Small Inground Fiberglass Pool Design Awards for 2010

One of my favorite parts of maintaining a blog about the fiberglass pool industry is the chance I have to look at the unique designs that manufacturers are coming up with as the industry progresses. Last year, we posted another very successful article regarding the top fiberglass pool designs of 2009 but this year I wanted to break things down even further and take this opportunity to solely focus on the ‘little guys' of the industry and analyze what makes some of these small inground pools (anything less than 30' in length) such a unique design.

Also, I want to point out here that I have looked at all the major fiberglass pool manufacturers (San Juan, Leisure, Barrier Reef, Sun, Trilogy, Hatteras, American, Royal, and Alaglass) in an effort to pick which designs I like the best. (Note** With their current financial and quality control issues, I could not in good conscience consider Viking Pool Products for these awards) I'd also stress that all of these awards are my personal opinion and just because some manufacturers are not mentioned does not mean they do not build a good pool or do not have some nice small pool designs. Again, awards are simply a matter of personal preference, so here goes:

Best Small Kidney Shaped Fiberglass Pool

This award goes to the Picasso model made by Trilogy Pools. I really, really like this pool because of its use of a large tanning ledge integrated into the kidney design. Trilogy is well known throughout the industry for their innovative approach to fiberglass pools and the Picasso is a perfect example of their vision.

Best Small Fiberglass Pool with a Spa Combo

San Juan is well known for their original designs and the Mandalay Bay model is certainly no exception to the rule. With its free-form shape, combined with the fact that it has a separate tanning ledge as well as an attached spa, San Juan packed just about every feature they could in this 12'x28' swimming pool.

Classiest Small Pool Design

The Elegance model by Leisure (14'x27') is certainly indicative of its name. Although the shape is essentially a simple rectangle, Leisure adroitly added a small, rectangular-shaped bump-out step/bench on one of the long sides of the pool. This simple addition added quite a classy feel to the design, making the name ‘Elegance' quite a fitting and appropriate one.

Flat Bottom Pool

Aloha fiberglass pools takes this award with their Palm model, an 11'x25' rectangular shaped pool with quite a large bench spanning the length of one side. If you're looking for a small, flat-bottom pool with a lot of seating, the Palm is a great route to take.

Free Form Design

With its natural curve appeal and large tanning ledge, the Vista Isle (12'x28') by Blue Hawaiian Fiberglass Pool takes this award.

Most Unique Design

Although there are certainly many small fiberglass pool shapes and designs that could be considered unique, I'd give this award to Sun Pools for their 12'x24' South Beach model. This key-shaped design has three unique entry point/benches and certainly has an original feel to its appearance.

 

So there are my small inground pool awards for 2010. As I mentioned earlier, I happily invite questions and comments below and remind everyone to subscribe to future articles like this one in the upper right hand portion of this page.

Marcus Sheridan, PoolSchool

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Ceramic Core Fiberglass Pools: The Truth Behind the Gimmick

"What the heck is a ‘ceramic core' fiberglass pool?"...........

This blog post is simply the product of the growing number of emails I've been receiving on a daily basis from literally readers all over the US and Canada who are considering the purchase of a swimming pool. The subject of these emails always vary, so from time to time I choose a particular question to address that strikes  my fancy.

As I've mentioned so many other times, the process of buying a swimming pool can be a tricky one, mainly because there is not enough honest information available to you, the consumer, with respect to true value and sales gimmicks.

The Consumer Advocate

Providing such information has always been the goal of this blog and I feel we're accomplishing this goal based on the profound amount of readership that makes me do a double-take every time I see how many consumers are reading these articles. But it just goes to show, if you give people the good, the bad, and the ugly information on any given product; they will in turn recognize the authoritative voice of the source.

But today's article, as I mentioned earlier, is a direct result of a question I received from a very intelligent, informed consumer who was perplexed over certain ‘sales-gimmicks' he was sensing as he researched fiberglass swimming pools. Specifically, he was asking about two particular ‘gimmicks': Ceramic Core Fiberglass Pools and the use of Carbon Fiber in Fiberglass Pools.

Upon discussing with him this topic, I decided it was time that our readers were informed of such a farce and were made aware of what a ‘ceramic' fiberglass pool really is. In general, if a fiberglass pool manufacturer claims to have a ceramic core pool, what they are actually using is a ‘fillite' powder. (Please note the root word). In fact, one such company that produces fillite, Eager Plastics, explains what their fillite powder actually does:

GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Fillite - 500 powder (EP7707) is a finely-divided, free-flowing spherical powder with a gray-green color. ...Fillite is a glass-hard, inert hollow silicate sphere. Fillite is primarily used to reduce the weight of plastics rubbers, resins and cement, but has been used a variety of filler applications. Other applications include use in refractories, PVC flooring, SBR latex carpet backing, break linings, phenolics, epoxies, cast polyesters, synthetic marbles, syntactic foams, BMC, SMC, FRP, low-density cements, shotcrete, wallboard joint compounds and automative sound dampening sheets.

The addition of EP7707 Fillite provides the following outstanding features:

1. Fine particle size for easy mixing
2. Reduces cost
3. Reduces resin exotherm......

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES:
Shell
60% SiO₂
30% Al₂O₃
4% Fe₂O₃
0.5-4% K₂O / Na₂O
1-2% MgO
0.2-1.0% CaO

I know this all may appear a little confusing, but if you're into science you'll quickly see that a ‘ceramic core' is actually 60% Silica and 30% ceramic, and that all it's really doing is acting as an inexpensive filler in the case of a fiberglass pool. In fact, Wikipedia defines Silica as:

The chemical compound silicon dioxide, also known as silica (from the Latin silex), is an oxide  of silicon  with a chemical formula of SiO2  and has been known for its hardness since antiquity. Silica is most commonly found in nature as sand or quartz, as well as in the cell walls of diatoms. Silica is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's crust

I've talked to various fiberglass pool manufacturers regarding this subject and they all laugh about what the product actually is and the fact that its components are available to everyone.

Simply put, if ceramic core (or should we say silica core) technology truly did benefit a fiberglass pool, everyone world be doing it. But the reality is that more than 90% of fiberglass pool manufacturers on the planet have chosen not to use this cheap product. I think it's also important to note that there are fiberglass pool manufacturers that have multiple lines of fiberglass pools, some made with ‘ceramic' and others without. So my question at that point becomes-If the stuff is so great and critical to a quality pool, why wouldn't a company put it in all their products, not just one line out of many?

Other Gimmicks

But this article isn't just about supposed ceramic cores. It's also about ‘Carbon Fiber', ‘Kevlar', and any other scientific words that pops up in the future. Frankly put, all of these hot, ‘space-age' phrases that sound very scientific are only means of semantically tricking a consumer, and thus have no place in the fiberglass pool market, or any other market for that matter. Fact is, if a pool was truly made out of carbon fiber it would cost at least 10 times as much as one without. So as a consumer, if you hear a manufacturer claim they put such products in their pool, I'd make them guarantee it on paper and then I'd make them show these ‘miracle materials' in the shell when the installers cut out the returns and skimmer sections of the pool. Just by doing this, one will quickly see what components are truly making up the pool shell.

True Value

My point with mentioning these items is that fiberglass pool manufacturers need to focus on the important things that genuinely make a pool stronger and better-Quality resins, quality gel coats, and quality workmanship. Any pool manufacturer that can achieve these 3 metrics with every shell they produce should be highly commended and sought after by consumers. And as for those that would rather use marketing gimmicks to create false product realities, I can only hope they'll eventually turn back to the basics and win over their consumers the old fashion way-by earning it.

Marcus Sheridan, PoolSchool

Questions? Please leave your thoughts below.

The Future of Fiberglass Pool Manufacturers: Who Will Survive?

  This article is simply the result of the many, many email inquiries I've received in recent weeks  from our readers regarding the future financial stability of fiberglass pool manufacturers. With the 'troubles' of Ocean Reef and San Juan Pools mentioned in the news recently, quite a few future fiberglass pool owners are now thinking much harder about the manufacturer they choose to do business with. This is absolutely understandable considering a fiberglass pool warranty is a 'manufacturer warranty', not a 'pool builder warranty'. In other words, if a fiberglass pool manufacturer goes out of business and you have one of their pools in your backyard, you're out of luck in terms of any warranty issues down the road.

Obviously, no one wants to make the wrong decision when choosing the pool of their dreams. When it comes to choosing a fiberglass pool, the consumer must make two important decisions: 1. The Manufacturer 2. The Builder. Up to this point, I've talked almost at nausea about the latter so it's time we discussed what's going on with these pool manufacturers.

Let me also say here that this article is purely my opinion based on what I'm seeing within the swimming pool industry. I've got many, many sources that have contributed to my thoughts here. That being said, this article is only meant as a guide to your pool purchase, and no more.

Where the Problem Started

You see, the reason why so many fiberglass pool manufacturers are now suffering is simple. In the early 2000s, the swimming pool industry had never seen such a high. This was especially true in 2005 where just about any pool company and manufacturer had more than enough work to keep themselves busy and pay all their bills without really having to doggedly work for it. As we all know too well, this was a time period of easy credit and skyrocketing home values. Just after being in a home for a few months homeowners had enough equity to borrow against for such items as additions, boats, pools, etc. Looking back at this time period, it amazes me just how easy it was for homeowners to buy a swimming pool. Simply put, it was the perfect confluence of events that culminated in a swimming pool explosion throughout the United States.

Around this same period, fiberglass pools were gaining a large portion of the market share within the United States. Although this trend had occurred years before in other countries around the world such as Australia, the United States didn't truly come around to fiberglass as one of the staples of the residential pool industry until the 2000s.

With all lights flashing green and all signs saying 'grow', fiberglass pool manufacturers sprung up across the country and also many already established manufacturers built more plants in key areas of the country to cut down on shipping costs to builders and also keep pace with production demands.

The Bubble Bursts

As I mentioned, this growth period culminated in 2005 and 2006, and it is now this same period which is putting some manufacturers under a mountain of debt and financial losses. Simply stated, many manufacturers were not intelligent with their business models and got too big for their own britches as they overestimated the economy's ability to maintain such unrealistic numbers.(Read an interesting article about this decline by John Miles of Pool and Spa News)

I'm not saying here that the collapse in the economy was an easy thing to see, because it wasn't. Heck, even our own government was mostly aloof to the disaster that so quickly occurred. Notwithstanding, this boom and bust period was handled better by some fiberglass pool manufactures, and builders, then others.

Manufacturer Benchmarks

In order for a fiberglass pool manufacturing facility to break even, it needs to produce(in most cases) about 600 pools a year. The ideal number though for financial stability is 700+. Of course, this number can vary depending on the facility and its ability to cut costs while still staying above water. Here is a list of the main fiberglass pool manufacturers in the U.S. and their production facilities during the 2000-2007 period:

• Viking Pools(Includes Composite Pools, Crystal Palace Pools, Liberty, etc, etc, etc): 5 facilities: West Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and California
• San Juan Pools: 3 facilities: Florida, Arizona, and Indiana
• Blue Hawaiian: 2 facilities: Florida and North Carolina
• Aloha Pools: 4 facilities: Texas, California, Georgia, and Tennessee
• Trilogy Pools: 1 facility: Tennessee
• Leisure Pools: 1 facility: Texas
• Sun Pools: 2 facilities: Florida and Kentucky
• Alaglass Pools: 1 facility: South Carolina

If you count the number of facilities between these manufacturers, you come up with a total of 19. This doesn't even include some of the smaller companies. This being said, the industry needed to produce, at least among the top manufacturers, at least 11,400 fiberglass pools to come close to breaking even during the good years. Such was possible at that time but the sad reality is 10,000 fiberglass pools will not even be purchased in the United States in 2009. In fact, the more likely number will be around 7000. As you can see, the consumer demand does not meet the manufacturer overhead demand, which is why we are now seeing so many issues. This is also why the number of facilities now in production is less than the 19 mentioned above. Like all other businesses, manufacturers are doing what it takes to cut costs, and closing plants is often times the easiest way to make a big difference with monthly expenditures.

What Does This All Mean?

Now I'm not going to delve into here which of the above manufacturers have closed facilities. I'm also not going to predict (although I've certainly got an opinion) which ones will foresee major issues down the road. Notwithstanding, I will make this statement:

It is my opinion that the strongest fiberglass pool manufacturers in the coming years will be the ones who have less plants/facilities yet still have the ability to reach high production levels if necessary. Having a plant that can produce 2000 pools during the good times but at the same rate has the ability to turn a profit at 650 pools during the bad times is a much more sound business model then having multiple smaller plants that must be constantly fed when times are the toughest but also reach a certain production limit in the best of economic conditions.(Note** I do realize there are many more factors that will dictate a company's success, so let's just assume we all agree on those important variables.**)

So what am I implying with all of this? No, I'm not saying necessarily that Viking is in trouble yet a company like Trilogy will have no problems in the future. What I'm doing is making a simple analysis of the current state of the fiberglass pool market and where I think it's headed, which will hopefully give you, the consumer, enough food for thought to lead you in the right direction when it comes to choosing the manufacturer of your fiberglass swimming pool.

An Invitation to All Manufacturers

I also want to give manufacturers a chance to respond to this blog below regarding your company. If you'd like to discuss the stability of your company and its current direction, I absolutely invite you to do so in the comments section. Whether you agree with my synopsis or not, I'd still be inclined to hear your thoughts.

**Note: 3 Weeks after this article was written, Viking Pools filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy**

Marcus Sheridan, River Pools