A quantum leap
TRIBUNE STAFF
WELLAND 10 SEPT 2006
In August of 2002 David Mercer was standing in the showroom of his business Blue Ocean Pools, when inspiration struck.
“It was literally a light bulb moment,” he recalled.
The biggest problem above ground pool owners have faced is dealing with the mess every spring when it’s time to open their pools.
Over the winter, traditional pool covers collect a great deal of water and debris. The pool covers form a pond of leaves and stagnating water suspended above the relatively clean water below.
How do we get the mixture of stagnant water of debris off the cover? People have been “trying to invent something” to solve the problem for many years, Mercer told The Tribune. And most of the solutions have either been too expensive to be practical, or they didn’t work.
But on that August day of 2002 Mercer was pretty confident he had a solution that seemed likely to solve the problem once and for all. Soon afterwards he started transforming his idea into a product. Two years later the Arctic Blue Eliminator Winter Cover was a reality.
Instead of using wire or rope to fasten down the tarp, Mercer’s pool cover is fastened down with a stretchy cord.
Meanwhile, a permeable strip is sewn into the centre of the tarp which filters melted snow and ice, and rain water as it drains into the pool water below.
Instead of collecting a pond of stagnating water and debris, the water drains through the tarp and the debris simply blows away. There’s no need to pump the water and debris off the cover when it’s time to reopen the pool in the spring, and it’s a lot less work.
And since filtered snow and rain water has raised the level of the pool water, it means a lot less water is needed to top it up for the summer. Since the initial improvement, a dam and plug system has been added to the pool cover kit which eliminated any pumping down of the pool in the fall and allows the pool to be started in the spring without any significant amount of water being required.
Meanwhile, no longer having stagnating water on the pool cover removes one more area where mosquitoes can breed. And that can help reduce the spread of West Nile virus, he added.
He called the system a “quantum leap” above traditional pool covers.
Although they‘re a little more expensive than traditional covers, they will last several years longer. Furthermore, this combination of longevity and water savings actually makes the cover very low cost compared to traditional covers.
Arctic Blue Covers is an established “Eliminator” cover manufacturer with over 50 dealers marketing the Eliminator Cover.
Arctic Blue announced the introduction of Eliminator in-ground covers for the 2007 season and are showing signs of as much success as the above ground covers.