Buying A Swimming Pool? What Accessories Do You Need?

A swimming pool is a fine addition to any home, a great way to get the kids out of your hair and into the water, and a good way to spend some quality family time together. But if you're thinking of buying a swimming pool there's a few things you need to buy with the pool. There's some swimming pool accessories that you need to think about too.

Now of course it's the same as buying a car, there's some things you need and some things you really don't need, but want anyway. And the salesman will try to sell them all to you. Swimming pool accessories are often quite expensive, and if you buy a lot they can add quite a bit to the cost of your pool, so make sure you know what your budget is and what accessories you need and which ones you don't.

All swimming pools, or at least those that can't be emptied regularly, which is most, need regular cleaning. A god filtration system is essential to swimming pool maintenance, and it's something you need to consider before all other accessories.

The filtration is designed to keep nasties out of your pool. Even if you have a cover for the pool nasties get in, paticularly bacteria, as well as other things like dirt, leaves and dust. A good pool cleaning system should remove these. Chlorine helps immensely and is essential unless you have a salt water pool, which is unusual, so make sure you understand how the chlorine filtration works and what you'll need to be doing daily or regularly to keep it all clean.

Swimming pool filtration is a topic all of it's own, and can be quite complex and you'll need to research the different types of filtration system that will work for the pool you are choosing to buy. Do this research before you decide on a pool as the type of filtration system you need, the cost of the filtration system, it's space requirements and the place it will go should all be factored into our choice of pool.

Along with a good filtration system you'll need some way of removing larget material from the pool, like leaves. A quality pool vacuum will do this and it is important that the pool vacuum that you buy is one which will work in your type of pool, so make sure you research this before you buy your pool too. And a strainer or skimmer will also be useful. This is just a manual filter on the end of a long handle so you can remove anything that gets onto the surface of your pool and stays there, like that dead bird or the odd frog. This is all done manually as the vacuum won't remove surface contaminants. A strainer isn't essential but is pretty close to it.

Equally a cover isn't essential but is highly recommended. A cover might keep that dead bird out, and will certainly dramatically reduce the dead leaves and everything else that blows around in the wind just looking for your pool to land in. A cover keeps the water cleaner too by keeping sunlight out which helps reduce the growth of some nasty green substances that you don't want growing in your pool.

All the above is about cleaning your water. It is essential to keep your pool water clean, if you don't it could be harmful to your health. It helps to develope a regular cleaning routine and invest in a chart that shows you what to do when, and which you can use to mark off as tasks get done. Don't expect a pool to be a maintenance free investment, there's work involved in any good swimming pool.

And finally there's chemicals for your pool. I've already mentioned chlorine, which kills the little nasties that can get into your water and make you sick. You'll also need to consider the pH oif your pool too, and a pH test kit is important. As well as chemicals to remedy your pH if it gets out of line.

The above swimming pool accessories are the basics and if you're thinking of buying any family pool you'll need to spend some time thinking about all these issues and finding appropriate accessories that will keep the pool clean, bearing in mind the particular pool you're thinking of buying. Unfortunately the maintenance free swimming pool hasn't been invented yet.

And of course there's a stack more pool accessories that you can buy too. How about the little rubber duck that the kids love to play with, or the cabana that you wan't to float around on when you've got a break and want to enjoy your pool. Or the other swimming pool toys they want?

The list of accessories that you can get for your pool goes on and on. But get the basics sorted out first, you need these, then think of the optional pool accessories later.