Pool side progress report

Good morning,
A short, quick, snowy week! Isn't it spring yet? What's with the snow! Hopefully this is the last hurrah before the weather changes. Well the building is sealed off and we have some heat inside to allow construction to progress. This is especially necessary for the tilers and plumbers who need the heat to do their jobs.
Today the focus is on the wet side of the building. The first photo is the Lap pool full of water. The pool was filled for a leak test at the end of last week. The test completed wednesday and there were no leaks.


This next photo is the wave pool being prepared for a leak test also. The inlets are being installed, the forms are being removed, and the basin cleaned up in preparation for the test.

This photo was taken on thursday. The first water in the wave pool. We are filling from the lap pool and leaving the water in for the weekend. For a nanosecond I considered jumping in, but I put my hand in and realized that I wasn't that brave today. Maybe later....

The final photo today is a ceiling shot. No those aren't bats hanging from he ceiling, they are the lighting fixtures covered to protect them when the ceiling area is painted. Once the ducting, sprinkler system and electrical are completed up there the painters will be in.

Have a good week and stay between the ditches.

Wave Pool

Good Morning folks,
Another week of ... where do I start? ... There are walls going up for activtiy rooms on the main floor, plumbing, electrical, ducting, sprinkler piping, being installed in change rooms and staff areas, roof work being completed and filters and pumps being installed, and tiling on floors and shower areas on the main floor.
The big story this week is the concrete pour that we had on tuesday. This is shown in the photos that you see below.
The first photo below shows the concrete being poured into the forms for the swirl pool walls. These walls were very complicated to make forms for due to the amount of plumbing and the shape of the walls.

The next photo below is pouring the concrete for the ramp that goes into the wave pool. This is essential for people who need to access the pool with wheel chairs or have difficulty using stair or ladders.

The final shot is of the main stairs going into the wave pool just to the right of the ramp above.

I hope you enjoyed our tour this week, I'll be back next week with more. Have a good Easter Weekend.

Chlorination System

One of the side questions that we have been receiving from a variety of persons revolves around a question phrased a variety of ways...

Are you using chlorine in this pool?
What kind of chlorine are you using?
Is this a salt water pool, I understand that there isn't any chlorine in those?
Is this an ozone pool?

And so on...

So, we thought it would be worthwhile to spend a little bit of time go through some of the basics of the disinfection system that we will be using.

First off yes we will be using Chlorine. This is because it is one of the few elements out there that is approved for use in pools (the other is bromine) which actively disinfects (kills) other stuff in the water. So, when little Johnny (or Jane) pees in the pool a molecule of chlorine is there to take care of the nasty stuff to ensure that it is disinfected (killed) quickly.

So, even if a pool is salt water or disinfected through gas, liquid or granular (powder) they all have chlorine in the water they just put it into the water in different ways. The way we will be introducing it is through an erosion feeder - the system we are purchasing is called Pulsar and their website is here.

Now, when a pool has an Ozone system, what they are actually doing is taking a portion of the pool water and putting it into a separate disinfection chamber which kills everything in its path at that point (including the Chlorine molecule). The killing of the molecules / organisms / whatever only occurs at that distinct point in the system where the Ozone exists.

For our pool, we are using Ultraviolet (UV) light in a similar set-up as Ozone. It will only take a portion of the pool water and at one point it will kill everything that is exposed to the UV light. So, just like Ozone, only at the point where the UV light is generated is where the killing of stuff actually occurs. The UV system that we will be installing is developed by a company call Hanovia, to learn more their website is here.

So, when you are sitting in the hot tub, we have Chlorine around to take care of the stuff (for lack of a better term) floating around and in the pool but when the water heads back into the filter room a portion of it is exposed to UV to kill all of the bad stuff in the pool. With these two systems working hand in hand, we will have some very clean water for everyone to enjoy - which, by the way, also improves the air quality at the same time!

Now, this only skims the surface - pun intended :-) - as far as the disinfection system goes. If you would like more info or have questions please click on the comment link below and toss some words at us - alternatively you can email us at aquatics@northcowichan.bc.ca as well.

Thanks!

March 14/08

Good afternoon everyone,
I'm a day late on my update, apologies for that.
Today I have another 4 photos to show you and discuss.
I'm in a bit of a hurry because our compuer tech guy is on his way to take my computer for upgrading and I wanted to get this done first!

The first photo below is taken from the slide tower stairs and shows a different angle on the tots pool and the wave pool stairs that are being formed in - a great view from up here!



The next photo is also from the slide tower and shows the lazy river. You can really see what it looks like now.


In the next one also from the slide tower i directed the shot to show the wall being built where the birthday party rooms and the cafe will be.

In the final shot today I am highlighting one of our hardworking construction guys. Steve is the safety officer and jack of all trades on the construction site. Here he is driving the Gradall moving some site material around for the trades on site. Thanks for all your hard work Steve.


That's all for now, I have a techie breathing down my neck waiting to take my computer away. Have a good weekend!

Slide Tower

Good afternoon folks,

It's time for another update. There is so much going on that I am focusing on just one area today. As you can see from the photos, I've chosen to highlight the slide tower. These photos are from this week. The progress from the first to the last photo is from Monday to today at lunch time.


The photo above shows the siding going up on the tower and the black slide supports are starting to be installed to the left.

The next photo above shows the supports more clearly. If you look to the top left of the red panels you can see where both slides will start. Looking at the 'Utah Blue' siding you can see the two square holes. These are where the smaller slide goes into the building on the top one and comes back out on the lower one. The larger slide will do all of its' twists and turns outside of the building before entering at the bottom holes at the centre bottom of the photo, again you can see the smaller hole for the smaller slide and the larger hole for the larger slide.

This photo shows the siding almost finished on these two faces and the slide supports finished on the left side.

This last photo is what it looks like from inside at this point in time. The slide supports are being installed to support the small slide as it comes in and then out through the opening. What you don't see is that the railings for the stairs up into the slide tower also arrived today and are being prepared to be installed also. More on that later....
Have a good one.

A Different Blog...

Well things are trucking along with the construction of the new Aquatic & Fitness Complex and at the same time we are gearing up for its operation as well.

To assist us in "Getting the Word Out" on our pool schedule, upcoming programs, and more we have developed a separate blog for our Parks & Rec Department - find it online at www.cowichanparksrec.typepad.com.

Our most recent post on this site walks you through our initial operating hours and basic levels of service.

Take a gander at it, ask questions and provide some feedback.

A Sunny Tuesday Morning

I happened to be down at the site this morning so I thought I would fire off a couple of photos of some of the work being done on the exterior of the facility to bring everyone up to speed.

The basic stuff occuring this morning is with the erection of the supporting towers for the waterslide (the large black poles in the pictures) and the exterior cladding of the waterslide stair tower (the red stuff).

Anyhow, enjoy!