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.

Fiberglass Pool Shoppers Alert: Very Disturbing Customer Experience and Photos

This is one of those blog articles that I really debated on writing. Why? Because it's one that shows the ‘ugly side' of the fiberglass pool industry. And as all our readers are very well aware, we have done everything we can at River Pools to educate the world, via this blog, on the GOOD of fiberglass pools. So as you read the following, I'd ask that you remember this key phrase, which applies to any pool, any industry, and any company:

Do not let poor actions of the few influence your good feelings towards the many.

And with that, let me explain something that is happening in the fiberglass pool industry right now. Many builders, as well as certain manufacturers, are in financial trouble. And because they are in financial trouble, they are doing some very, very shady things. I was sadly reminded of this last week when I got an email from a pool builder out West. This builder was called to a house where the original pool installer had started the project only to stop before even completing pool backfill process. The pool then sat for months and a 2^nd builder (the gentleman who called me) was called in to clean up the mess.

What the builder then found still makes me cringe. The large fiberglass shell that had been installed in the ground was a PREVIOUSLY USED and DAMAGED/REPAIRED SHELL. The homeowner had no idea of this fact until the 2^nd builder pointed it out. If you view the following photos, you'll notice repairs in the blue gel-coat (that don't even match) as well as repairs on the outside of the shell where it had  cracked previously. Such a disturbing scene begs two questions:

1. How would a fiberglass pool manufacturer ever allow this to happen?
2. How could a pool builder lack so much integrity to allow such a train-wreck to go in the ground?

Both of these questions will be answered over time, as the homeowner is obviously seeking legal recourse to remedy the situation. This much we do know-

• The manufacturer was made aware of the situation by the homeowner and said they would call back. That was 5 months ago and they now appear to be serioulsy ignoring the issue. (Now granted, there is the possibility that the builder could have bought this 'used' pool from someone other than the manufacturer, but such appears highly doubtful at the moment.)
• The original sales contract, reviewed by the builder, does not notate that this was a damaged, repaired, display or even a discounted model.

I have seen some shady builders over time, but is it possible that a manufacturer actually sold such a pool to a builder? Now granted, the manufacturer may have sold the shell to the pool builder in an ‘as is' state, but I would certainly think that anyone with any integrity whatsoever would have wanted to know the homeowner's information so that they could have informed them of what they were actually buying. Either way, and regardless of what happened, both parties are down-right accountable in my book and I truly hope this homeowner is able to recover the $30,000+ they have invested in this sad project thus far.

As I viewed these pictures, my thoughts turned to a recent email I received from Curt Prystupa, owner of Sun Fiberglass Pools. In his email, Curt discussed with me some of the disturbing trends he was seeing in the industry:

"The times are changing quickly in the industry.  The big guys are crumbling from inflated sales by dumping pools on the lots to show production and shipping but the losses mount on the aged inventory. ......... So now we(speaking of Sun Pools) compete with 2-4 year old shells on the clearance rack that have been sitting in fields with bankrupt companies looking to raise cash. The days of laying pools around and pay us as you go are done....."

Those were some strong and telling words by Curt, and I appreciate his candor. He also pointed out that manufacturer warranties usually start from the day of the pool's production, not from the day the pool is installed in the ground. In other words, if a pool has a 3 year finish warranty, and it's over 2 years old when it goes in the ground, then the warranty, at least in the eyes of some manufacturers, is just one year. Therefore, as a consumer, make sure you get this semantical issue written down on your contract so as to avoid such a problem.

Now many of you may be wondering who manufactured this pool and who the original builder was. I can clearly understand your desire to know this and you can be rest assured that once the legal proceedings on the matter are over, I will be writing a follow up piece to put all of the facts on the table. Until that point, we'll just have to let the story unfold in court.

So What Does This All Mean?

Let me reiterate what I mentioned at the start of this article. Do not let the actions of the few dictate your feelings regarding the many.  By simply following the advice we've hammered home over and over again throughout this blog, as well as our eBooks, you, as a consumer, should have no problem picking a reputable manufacturer and builder for you swimming pool.

After having spoken with literally thousands of pool builders and pool owners across the country over the past few years, there is much good to be said for many in this industry that I've grown to love and appreciate-which is the whole purpose for me even writing this article.

Your Advocate

We at River Pools are here to be your advocate. What makes this blog so very popular in the industry is its extreme candor and willingness to explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of what's happening in our world of swimming pools. Whether you already own your swimming pool or are in the research phase of making a decision, we wish you the best of luck in 2010, and we also invite you to comment on this article with any thoughts or questions you may have relating to this topic. We truly value the thoughts of you, our readers.

Marcus Sheridan

Sun Pools Owner Curt Prystupa Discusses Fiberglass Pool Industry's Future

**Note from Marcus: As I mentioned in our previous article by Ashley Gill of Leisure Pools, I recently sent a letter to every major manufacturer of fiberglass pools in the United States and asked them to participate in our blog by discussing the future of their industry. Curt Prystupa was the second owner to respond and the following contains his enlightening thoughts. Thanks Curt!**

The swimming pool industry in general has been severely impacted by the current economic storm the United States market is experiencing. The ways things have always been done have changed the mainstream of the internet has fueled a significant market share increase for the fiberglass pools. The consumers are able to see what the real choices are for the backyard resort and have sought out the fiberglass pools for their backyard pool. This has evolved from the awareness of the pitfalls from the traditional choices for backyard pools whether a vinyl liner kit pool or a poured in place cement pool. The longevity, installation time, job site construction mess, maintenance of the pool and features have been geared towards today's consumer.  The fact is that the construction industry has been very hard hit in the job market and the pool companies have scaled back their workforce like most industries, trying to get more done by cross training staff to do multiple tasks and reducing operation costs.  A typical fiberglass pool can be installed with a fairly small crew of just a few workers and the pool shell being factory fabricated takes the skills of forming the pool out of the picture making the fiberglass shell and good alternative to the labor intensive cement and vinyl in-ground pools. It makes sense for the pool companies to build and install the fiberglass pools.

The solid growth in the industry spearheaded a little trade war with the various fiberglass pool manufacturer's they were trying to one up each other with more designs, more options, shell colors , more factories, more production. The reality is that to properly manage this business you can't  have too many designs too many colors, too many possible combinations. The larger companies in the industry making more designs in different colors created an inventory nightmare, as the pools don't fit in a box and the designs didn't stack together making it difficult for installers to get multiple pools to reduce the shell costs to the consumer. These larger companies are now in some sort of bankruptcy proceedings and are paying for the mistakes of the runaway growth and not paying attention to the marketplace, ‘build it and they will come' failed.

The future of my company Sun Fiberglass is very bright, we have just celebrated of 15^th anniversary this month we are introducing two very exciting designs, offering two new interior shell colors. We have two EPA approved title 5 factory locations, the Kentucky facility is the most centrally located fiberglass pool factory in the United States. The Florida plant has a very seasoned staff with true composite craftsman that construct all of our molds and designs. We started realizing the market pressures and started to institute a "Just in Time" production program where the pools are basically built to order; this reduces the handling of the pools and offers our customers factory fresh products. This has reduced the service calls on the products and offers a clean factory fresh ready to go pool shell for the installing contractors. We have also streamlined our pricing for the pools included more value added options like LED lights and built in waterfall cascades that are standard on certain models to increase the value of our products in the marketplace. Sun Fiberglass doesn't cut any corners we never use resin fillers or bondo layers using our Critical Point Lamination Process we have one of the heaviest pool shells in the business.

When the market rebounds the fiberglass pools will be stronger and stronger as the craftsman that would construct the traditional cement and vinyl pool move on or retire into other job fields the next generation will look more and more to the fiberglass composite in-ground swimming pools. Sun Fiberglass plans on taking care of the next generation of buyers and contractors with the best built pool in the business.

 

  

Curt Prystupa

President/CEO

Florida State Certified Swimming Pool Contractor since 1993

 

Sun Fiberglass Products

Brooksville, Florida                     Albany, Kentucky

1-800-764-7946                            1-866-964-7946

http://www.sunpools.com/  

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