Harness All the Latest Technology, Equipment, and Methods Needed to Keep Any Pool or Spa in Top Condition!
The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance provides complete guidance on all the maintenance and repair tasks required to keep pools and spas working at peak efficiency. This Third Edition now contains information on the latest technology and equipment, together with Quick Start Guides and difficulty ratings for each procedure.
Filled with hundreds of detailed illustrations, this updated classic features:
A step-by-step explanation of each pool maintenance procedure with easy-to-follow photos
Quick Start Guides to help readers start and finish each task quickly
Tricks of the Trade to make each procedure easier
Tools of the Trade highlighting parts and tools for each job
An Easy, Advanced, or Pro difficulty rating for every task
The following new material: new information on chlorine alternatives; a new section on maintaining saltwater pools; expanded coverage of pools with built-in spas
Inside This Updated Pool Maintenance “Bible”
• The Pool and Spa • Basic Plumbing Systems • Advanced Plumbing Systems • Pumps and Motors _ Filters • Heaters • Additional Equipment • Water Chemistry • Cleaning and Servicing • Special Procedures • Water Features • Commercial Pools • Winterizing • Basic Electricity • The Toolbox • 50 Things Your Pool and Spa Can Do for Our Environment • Facts and Formulas • Typical Pool and Spa Health, Safety, and Building Codes
Terry Tamminen is a leading expert on pools and spas, serving as technical advisor on a variety of water chemistry and pool technology projects for over 25 years, and as owner/operator of a pool/spa service business in California. He is the founder of the Santa Monica Bay Keeper and the San Diego Bay Keeper, activist organizations dedicated to preserving and protecting coastal resources in California. He is the author of several books, including The Ultimate Guide to Spas and Hot Tubs and Ultimate Guide to Above-Ground Pools published by McGraw-Hill.
From his youth in Australia to career experiences in Europe, Africa, China and across the United States, Terry has developed expertise in business, farming, education, non-profit, the environment, the arts, and government.
A United States Coast Guard-licensed ship captain, Terry has long been drawn to the undersea world, starting in the 1960s with a family-run tropical fish breeding business in Australia and continuing with studies on conch depletion in the Bahamas, manatee populations in Florida coastal waters, and mariculture in the Gulf States with Texas A&M University.
On land, Terry managed the largest sheep ranch east of the Mississippi, assisting the University of Minnesota in developing new methods of livestock disease control. Terry also managed a multi-million dollar real estate company, owned a successful recreational services business, and assisted the West African nation of Nigeria with the creation of their first solid waste recycling program.
In 1993, Terry founded the Santa Monica BayKeeper and co-founded additional Waterkeeper programs in five California watersheds. He later served as the Executive Director of the Environment Now Foundation in Santa Monica, CA and co-founded the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at the School of Law, University of California Los Angeles.
In the summer of 2003, Terry helped Arnold Schwarzenegger win the historic recall election and become Governor of California. He was appointed as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency in November 2003 and was later appointed Cabinet Secretary, the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor. During his service in state government, Terry was the architect of many groundbreaking sustainability policies, including California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, the Hydrogen Highway Network, and the Million Solar Roofs initiative.
Terry left state government in late 2006 in order to help other states and world governments adopt clean energy and sustainability policies based on California's successes. In February 2007, he founded the non-profit organization Seventh Generation Advisors (SGA). SGA's strategy is to create a "bottom up" approach, rather than waiting for policy from the top. This strategic approach has proven successful, and since 2007, Terry and SGA convinced many states and provinces to copy California policies and other "best practices" on clean energy and climate policy.
In 2007 he was also named the Cullman Senior Fellow for climate policy at the New America Foundation and was appointed as an Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors, a private equity fund that provides capital to middle market companies across a wide variety of industries specializing in resource efficiency and sustainable technologies.
In 2011 Terry was appointed as the R20 Founding Chair's Strategic Advisor. The R20 Regions of Climate Action, created in 2010 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other sub-national leaders, is a new public-private partnership, bringing together sub-national governments; businesses; financial markets; NGOs; and academia to implement measurable, large-scale, low-carbon and climate resilient economic development projects that can simultaneously solve the climate crisis and build a sustainable global economy. As the Founding Chair's Strategic Advisor, Terry is advising the R20 on policy and helping with the design and implementation of climate resilient economic development projects.
An accomplished author, Terry's latest book, Watercolors: How JJ the Whale Saved Us, shares his remarkable true story of the rescue of JJ, a one-day-old gray whale that was found abandoned in Marina del Rey, California. His previous book, Cracking the Carbon Code: The Keys to Sustainable Profits in the New Economy (Palgrave), shows how to find the low carbon products and services that save money, get ahead of regulations, and preserve resources for generations to come. Terry's former book, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction (Island Press), is a timely examination of our dependence on oil and a strategy to evolve to more sustainable energy sources. He has also authored a series of best-selling "Ultimate Guides" to pools and spas (McGraw-Hill) and several theatrical works on the life of William Shakespeare. Terry is an avid airplane and helicopter pilot and speaks German, Dutch and Spanish.
Terry was one of six finalists for the 2011 Zayed Future Energy Prize, which offers $2.2 million of awards in the category of clean, sustainable energy recognizing individuals, non-profits, and companies that are doing the most to commercialize and distribute renewable energy to replace fossil fuels and cut pollution. Terry Tamminen was named Vanity Fair's May 2007 Environmental Hero and in TIME Magazine's 2007 Earthday edition, he was featured in the "51 Things We Can Do" section. In 2008, The Guardian ranked Terry No. 1 in its "Top 50 People Who Can Save the Planet." In 2009, Tamminen was named an "Eco Baron" in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes's book, Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.
This review is from: The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance, Third Edition (Paperback)
There is a good amount of useable information in this pool maintenance manual. It is not a technician level book but specific enough to be useful. It gives you tips on how to do common repair items, has a very good chapter on water chemistry, and goes over the basics of winterizing and summerizing your pool or spa. There are a lot of marginal quality black & white pictures to go along with the maintenance descriptions. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to put a little higher quality pictures in the book. If you are considering upgrading from the Second edition of this book to the third, I personally wouldn't. Is it worth $20 ? Yes, I got enough out of it to justify the cost.
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This review is from: The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance, Third Edition (Paperback)
The book was very well written and an excellent resource for someone who needs to understand how the different aspects of a pool or spa work. Certain readers may find some of the information too detailed. However, this reader being a new pool owner and an engineer greatly appreciated the comprehensive explanations that were provided.
The text includes a plethora of information pertaining to pools, spas, and the support equipment. It provided a basic explanation of construction, repair, replacement, and maintenance of the structure and equipment. There are many pictures and detailed diagrams. In addition, there are numerous quick tips throughout, which are presented in bold fonts and segregated from the main body of the text. Although the information that was provided was thorough, the explanations do not require a doctorate to understand. This reader would recommend the book to any new or existing pool owner with even a slight amount of mechanical understanding.
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This review is from: The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance, Third Edition (Paperback)
The author shares many years of wisdom in this book. I wish I bought it before I rebuilt my old impeller seals, because Terry shows exactly how to do this. You'll save hundreds or thousands by doing jobs yourself that the trade people are secretive about -- but the simple techniques are revealed in this book. Little tips & tricks are scattered throughout; for example how to extend the life of an o-ring when an emergency replacement is not immediately available; learn water chemistry from an experienced viewpoint; and learn how to patch plaster. This is the best pool book out there and it is comprehensive and doesn't skim over the details. Those who wrote the negative reviews are probably looking for a book listing the phone numbers of pool service companies rather than a do-it-yourself kind of book. The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance is for people who want to understand how a pool works and it helped me a lot so I return the favor with this review.
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