Pool company takes school for a ride.

In and around our area there are a fair few schools with swimming pools. Inevitably we supply them with a lot of their chemicals. Recently we were called out to a local primary school to drop off some chlorine and when we got there we were amazed at what we found.

The school had just laid out over 150,000on a brand new swimming pool for their children. This initially sounded expensive when you look at the pool and see how not very big it is! We then walked into the plant room and all was revealed theyd been had by a local (reputable and well known might I add!)pool builder!!

It turns out that the pool company who built the pool had personal connections within the board of governors and theyd really gone to town on the pool. In fact, wed quoted for the very same job at almost 65% of the price they ended up agreeing on! A bit strange dont you think

As we walked into the plant room our jaws dropped to the floor in astonishment - what had they done?

This pool which didnt look any bigger than a 34? x 18? (4? depth) had a sand filter which wasover 5ft(yes- 5 FEET!!) wide and over 6ft tall and must havecost them a fortune let alone the cost of all that sand to fill it. The official SPATA regulations (swimming pool allied traders association) would recommend that you onlyrequire a 36? filter on that size pool (based on the water volume provided by the pool company) and thats circulating the water every 3 hours (4 hours is the requirement on commercial pools and only upto 8 hours on a domestic pool so well under that at 3 hours!) which would only cost in the region of 1,300 for a good one (not the RRP of 6,500 on the Astral one installed).

Added to this theyd put 2x 1.5hp ITT pumps on the pool. The pool of this size(with the 36? filter it should have had!) would have only required a 2hp (just one) however in the circumstance where they put thishuge filter in youwould requirefar more than 2x 1.5hp pumps to circulate the water. Maybe its no wonder that theyre now on their 4th replacement pump in under 6 months!! Some poor suppliers probably getting hit for warranty claims at the moment.

The poor school has also hadreplacement chemical dosage systems countless times as they keep failing and the big big surprise is with the building.A sliding glass enclosure which cost10,000s is already starting to degrade - and why.. because theyve installed absolutely no dehumidification or heat recovery into the building so all of that heat and steam is justeating away at the lovely enclosure - not to mention the misty glass windows and wasted heat energy.

The school has this week closed the pool for the winter saying that they just cant be bothered with all this agro theyre getting with the poolas every time something breaks (which seems to be once a week!) they have to shut the pool down.

We have recommended to the school that they involve SPATA and catch up with theseprofessionals who installed the pool and seemed to take every penny and opportunity to exploit the school that they could. That is if theyre not sat on a beach somewhere rubbing their hands together!!

We offer them our support in any way to get that pool useable for the children.