Automating Your Pool

Some of today’s potential pool owners may well remember the pool their patents had build in the 1960s or 1970s. In those days, every function of the pool had to be performed manually, Pumps had to be switched at the power point, chlorine and other chemicals added by cupful every day and vacuum cleaning was a tedious manual task.

All these chores, and many others, can be carried out automatically with the use of computerised controls, timers and motor driven valves. Today’s owner of a pool need hardly touch the equipment.

So advanced is the technology that a person can leave their office after a stressful day and telephone instructions to the controls. Any predetermined time the spa or pool can be operated to a given temperature so that on arrival home, the owner can step straight into a relaxing spa with bubbling water at 35oC.

Not only have these advances removed the need for operating manual controls but tiny electronic sensors constantly monitor the chemical balance of the pool’s water.

When the correct sanitiser and pH levels have been established, these sensors will record the slightest change to these setting and activate the addition of the correct amount of necessary chemicals to rectify it.

As well as relieving the owner of regularly testing the water, this constant monitoring eliminates the need for the addition of large quantities of chlorine, bromine or acid.

These adjustments can now be made automatically with the injection of just a few millilitres of the necessary additive.

A modern automatic pool control system can carry out the following:

• Start pool filter and spa pump;
• Change water flow from pool to spa;
• Start automatic cleansers;
• Start in-floor cleaning systems;
• Activate solar heating;
• Operate underwater and external lights;
• Dim or brighten lights;
• Operate waterfalls or pond pumps;
• Turn on blowers and jets;
• Operate sanitiser systems;
• Turn on gas or electric heaters;
• Adjust pool and spa heater temperatures;
• Can be operated by touch or phone.

In addition to automatic and remote control units, today’s pool owner can select from a wide range of automatic sanitiser dosing systems. Salt chlorinators still are the leading choice in sanitisation, some of these units incorporate an acid cleansing mechanism or a reverse polarity system which overcomes the need for regular removal and cleaning of the chlorine producing cells. There are now several other proven methods of pool and spa sanitisation which include the use of bromine, ozone or ionic sterilisation.