Melbourne<\/a> morning, he\u2019s attempting to wake the pool from its long winter snooze in readiness for the interminably heel-dragging arrival of southern Australia\u2019s viable pool season. This preparation process can bring unpleasant surprises, especially when, like so many pool owners, Bruce has been inactive too.<\/p>\nEven in winter, a diligent pool owner should regularly monitor its vital signs, as if a large, delicate, expensive pet lurks in a hole in the back yard. It\u2019s a creature that must be kept under constant chemical constraint, or it risks becoming more liability than asset. \u201cFetid back yard swamp\u201d just doesn\u2019t wash in a real estate blurb.<\/p>\n
Bruce hasn\u2019t been in his pool for months, and rolling back the disintegrating blanket reveals its water has an alarming green tinge. That means it\u2019s going to need a mega-hit of the expensive white powder it\u2019s addicted to. He knows he shouldn\u2019t put too much in \u2013 but isn\u2019t it better to be safe than sorry? Ever since Bruce read about pool party guests infected with fatal brain-eating amoeba (or was it amoebic dysentery?), he\u2019s always overdosed his pool, just in case.<\/p>\n
Not that he\u2019s had guests in bathers recently. Bruce\u2019s wrinkled friends are well beyond the age for pool parties now. Besides, he\u2019s always harboured a certain resentment at watching people frolic in his pool, leaving him the next day, hungover in the glare, scooping out leaves from those trees his greenie neighbours won\u2019t remove. The leaves that somehow manage to escape his $2,000 robot vacuum cleaner, the one that makes a groaning noise the neighbours keep complaining about.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a kind of pool doctor\/drug dealer. I sell the chemicals so his pool can get its fix<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t so bad when the kids were young, but then they turned into teenagers and kept inviting hordes of friends over when he was overseas. Then he\u2019d return to a wince-inducing power bill, a blocked pump and a ring of God-knows-what around the spa.<\/p>\n
Now, despite the solar heating, checking the pool\u2019s temperature shows it\u2019s still too cold for a dip. And the test kit indicates its acid level is haywire again too. It\u2019s a chemical balancing act Bruce has never managed to get his head around: the relationship between temperature, pH and all those other substances the pool needs to maintain its health, or rather its sterility and the health of the people who use it. But hiring someone else to maintain it instead would mean even more expense. He\u2019ll just have to take a sample down to the hardware store.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where I come in. I\u2019m a kind of pool doctor\/drug dealer. I sell the chemicals so his pool can get its fix. Lots of chemicals. How many? On the shelves of the hardware store where I work we stock 37 different pool treatment options (as well as robot suction cleaners, extendable leaf scoops and floating drink trays).<\/p>\n
Chlorine is our bulk seller, of course, in liquid or granular form. The great thing about chlorine \u2013 for sales \u2013 is that it readily degrades, at rates dependent on temperature, UV and acidity, by turning into toxic hydrogen chloride gas. Though my analysis of his sample shows his pool needs severe chemical shock treatment, I\u2019ll advise Bruce to go easy, as too much chlorine risks turning blond and silver hair a shade of chartreuse, or even causing someone excessive epidermal desquamation. He\u2019d be even less popular then.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019ll recommend Bruce adds soda ash to increase his pool\u2019s pH, hydrochloric acid if he goes too far, calcium increaser to avoid metal corrosion and grout degradation, clarifier to treat the haze caused by excessive calcium levels, a four-step phosphate removal process to starve its microbial freeloaders (so hopefully he won\u2019t have to drain the thing) then a solid dose of algaecide featuring words like \u201cBlast\u201d or \u201cAttack\u201d to massacre even the most \u201cstubborn\u201d algae species. Apart from green algae there\u2019s also mustard and the dreaded black spot varieties.<\/p>\n
Then he\u2019ll need a dose of liquid floc to transport the millions of successfully slaughtered microbes to the pump inlet; a filter cleaner for the resultant clog, and a black spot eliminator. And a stain remover, Bruce? For that awful spa ring? Add a filter degreaser since humans are greasy creatures and \u2026 oh, Bruce, not the pump! (Don\u2019t even start Bruce on pumps.) That means he\u2019ll need a special spanner to dismantle it and find out what blocked the bloody thing this time. Another golf ball? Mallard duckling? G-string? Live snake? Whew. Poor Bruce. Who\u2019d have a pool.<\/p>\n
Really? You don\u2019t have one? Lucky you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll call him Bruce. He\u2019s any of the 3.1 million Australians living in a house with a pool…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-285692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}