Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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92 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some of the best money ever spent, 3 Sep 2006
We have had one of these pools for four summers now. It is a major attraction during the warm weather and popular from babies up to teenagers and a few adults have been tempted in as well. The soft, inflatable edge makes it incredibly safe and this summer my son and two of his friends spent a day running across the garden and launching themselves over the side and into the water! They couldn't have done this with a rigid sided pool. Once the kids are in bed, parents can get a look in, wallowing in a couple of large swim-rings with a G&T in their hand!
You need a surface that's as level as you can manage because too much slope causes the water to push against the lower side and the weight could cause the pool to collapse. We have a very slight incline but the pool can cope with this. We rake the ground smooth before spreading out the pool and use a thick ground sheet underneath. We walk over this in bare feet to feel for any missed stones etc. My neighbour has a similar pool and has created a permanent surface, dug into the ground, levelled out, covered in a thick layer of fine sand and with a groundsheet over the whole area and pegged down neatly round the edges. It looks great but we seem to manage fine with our seasonal arrangement. The pool is made of strong materials and in fact we've never had a puncture or hole. You spread out the pool in situ and we invested in an electric pump to inflate the top ring which is invaluable and gets used for lots of other things too! Once the water just covers the bottom of the pool, we pull out the bottom from the edges to remove any creases. Inevitably we are left with one or two small ones...almost impossible not to, but this is the stage to get it as smooth as you can. If you leave it any longer, the weight of water prevents you from being able to move it at all. It takes a few hours for the pool to fill up. Suggestions for the frequency with which you should change the filter are very varied but we find it needs changing about once a week, possibly a little less if the pool's not being used much and a bit more often when in constant use. The price of these varies enormously too, and I shop around on the net each season to find the best deal. Be careful to order the right ones...there are several sizes! We put two capfuls of chlorine in each night so it is not so strong the next day and we remove the cover daily, whether it will be used or not, to enable the sun to burn off any excess chlorine. Trial and error has found the right balance for us. Too little and it goes green, too much and it's unpleasant. This summer the water has been perfect all season. We bought a device that attaches to the hose-pipe which sucks debris off the bottom and a wonderful skimmer on a pole which easily removes debris that's floating...leaves, little insects etc. Between these two, we keep the pool crystal clear. A little time spent on maintenance reaps huge rewards. It's time consuming having to empty and refill the whole thing as well as wasteful of water so best avoided if possible. We use a solar cover which floats on the surface of the water and keeps built up heat in overnight. It's less cumbersome than the cover that goes over the whole pool and keeps out debris overnight. We put it on during the day for a while if it's windy when leaves get blown in. We used to turn the pump off at night but have found it best not to so now we leave it running the whole time the pool is up, ie all summer.
This has been a long review but I'd have liked to have read something like it before we started and it may have saved us some tribulations. The pool is a fantastic and affordable way of keeping masses of people very entertained all summer and lovely to have it to look forward to after a long, hot day at work or wherever.
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
we're going to need a bigger boat..., 25 Jul 2007
Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars
I naively thought this was a big kids (or indeed adults) paddling pool. I was wrong. This is a serious bit of kit. In the title where it says 10ft diameter dimensions, it literally does mean 10ft diameter. Of course I know what 10ft looks like, but here's a tip, IMAGINE in your head what 10ft looks like, then in reality add about 50%. You will probably come close to the actual size of this thing. You don't imagine it being as big as it is! It is huge. I am soooo glad I didn't go for a bigger one.
So Step 1: Get over the shock of the size of it, it will be useful to get confirmation, counselling, in depth discussion and opinion from your neighbour, wife, postman, anybody willing to listen...
Step 2: Preparation. Although it is sold as a simple concept 'easy set'- beware this is not an ankle deep splash pool. This a small swimming pool! You will need a level garden, you will need a huge amount of old carpet to put down on said garden to protect from punctures, before you then lay your pool on top, and you will need to say a loving farewell to the grass underneath - you wont be seeing that again - within 10 days of installing, the grass is already as dead as a dead thing.
Step 3: Installation. It is recommended you buy an electrical pump. "Ha!" I thought. "I don't need an electrical pump." 100 exhausting puffs later with little to show for it and I had a rethink... actually not quite - luckily for me my free stand bicycle pump, if you unscrewed the end, fitted the nozzle perfectly (about 2.5 cm in diameter). It's only the upper ring around the top that need pumping up, I personally think that's a waste of money for a electric pump -just don't try to do it by lung power alone. Installation time could well be extended by several hours, and you could well collapse.
Ok so we now have the top ring pumped upped and primed. I found the stopper needed a ring of masking tape around to be a perfect fit. Now for water - put about an inch in, and try to pull out any wrinkles you can. (harder than it looks). It would be helpful to get a second person here. Note the word 'person'. A 3 year old black labrador is next to useless. Install the pump - pretty easy to follow instructions and we are getting there.
Now it is wrinkle free, and pump (still switched off) is attached, it starts to get simple. Turn on tap, put hose in pool and wait.... And wait.... And wait.... And wait.... It took the best part of 4-5 hours to fill up for us. That's about 1000 gallons. ( I dread to think of my next water bill!)
Step : Playtime: Wait for the kids to come home from school! This IS for them - right? Smaller kids may need a step to get in to it as you aren't supposed to compress the sides at all. But it is big enough for a couple of adults & kids to have good fun in it. Suggestions for awesome games = pool wrestling; erm... wrestle your opponent to the floor in the pool darn it. Find the coin; pretty much as it sounds. Whirlpool. Try to get as much water spinning around as you can and then float back and go for a spin. Geddit? A spin? Or my personal favourite; send kids to bed on a hot summer's night, get cold beer, relax under water.
For £50 it really is worth the money. However. £50 doesn't even to begin to cover what you need.
Step 5: Maintenance. You will also need a cover to stop bugs n stuff getting in (actually some of the little ones still manage to get in): £10. you also need a pool cleaning kit compromising a net and suction device for the hose (to clean the top and bottom of pool respectively): £15. You will also need to find - from a pool shop - pool chemicals. Again here was me thinking that it was a simple case of a chlorine tablet now and again. Wrong! I had to buy chlorine powder (weekly), a chemical to raise the PH of water to optimum level for chlorine to work (weekly as necessary) a chemical to lower the PH of water (weekly as necessary), algae remover (fortnightly), a kind of flash out (cleans everything out) (monthly) + test strips: £30. Puncture repair kit... ooh! That one's free with it. Wahoo! Oh and don't forget to wash the filter in the pump out weekly! I'm sure it will need replacing once a season aswell.
Plus whilst on the subject of money, god knows how much 1,000 gallons of water will cost. Also the electricity to run the pump for 4 hours a day over the summer (ok I don't run it for this long.. or every night. My bad, but it seems like overkill to me), the carpet - free from a friend throwing out or will you have to slip the carpet shop a tenner for some scraps? A pump of some sorts? £25-£40. Oh and don't forget a box or 2 of grass seed and compost to re-seed that lawn! A £50 pool fast becomes £150!
But all in all, the kids love it, the adults love it, it's a talking point, and although a bit of an eyesore in the garden (but then again who wants to live in a show home / garden with no fun after all?!) it really is a great buy. Highly recommended.
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Careful, 1 Jul 2006
Durability:2.0 out of 5 stars Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars
You will become very popular with one of these. Friends will be visiting more often.
Suggest you place an old carpet below the pool to avoid small stones puncturing the base. Filters need changing monthly and are around £5 each.Some chemicals are needed and suggest bromine, that has less of a swimming pool odour than chlorine.
Have fun .David
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