Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Guide to Pool Maintenance, Third Edition

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Having just bought a house with a pool, I was a little overwhelmed with all the stuff I needed to learn. I didn't want to hire a pool guy, but I didn't know where to start. So I bought several "How To Take Care of Your Pool" books. The first two I read were very light on information, and almost sounded more like sales brochures from the pool supply store. This book, on the other hand, goes into great detail on how your pool works. The water, the chemicals, and the equipment. It's like having a really good pool guy come and talk to you for an afternoon about your pool.

Highly recommended if you are taking care of your own pool, or just want to know what the pool guy is talking about.

We purchased a home and inherited a pool. Unfortunately, we didn't get any instructions on pool maintenance and it was maintained by a service previously. I thought I'd give it a whirl before opting for the more expensive maintenance route.

Things were going ok until my pool filter appeared to be malfunctioning. From the outside, my filter tank looks rusty and old. I thought maybe I had to replace it. But since it was working before, I thought I'd take a look inside and see what might have broken. Just my luck, the book had instructions on how to take apart my specific DE filter. More importantly, it had tips on how to accomplish the impossible task of removing the lid.
Once I had the filter tank opened and saw all the crud in there, thoughts of just having it replaced resurfaced. Even if I just wanted to replace the filter grids, I still had to take it all out. Had to deal wth the same amount of dirtiness. But again, the book delivered on how easy it is to take the insides apart and clean. Saved me $175 from having to order replacement parts.

But the most important lesson I learned from the book is that even "professionals" don't do a good job. The filter wasn't properly cleaned all this time by the "pro". The examples he gave in the book about poor maintenance applied to my equipment. After a thorough cleaning, the insides of the filter still looks great and will probably last another decade or two.

I think I've only read 10% of the book and use it mainly as a reference. I should probably read it cover to cover to avoid future problems.

I purchased this book for my husband as we had bought a house with an in-ground pool and the maintenance was more than challenging. He refers to this book often and now has command of he pool.

For the average home-owner, pool water chemistry is the main thing to know about. Only one chapter of many was on water chemistry. The water chemistry chapter was childisly simple. It's as if the author tried to avoid putting any chemical symbols that one would have used in lower high school. There was no way there were going to be any chemical formulas. Where was double no way he was going to explain the chemical basis for buffering or the chemicals that "preserved" chlorine. The closest he got on that score was a metaphore/similie about how if a dinner plate has rocks around the edge and you change the weight of one rock, you change the balance of the plate. All this after, in the forward, the author made the point that pool maintenance is really water maintenance. The info in the water chapter LESS than what you get with booklets with a pool testing kit plus high school chemistry plus half an hour with an open and honest pool guy. Three stars because I recon that the other books will be no better.

This is really the only spa and pool maintenance reference many people will need. It gives just the right amount of detail without boring the reader with the mundane. I work at a hotel and this is my first spa and pool to maintain. It has made my life far easier.

Cover all items, and for an engineer and new pool owner like me it covers things I'll probably never need but are interesting to know. It is a heavy read and appears to be for pool builders in places.

I found the book to be very helpful for a person with technical background and for the average homeowner. It is very easy to understand and useful. I highly recommend this book for the pool technician as well as the homeowner who wants to know if his pool service company is not ripping him off.