The Pool Depot Water Blog

Fiberglass Swimming Pools! Youv'e Come A Long Way Baby!

  

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When I look back and reflect on my early days of selling and installing fiberglass pools I am amazed. I recall the lingering disappointment of learning that I had lost a pool sale to a vinyl or concrete pool dealer. I never understood it. I felt that it was their loss as much as mine. It never sat well with me that I had somehow failed them as well as myself. At times I would spend several hours analyzing the sales appointment. What did I forget to mention? Did I listen to what the prospective customer was saying? They are making a big mistake should I call them and tell them that they are buying the "wrong" type of pool and that it could only be corrected at great expense. It would be part of their real estate unlike a car, boat or rv that you could put on Craigs list or Ebay and then celebrate as it rolled away. No your gonna live with this one so it needs to be a pleasure to own not a maintenance nightmare.

 You see I believe that fiberglass pools are superior to any other type of pool construction and I have a religous like fervor to promoting them! How can a homeowner invest their hard earned money in any other type of pool construction other than fiberglass. Are you kidding? No concrete to crack, replaster, acid wash, sandblast or paint. No vinyl liner to rip or tear, fiberglass made pool ownership so much simpler with just the maintenance alone.

 I knew something about the advantages of fiberglass. For several years prior to my start in the pool business I worked for my father who was a chemical engineer. Dad designed and supervised the installation of very large electroplating systems. An electroplating line includes many tanks that must safely contain very large amounts of some of the most dangerous and corrosive chemicals on earth. Cyanide, Nitric Acid, Sulfuric Acid to name a few. These tanks also had to be strong yet corrosion resistant and the material of choice to build them was fiberglass. If fiberglass tanks could be so useful in serving this purpose then logic dictates that we should all install pools made of fiberglass right?

Hey look at the boating industry and what happened to wood boats? Remember those beautiful wood runabouts the likes of the Chris Craft, Lyman and Cruisers Inc. that disappeared like dinosaurs even though they were so beautiful gliding along on their lapstreak hulls. Yes they were gorgeous but they were expensive to maintain, they leaked and they demanded constant attention. Many wood boat owners spent more time working on them then riding in them! Nothing wrong with working on a wood boat if you like that sort of thing but the majority of owners obviously wanted to spend their free time actually using the boat out on the water and made the switch to fiberglass.

I tell my prospective customers that they should invest in a high quality fiberglass swimming pool and have it installed by an experienced swimming pool contractor. If they are willing to include a salt chlorination system, an automatic timer (some salt systems include a pump timer) and an automatic pool cleaner they will spend their weekends swimming in the pool with their friends and family not working on their pool. If they have to work on their pool much at all I believe I have failed them as they purchased a recreational product from me and then discovered that they now had another job to do around the house.

Yes, one piece fiberglass swimming pools have come a long way. Each year the market share of fiberglass swimming pools continues to grow as the public awareness of the many advantages of owning a fiberglass pool grows. Fiberglass pools once called "big white bathtubs" are now gorgeous colored pools and are considered the pool of choice for many builders and architects nationwide.

Check out this interesting article regarding a survey conducted by Aqua Magazine which confirms the growing demand for fiberglass swimming pools.   "Fiberglass Findings" Aqua Magazine (a pool industry trade journal)

 Yes! You have come along way, Baby!