The All-Safe Guide to DIY Pool Safety: Tips for New Homeowners

When you’re the new owner of a home with a pool, you need home pool safety tips that help you keep your family safe. Swimming pools are popular luxury amenities, but much of the advice you’ll find is targeted at commercial swimming pools or owners who already have the safety basics down pat. Don’t give in to the overwhelming feeling that you may have bitten off more than you can chew. As your residential pool safety experts, we’ll help you through the first steps, whether that’s choosing the best safety barriers for your pool, planning for emergencies, or finding ways to fit safety into a new homeowner’s limited budget with a little pool fence DIY.

The Dangers of Swimming Pools

Swimming pool areas can be dangerous, often bringing together water, electricity, and groups of people focused on fun rather than safety. That’s why it’s so important to familiarize yourself with the best home pool safety tips early and to put them in place in and around your pool as a matter of habit. The wet ground makes slips and falls common, leading to abrasions and cuts. Improper materials in or around the pool can cause cuts and scrapes. Electrical shock is always a risk unless equipment is properly installed and maintained.

But all of those pale in comparison to the dangers of accidental drowning.

Every year, thousands of lives are lost to accidental drownings, and tens of thousands of victims will need medical care to treat injuries related to drowning events. Many of these occur when a child, pet, or at-risk individual gains unsupervised access to the pool area. In fact, the National Drowning Prevention Alliance cites a lack of adequate safety barriers as a contributing factor in the majority of drowning events. That leads us to our first and one of the most important home pool safety tips.

1. Safety Barriers Save Lives

Safety barriers help prevent unsupervised access to your swimming pool, reducing the risk of an accidental drowning when no one is around to help. We offer three different safety barriers that are ASTM-compliant, engineered for safety and ease of use, and manufactured from modern materials that last.

• Removable Mesh Pool Fencing – This pool fence style is engineered to secure your swimming pool area but can also be removed easily to allow more space for entertaining. Afterward, you can reinstall the fence poles in the deck sleeves, secure the sections to each other, and rest assured that when you close your pool gate, the taut fabric deters climbing and has no openings for children and pets to pass through. You can even add an alarm to the self-closing and self-latching gate for additional protection.
• Swimming Pool Safety Covers – Unlike traditional leaf covers, which can become entanglement and drowning hazards, safety covers are made from strong, rip- and UV-resistant material that’s anchored around your pool’s edge. They can support the weight of a full-grown adult while also keeping larger and heavier debris from entering the water. 
• Swimming Pool Safety Nets – Like safety covers, safety nets are anchored around the edge of the pool to prevent water entry. The knotted cord and twine netting can be more difficult for pets and humans to walk on, keeping them closer to the edge of the pool so they can be helped back to safety more quickly.

2. Pool Use Should Always be Supervised

Rockwell should feel right at home in your pool because there should always be somebody watching when the pool is in use. This is especially true when at-risk loved ones, like pets, children, or the elderly are swimming. Fatigue can set in quickly, physically draining the swimmer or mentally causing confusion, either of which can prevent a swimmer in distress from saving themselves. Beyond preventing drowning, it also puts you in the right place to stop risky behavior in your swimming pool area before any kind of accident or injury occurs. 

3. Alarms Offer Added Security (and Peace of Mind)

The best swimming pool alarms give you the audible or connected alerts you need to know there’s a dangerous situation happening in your swimming pool area. We’ve talked about the ease of installing gate alarms that can let you know when a gate is opened or left ajar, but other alarm systems extend the protection to monitoring for disturbances in the water, immersion, or using cameras to process pool activity through an AI algorithm. None of these are a replacement for pool safety barriers and a safety mindset, but they fit perfectly as part of a comprehensive pool protection plan.

4. Save Money But Don’t Compromise

If you’re new to owning a swimming pool, you may be starting to realize the sticker shock only starts with the added cost to the home. You also need to protect your swimming pool, keep it clean, and properly sanitize it. Before you start cutting corners to extend your budget, make sure you know what you’re cutting. Never compromise on pool safety. One of the best money-saving home pool safety tips is that you can cut costs for service by augmenting your pool routine with a little elbow grease, even if only temporarily. Installing a DIY pool fence instead of using a contractor, managing your own cleaning routine, and using smart equipment that efficiently automates routine tasks to cut costs will all save you money without putting your loved ones in jeopardy.

5. Revisit Your Pool Safety Needs Often

Swimming pool safety is not a one-and-done activity. It’s a continuous process of evaluating your pool’s safety, identifying opportunities for improvement, and acting. Every time your pool is in use, consider what might make it a better or safer environment. Keep an eye on the All-Safe Pool blog for articles that give you new safety ideas. If an accident or emergency does happen, once everyone is safe, circle back to ask yourself the hard questions, like “How did this happen?” and “What will prevent it from happening again?”

Make Pool Safety Your Number One Priority

If you don’t feel confident in your ability to install a pool fence DIY or identify safety opportunities you can take advantage of, your local All-Safe Pool independent installation pro is your community’s safety expert. They’re dedicated to protecting area pools and creating a safer experience for everybody. Your local pro has the experience, tools, and support to help you understand the safest and most cost-effective swimming pool safety options.

These home pool safety tips are a great place to start, but you’ll find even more safety ideas in our blog. Create a safer swimming pool area for your loved ones with All-Safe Pool today.