Pool Perfection! Fireside Chat
With the Phoenix summer upon us, a sparkling clean swimming pool is at the top of “must-have” list for many vacation home rental guests. As a vacation rental home owner, you’ll want to be sure your pool is maintained with excellence. You’ll also want protect yourself against potential liabilities!
A residential pool you might have, you know, two or three people in the pool during the week. At a vacation rental pool, people are paying for use of the property for a vacation, so quite often there may be 10 people in the house. Since they are paying for the use of the pool, they are using that pool much more. In this situation there might be 5, 6, 8, 10 people – maybe more – in the pool every day. Pools run and consume chemicals based on how many people are in them and how much organic matter is in the pool. So you might have 10 or 15 times the amount of people in that pool than you would normally have in a residential pool. And that’s why we treat it like a commercial pool, much like an HOA for condo complex or a hotel.
The pool would need a chemical feeder on the pool, like a tab feeder that’s back at the equipment, essentially so that it is continually feeding chlorine to that pool. So it is staying in front of those issues so that it doesn’t get murky, etc.
But then also maybe some other chemicals like enzymes and that type of thing that we wouldn’t always use in a residential setting. So for instance, with sunscreen and things like that on the body, chlorine is fighting to get rid of that and it’s consuming a lot of chlorine to do that, so if there’s more and more people in the pool, things like enzymes and other types of algaecides can help get rid of those things so that the chlorine can actually do its job correctly and keep the water clear.
One of the things is to make sure it’s not just a chlorine floater in the pool. In a residential situation there’s a little pop-up feeder that has chlorine in it that’s floating around the pool. In a vacation rental pool, it’s better to have that back at the equipment because somebody’s kid could take that chlorine tablet out of that floater and it could hurt them. That’s a potential liability and something that could be easily solved with a simple tablet feeder that’s located back at the pool equipment, so that it is away from the environment that the guests are swimming in.
All commercial pools have that as a requirement – it’s code. So, even though it’s not an “inspected” pool, that’s the best way to do it. And from a liability perspective, that eliminates some concerns so it may be a situation where you could reduce some insurance costs if you can do some of these things, like putting “No Diving” signs around, and doing your part as a vacation rental home owner in saying, hey, the signs were there, you know if somebody – god forbid – hurts themselves diving in your pool.
To protect yourself from the silly decisions your guests could make. It’s important to have signs posted and also make sure that your pool guy knows that this is a vacation rental so he can have the chemicals set up correctly for that.
With our vast experience, Moxie Girl can help with all your vacation rental home needs – and we’ve found some of the best local products and services in The Valley.