Taking the plunge

Whether above- or in-ground, pools are swimming with possibilities

— Blue sky with no clouds,

Hot afternoons can get you down and make you sweaty,

Midsummer sun bake,

I know exactly what we should do and I think you're ready,

Gonna stay cool, cool, cool at the swimming pool.

- "Swimming Pool" by Keith Grim

wood/Ezra Idlet of Trout Fishing in America

One of Arkansas' best-known musical acts, Trout Fishing in America, has it right when it comes to coping with those ol' summertime blues.

Swimming pools are part of the fun of making peace with an Arkansas summer, along with lakes, rivers, creeks and streams. After all, not everyone is willing and able to hole up inside an air-conditioned outpost to await the arrival of autumn or flee to cooler climes elsewhere on the planet.

When it comes to finding the right pool, however, there are many choices to be made, as basic as whether to have a pool in the ground or above it. If the choice is for the latter, then there are the obvious decisions to be made about whether to opt for a big model or something as basic as the blow-up types, more accurately classified as kiddie wading pools, on sale in a box at most local big-box stores.

READY, SET, BLOW

For those, get ready, set, blow : or pump. Bigger models will require devices to force the air into your aboveground pool before adding water.

For an idea of what an in-ground pool looks like from a shopper's viewpoint, we visited Aloha Pools, off Crystal Hill Road in North Little Rock, in its 26th year of helping customers get soaked. Two typical pools are right outside the entrance. Sales manager Jim Blanscet says the pool business is doing fine, despite recent economic uncertainties.

"The year started off slow, but it's going pretty well now," Blanscet says.

"The credit thing affected us, and this is a luxury item, which people don't have to have. This is an excellent time of the year to put in a pool. It's dry and easier to put in a pool and afterwards, it's easier for people to get their yard back in shape after we've messed it up.

"We try to keep our crews busy, so we offer a bit of a discount as we'd rather build by about October than any other month. And the prices will probably be more next year."

AVERAGE POOL SIZE

An average pool is an 18-by-36-foot rectangle, Blanscet reckons, which is big enough for diving, swimming lapsand having a shallow end for the small fry.

Aloha markets what it calls the Smart Pool, with salt systems and self-cleaning methodology to help reduce time spent on maintenance.

"We try to make it as lowmaintenance as can be," Blanscet says, "so that it essentially maintains itself."

While Aloha does aboveand in-ground jobs, most of its work is in-ground. Prices for an average 24-foot diameter aboveground pool (installed) are about $4,200, while an in-ground model, which includes concrete in the total package, can be around $28,000.

"We've had folks who started with an above-ground model to see how much they would use it," Blanscet says, "and then they might take it down and sell it, or move it, or get an in-ground version. Swimming is excellent exercise, the best you can get. It doesn't pound your joints like running does.

"There are bigger or smaller pools than the 24-foot average, and we see more and more customization of size and shape. We're doing one in Clinton made like a cow bell for a company called CB Enterprises, and a Hot Springs car dealer, Allen Tillery, got one in the shape of the Chevrolet logo. The good thing about those jobs is that there's not a tremendous difference in the price." (See alohapools.com for more information.)

"WOW" POOLS

When money is no object, there are pools that have more bells and whistles than a recording studio, or at least that come with a plethora of waterfalls, boulders, pedestals, swimming jets, underwater sound and lighting, islands and walkways. At the top of the rankings is the so-called infinity pool, which gives the effect of a pool that goes on for a great distance and then drops off into a mysterious void - or at least an optical illusion of one.

Craig Phillips, owner of Rio Pools in Hot Springs, has completed projects for homeowners on Lake Hamilton, where some have showcase weekend getaways while they live and work in other cities.

"There are folks who want a lot of 'wow' factor," Phillips explains. "And for those overlooking Lake Hamilton anyway, it's a perfect place for an infinity pool. We try to dissuade those who want to put one in where it's notgoing to be something that really leaps out at you, such as just in some woods. What we really like to do is have water appearing to flow into water. You see a lot of these in ocean settings.

"This was one of our bigger jobs - 80 feet long, 80 feet wide, 13 feet deep - with two islands, five waterfalls, two bridges, a tanning ledge, a built-in bar with barstools. There's an outdoor kitchen, which is an indicator of how far our industry has gone to bringing the indoors out and equipping it with high-end electronics."

The owner of the lake home, an Oklahoma resident, requested that the controls on his wireless touch pad be programmed so he could call and turn on his hot tub as he flew toward his lake home in a seaplane that he would land on Lake Hamilton. The electroniccontrols alone cost $9,500 to program. The high-end pool, a project that cost in the neighborhood of $300,000, was constructed of Gunite and replaced a vinyl-liner pool, Phillips notes.

"Gunite lets us create a color that gets us in the right family for the vanishing edge transition.Add the water and the combination gives us the final color of the pool water. Our market starts at about $40,000 to $45,000 and doesn't usually go past $150,000, but these kind of waterfalls, grottos and smoke machines and underwater stereos add to the cost, and some folks add Plexiglas for a window to the pool to see below the surface."

Phillips moved to Hot Springs from the third largest swimming pool market in the nation, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, even though he finds it harder in Arkansas to find some of the subcontractors he needs. He brings in plasterers from San Diego, for example.

Though his career has been confined to the custom, highend world of pools, Phillips knows that for some people an above-ground pool is a gateway purchase.

STARTER POOLS

"Some start out with a blowup pool on a level spot, maybe spending $400 or so," he says. "Others may spend $2,000 on one, and maybe even eventually deciding to go to an in-groundmodel, maybe going with their most cost-effective approach, where a hole is dug and a fiberglass shell is put in the hole, with no steel, no Gunite, no tile.

"They're limited in the shapes and sizes they can get by what the Highway Department allows to go down the road." (See riopools.net for more information.)

An above-ground pool is just the ticket for the Bounds family in Bismarck.

"We just love ours," says hairdresser Dee Bounds. "We got it two years ago, on clearance at Wal-Mart for $70. It's 12 feet long by 3 feet deep, and it's the kind that is held up by some poles.

"In the fall, we cover it and let it get as green as it wants to and drain it about halfway so it doesn't blow off our hill. In the springtime, we get out there with bleach and some toilet brushes and get the green out and it's ready to go."

LOVE THAT POOL

Another Bismarck resident, Brittany Parks, moved with her family into a home they bought three months ago that already had an in-ground pool and she says that for her, the pool was a primary selling point.

"I have a 2-year-old girl and she loves it," Parks says. "She'll stay in it all day if we let her. She wears a life jacket when she's inthere since it's 8 1 /2 feet deep on one end.

"It's pretty expensive doing the chlorine and bleach once a week to keep it clean. About the biggest problem we have is we're constantly getting crickets in it."

After seven or eight years, above-ground pool owners Jerry Harrell and Carol Hum of Gravel Ridge have their routine down for maintenance of their pool, which is 15 feet in diameter and 42 inches deep, with sides built up with sand to bolster the pool.

"I make sure to put some chlorine in or the water will turn green," Harrell says. "And you have to be careful to get the mixing right - if you mess up the chemicals, you get a frothy mess.In the winter Carol and I drain out about half the water, leaving in about half to keep it from collapsing, and then in April or May, we drain it and sweep it out.

"When we start up again, we have to be careful to get the liner straight while we turn on the pump. It does 90 gallons a minute and the pool holds 5,000 gallons, so it doesn't take long."

Harrell says he figures he and Hum are in the pool at least three times a week, more when the weather is really hot.

"It only adds $40 or $50 a month to the water bill and I consider it good therapy."

Coming next week: Birds are coming, go

ing and staying - right in

our backyards. Jerry But

ler tells us what feathered

friends to look for, and

when.

HomeStyle, Pages 35, 40 on 08/29/2009

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