Coming in second is Swimming Pool Maintenance, an undisputible authority on swimming pool care and swimming pools.

It looks like you lucky people are in for a busy summer with a Google thumbs-up like that. Keep up the good work.

The most common way to measure a pool is with a measuring tape, but nowadays we use a digital laser rangefinder. It can measure up to 150 feet and will also calculate area and volume. It cannot measure pool depth through the water though, so we rely on more traditional methods to get depth measurements.

To make my pool measurements quickly I enlist the help of anyone nearby and take “readings” off of them. To measure the swimming pool depth I use the pool pole (from the net/ scoop/ vacuum head). I mark the water depth on the pole and can easily measure the pole on “dry land”.

Our laser tool has made measuring so much easier and quicker. I tend to carry spare batteries as well as my trusty old tape measures. I still use the old-style tape measure in bright sunlight for distances over 100 feet because I find it extremely difficult to find the laser dot. I suppose one day I’ll get the special sighting board and glasses or upgrade to a more powerful device. For now I’m just getting used to this little techno-toy and having fun while saving time.

A quick tour of nearby pools showed no sign of snow of freeze damage and everything appears to be in great shape.

The extra precipitation with the snow also means more water for filling our pools this summer. I can hardly wait to go swimming again.

The pool water is real green, which is normal for our pools during the winter. I would much prefer that they were winterized, but I suppose we never really get to see them, so their blue-water summer state is the main priority. As long as the water is clean and sanitized throughout the swimming months, I can live with the slime in our subdivision through the cooler winter months.

This is our smallest swimming pool, also green. But at over 775,000 gallons winterizing is no easy task. Mind you, spring cleaning is a nightmare at best too. Team effort and a week’s work turns this pool into a sparkling blue pool safe for even my kids to swim in.

The snow will melt in a few days and we will be back to our mild winter weather once again. I have yet to see the pool water freeze enough to support my weight. Well, with all this turmoil of seasons out of alignment, you never know…

Emergency services were called out to reports of a chemical incident at Glenwood High School on Saturday.

They discovered that a member of staff had accidentally mixed chemicals used for cleaning the swimming pool.

That pool chemicals are extremely dangerous is so often forgotten. I have come across numerous incidents of explosions, vapor discharges or wild, out of control reactions due to the mixing of different pool chemicals. Possibly the most frightening and perhaps the easiest mix to “accidently” make is the combination of dichlor and calcium hypo with some water added to it.

In pools where the chlorine needs to be predissolved and the pool operator mixes some dichlor and cal hypo in the same bucket, the resulting explosion and thick pungent cloud of yellow “mustard gas” is horrifying to witness. The gas explodes upwards in a typical mushroom shape. Thankfully, people unfortunate enough to be nearby when it all goes bang generally remain below the cloud of gas.

Westhost have an open ticket and I’m hoping to get it resolved in under a week.

I must admit I’m a little disappointed in the support Westhost has offered for this problem. The ticket has been closed twice without any help, advice or resolution!

UPDATE: problem solved. It was some kind of server path issue.