Welcome to Pool Care Secrets - A Regular Weekend Warrior’s Guide to Keeping It Blue
We purchased our first home nearly a year ago, and with it came an in-ground swimming pool. I was excited to do a lot of swimming, because the weather here in Sarasota, Florida is gorgeous year-round. Little did I know that I’d spend more time caring for my pool than swimming in it.
It’s this constant struggle that led me to put together a compendium of the Web’s (and print’s) best (and worst - where noted) information on taking care of that big hole in your patio, the one that insists on being anything but clear, blue, and inviting.
PoolCareSecrets is somewhat of a misnomer, because there are NO SECRETS to having a sparkling blue swimming pool. At least, that’s what they keep telling me.
Filed at 7:38 pm under Chris' Pool Blog and Nifty Gadgets by Chris
When I saw the Water Wand cartridge filter cleaner in a Pinch-A-Penny ad we got in the mail, I thought, “This has got to be one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever seen.” I MUST have one.
Since it was Saturday and I need to refill my jugs anyway, I motored down to the store with flyer in hand and said to Ken, “I’m going to bet that these are already sold out, right?” He nodded, and said “Yeah, they sold out earlier this morning. We just introduced them today. We expect to get more on Wednesday.”
Fast forward to Wednesday.
Now I’m back at Pinch-A-Penny, again with flyer-in-hand, and lo and behold they HAVE one.
My wife gets home from work and I exclaim “HONEY, look at this thing! They HAD one. It’s AWESOME.”
Then, I tried it out. What a sad experience. I screwed it onto the end of my garden hose and turned on the water. Water began shooting out in all directions from the housing. Through the seam on the front end, around the screw-fitting at the hose, and in six directions (three of which were on me) from the On/Off thumb-lever.
Am I going crazy? I’m not THAT mechanically uninclined. Is it screwed on right?
So I call Pinch-A-Penny back and tell them that though I was super-excited to get the Water Wand and try it out, I was horribly disapointed with its performance. I’d Googled around for ‘water wand’ and found a number of sites claiming that “due to this product’s abysmal performance and high rate of returns, we aren’t offering it anymore.” I explained this, and was assured I could return it for a store credit.
Last weekend I took it back and said to Ken, “Man, what a disappointment.” He then produced a piece of paper with a little baggie stapled to it, containing three rubber washers. “I got this in the mail from the manufacturer.” He was kind enough to give me a photocopy of it, and one of the washers, since I’d agreed to guinea-pig the “corrections” per this technical bulletin.
Apparently, the manufacturer had gotten enough complaints to send this memo out to stores carrying the Water Wand, in hopes that they could correct the increasingly widespread impression that this thing was a piece of crap. The explanation said that there are so many different types of garden hoses, that the majority of the problems lay in the hose not sealing properly to the Water Wand, and pressurized water would get into the plastic housing and go spraying everywhere. Implementing this washer, most of these connection problems could be overcome.
It worked. The rubber washer helped keep the pressurized water inside the right places inside the Water Wand, and the only place water sprayed out was from “the business end.” I was pleased.
So then, I tested it on my woefully dirty cartridge filter. I was only marginally impressed though, since the pressure of the water emitted is nowhere near the force with which I can use my thumb on an unadulterated garden hose. If it was more pressurized, it would work better in my opinion.
For LIGHT DUTY, this thing is great. For dirtier filters, especially those with clumps of pet hair in them (like ours), I’ll probably stick to using my thumb and call the Water Wand a brilliant idea in theory, but somewhat disappointing in practice.
