With Summer upon us, how safe are our backyard swimming pools? With recent changes to pool regulations designed to improve pool safety for users and owners, we need to find out. Richard Neaylon, from Adelaide Swimming Pool Inspections is a Building surveyor with over 15 years experience in the industry and is a wealth of helpful information. All swimming pools or spa pools must have a continuous safety barrier maintained by the pool owner that restricts access by young children to the pool. If you are a property owner and are selling a property with a swimming pool or spa pool built before July 1993 you must make sure that the safety barrier meets today’s standard for new pools. Fencing must be constructed in such a way to make sure that: • The fence is an effective barrier to young children • It is permanent • Young children can’t crawl under or climb over it by using foot and hand holds • It is at least 1.2 metres high • Any boundary fences used as part of the child-safety barrier are at least 1.8 metres high on the side that faces the pool, with a 900 millimetres non-climbable zone at the top inside of the fence, a boundary barrier may be climbable on the neighbour’s side. Gates to the pool area must: • Swing outward from the pool area • Be self-closing from any position • Be fitted with a latching device, out of reach of small children, at least 1.5 metres above ground level For more information on Pool Safety contact Richard at Adelaide Swimming Pool Inspections (ASPI). ASPI WEBSITE WATCH THE CLIP
