Thanks to automatic control systems; forgetting to dose and test pool and spa water is now, generally, a problem of the past.
Automation has almost eliminated the possibility of human error, offering a win, win situation for public pool providers.
With information capable of being sent and monitored all over the world in a matter of seconds, automatic control knows no boundaries.
While pools vary in terms of dimensions, water volume, bather loads and the chemical balance of the incoming mains water, a critical aspect of designing a pool is ensuring that the filtration system is efficient and the chemical dosing system selected will achieve the best possible water quality.
An efficient dosing system will also ensure cost savings on chemicals as it will only dose what the sensor has asked for based on pre-set to optimum levels.
“If my memory serves me well one of the very first attempts to provide an automatic pool control system was an electromechanical system using a light source across a rotating disc with a slot and a light sensor, without going into too much detail it wasn’t particularly reliable,” recalls Jim Kenyon of JAK Water Systems.
“How things have changed. With modern solid state electronics, all seems possible these days. However, the old precept hasn’t changed – if you can’t measure it, you will not be able to control it.”
Keeping abreast of the ever-changing developments in technology, JAK Water Systems now supplies the Depolox Pool E700P automatic control system with all the latest technology and features. The system has been proven to reduce energy and chemical usage and therefore provides a quick return on investment.
“In the top of the range auto dosing units, the electronics have been designed to predict chemical demand and will in theory reduce chemical costs. With this level of technology and control it is possible make substantial savings by reducing variable speed of the circulation pumps,” says Jim. He adds: “It’s important to remember that you need to measure all these parameters to even consider controlling the speed of the circulation pumps.
With built in alarms for local and remote indication and remote monitoring, what’s next?”
It is hard to comprehend how any modern day commercial pool operator could demonstrate responsible ‘duty of care’ if they have not switched to automatic water treatment dosing. A relic of the bygone days, manual dosing of chemicals directly into a commercial swimming pool is an accident waiting to happen. Most chemicals for water treatment are hazardous to health and therefore come under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations.
COSHH require an assessment of risks to be done so that risks may be controlled, exposure to the substance minimised and that operations do not pose a hazard to the health of the operator or to anyone in the vicinity. Jimmy Lamb, Bayrol product manager at Pollet Pool Group points out: “Manual dosing of chemicals directly into a commercial pool presents a number of risks; safer, more efficient, use of chemical is achieved where the dosing of chemicals is continuous and satisfactory water quality is more easily maintained. It is usually more economic too, as with manual dosing over and under dosing is common with the resulting waste of chemical.”
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