SWIMMING POOL SAFETY
Standard swimming pool safety fencing can potentially be the second most ugliest element to be installed around pool areas (the first being pool screen enclosures), but, to prevent children from drowning and other pool dangers, it's the law. To read the current Florida Residential Pool Safety Codes click here. Your local residential pool code may not require the availability of sign buoys and the like, but fencing is a feature to consider in order to comply with your residential pool safety code. Other items that might assist in case of an emergency are rescue hooks, whistles or air horns, first aid kit, rescue tubes or resuce cans and emergency blankets.
At Land Art, we use our creativity to creat code compliance in an asthetically pleasing manner for our clients. Through creative design of walls, grade change, fences and gates, we can design safety to be virtually invisible, yet ever present. A standard swimming pool safety feature which we find less obtrusive and most effective is KATCHAKID. Other newer pool safety features consist of alarms for your windows and doors that open to the swimming pool access area and more swimming pools safety equipment is being developed and updated constantly. Another important pool safety consideration is that older model swimming pools may need to have their drainage and pumping systems retrofitted to meet current safety codes to prevent entrapment or disembowelment. Children or adults may sit on pool drains that are not modified or their hair may become entangled in drains causing injury or death.
The most aesthetically pleasing safety feature is the waterline tile. Not all municipalities require these, but is a good idea regardless. Not only does waterline and step tile serve as a visual demarcation for swimmers to avoid accidental injury, but they also mask any scum or hard water build-up, provide ease of cleaning, and serve as a horizontal emphasis.
Some swimming pools may have amenities such as diving boards, slides and the likes. These items are manufactured and come with pool safety instructions. In our experience, injury may occur from guests utilizing this equipment and typically
includes a collision between two people. Common sense indicates to be sure that the recovery area at the outfall area of the equipment is clear of all people prior to using the equipment, utilize the slide or diving board in a forward fashion, one at a time, be patient, take your turn. .
Some may think that too many precautions are unessesary, yet according to Florida Health Department survey of 2006, Florida has the highest drowning death rate in the nation for children under the age of 5. In 2006 there were fifty swimming pool drowning deaths of children age 5 and under, these swimming pool safety statistics do not include the possible thousands of near-drowning incidents. A good idea is to post a list of swimming pool safety do's and don'ts on the inside of your pool bath door. As with all dangers in life, the best possible preventive measure is education; please teach your children to swim at the earliest age possible.
Despite all the above dire warnings, please never instill an actual fear of water to your children. In this digital age offering ridiculous amounts of computer games and television choices which encourage sedentary lifestyles, swimming pool activity should be a welcome boost for the health of your children and other loved ones.
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