Indoor Air Quality Is Often An Overlooked Aspect Of Swimming Pool Owners/managers

If an indoor swimming pool has poor indoor air quality, the result is all kinds of problems. Health concerns, equipment and fixture problems, and more.

Far and away, the most serious concern with indoor air quality for swimming pool enclosures is high humidity. Obviously a swimming pool and spa have water loss due to evaporation. This evaporated water goes into---- the air. And causes problems with mold, mildew, electronic equipment malfunctions, and more. Structural components can be affected.

There are several ways to deal with the normal high humidity problems for indoor pools. Basically your options include greater air circulation, removing or reducing humidity.

Greater air circulation means more fans, air exchangers, open windows, something like that. Generally this is a very costly option. It takes considerable money to run the fans and so on, but more importantly, usually the air going out is heated (or sometimes cooled), so new fresh air needs to be heated (or cooled). This is expensive. Few pool use this option to improve indoor air quality.

Removing humidity can be done easily and effectively through the use of commercial dehumidifiers. This can prove a cost effective, safe and easy alternative. One highly recommended brand is the Hi-E Dry Dehumidifer, used in indoor pools, as well as many other applications.

Another less common method of improving indoor air quality for enclosed swimming pools, but one gaining popularity is reducing evaporation losses. This can be done through the use of pool covers.

The newer method of "pool cover" is a chemical pool cover. A safe additive that goes into the pool (or spa) water and forms an invisible film one molecule thick on the water surface, which greatly assists in preventing evaporation.

These liquid pool covers are a boon, especially for pool owners/operators who may have hours each day when pools are open (meaning you cannot have them covered), but with few- or no- users. Such as hotels, motels, and apartment complexes. Here is where the liquid pool covers are worth their weight in gold. No one is using the pool, the water is evaporating, but you cannot use a cover as at any time a patron might come in. Enter the liquid pool (and spa) cover. It is IN the pool (or spa) 24/7. Patrons can use the pool with the chemical in- no concern there. So it is working effectively to drastically reduce evaporation losses, with or without swimmers, 24/7.

An added benefit to the liquid pool covers is reduced heat loss. It costs a fair amount to keep pool and spa water heated. And most of the heat loss that occurs is our nasty nemesis again- evaporation. So using a liquid pool cover will help deal with heat loss as well as evaporation. A proven product is HeatSavr.
So, if you are a pool owner/ operator, think seriously about the indoor air quality of your swimming pool/ spa area. Look at ways to reduce evaporation. Doing so will make the room air more pleasant for patrons, but more importantly will mean that you will have less problems with electronic equipment, less concern about mold and mildew, and less money out the door due to water heating costs. You win all around.

And the options I mentioned are very low labor intensive. Once you have a dehumidifier set up, there is little to do to maintain it. It runs itself. And once your pool personnel know how to add a liquid pool cover (easy, takes about 2 minutes to train someone), it is a quick (like one minute) simple job to do it daily.

Bottom line: make your pool area function more easily and comfortably for your patrons, and save money in the process, without excessive added burdens on your employees.