Richmond Place maintains crystal-clear pool despite 300% normal bather load

Clear skies, clearer waters

The weekend before Memorial Day 2021 was a pleasant getaway for the residents of Richmond Place, a family community in Loganville, Ga. To celebrate the beginning of summer, close to 400 residents and their families gathered together to celebrate the grand reopening of their community swimming pool.

It was a great relief from the isolation that comes with a global pandemic. Cars lined the neighborhood streets up to the cul de sac to take a look at the newly renovated pool area. Friends and families were, for a brief moment, able to put these fears and worries aside to enjoy a few burgers and dogs, while kids cannonballed into the deep end to beat the Georgia heat.

By 5 p.m, resident and former HOA president Connor Brown began to take a closer look at the pool water. He started thinking about how dirty the water must be from handling what was the busiest day in the pool’s history.

“I’m thinking that I probably don’t even want to see what’s in the water,” he jokes.

But to Brown’s astonishment, the Richmond Place pool water was so clear that he could easily see to the bottom.

He can’t understate this: “This time last year, it would have looked like a swamp.”

So how exactly does your average neighborhood pool handle up to 400 bathers in a single day, with no manual testing or chlorine treatments, and remain crystal clear?

Two words: Aquatics Vision.

Summer senses

Few things in this world are as timeless and nostalgic as the start of summer and the sights, sounds, and smells it brings with it. The searing flames of a charcoal grill licking the underside of a hamburger; fresh-cut grass on a perfectly manicured lawn; and, of course, the unpleasant and ever-present chemical smell of a cloudy, unclean swimming pool. That’s not actually the smell of chlorine, but chloramines: chlorine byproducts formed during the chemical process when it disinfects a pool’s contaminants. If you smell this smell, it means your pool is likely not as clean as you think.

You’ve no doubt experienced the latter at some point — or many — in your life. So Brown, and the rest of the Richmond Place residents. With up to 100 bathers on a regular summer day (200 on the holidays), that requires a lot of maintenance and upkeep.

“Sure, the pool looks fine at noon,” Brown admits, “but by the end of the day, that water is starting to look very cloudy.”

Pool technicians usually come to Richmond Place about three to four times a week, which means that manual treatments need to be performed in the meantime. The more bathers get in and out of the pool, the more contaminants they bring in — using up all the free chlorine and creating the chloramines that emit that noticeable, undesirable pool smell.

The more bathers get in and out of the pool, the more contaminants they bring in — using up all the free chlorine and creating the chloramines that emit that noticeable, undesirable pool smell.

According to Brown, that’s why Aquatics Vision was such a desirable option when the HOA began to consider the option in early spring 2021.

“If you can cure your pool problems, then the rest of the summer usually goes pretty smoothly,” Brown says. “Having someone continuously monitor [the pool] from a laptop or smartphone — I don’t think a lot of neighborhood pools have that.”

Unlike any similar product or service on the market, Aquatics Vision’s vast array of sensors include a free chlorine sensor. This helps pool owners and operators dial in a near-exact reading of how much chlorine is readily available to sanitize the pool. Keeping the free chlorine within code also keeps the local health department in check.

Now, with a newly resurfaced pool and complete chemical monitoring and automation, Richmond Place’s neighborhood pool is thriving again. Complaints around the neighborhood have dropped dramatically, as has the chloramine count.

“It’s a great system,” Brown says, “but it seems like not enough people know about it.”