of chord. A transformer reduces the current to 12 volts on the outer part so, again, electrical safety is not a problem.

 

 

The LED light is suprisingly bright. One light is easily enough to light up an 18ft diameter intex ultra frame pool

 

If the light ever gets knocked and disconnected from the magnets it will just float to the surface and you can re-connect it.

 

Inground pool lights are fixed in position but this light can be positioned anywhere you like in your pool.

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in Above Ground Pools, Bright New Ideas | No Comments »