Extra sets of eyes on your pool means extra protection, reduced risks, decreased costs and happier patrons. Every year we visit dozens of facilities and work side by side with operators to note best practices and opportunities for improvement. A facility survey may sound like a scary “audit” but in reality, it’s a wonderful opportunity for shared wisdom and teachable moments. In an effort to lift the veil on this behind-the-scenes process, here are a few of the things we look for when we work with your team during a facility survey.
Health Department Inspections
This is always a great spot to start. Someone’s already taken a hard look at your pool, deck and pump room. Their insight is tremendously valuable and often sheds light on opportunities for improvement related to safety and public health risks.
Operator Licensure Documentation
Who’s running the show behind the scenes? We’re interested in your training procedures and task assignment. What’s the big concern? Often in aquatics, we use younger, less-trained staff members to do important operational tasks. Legal precedent discourages us from this practice. When we talk with your operators, we can usually find safe workarounds to this practice, usually without causing additional work for you and your team.
Appropriate Chemical Recording
Chemical records shouldn’t simply be completed in an effort to appease your health department. We look at these as documents your legal representation that you’ve been doing a great job. We’ll show you how to make your chemical testing stronger.
Operational Manuals and Preventative Maintenance Schedule
Speaking of extending life expectancy… your expensive equipment is up next. The best practice for protecting all of your stuff is a well-developed PM schedule. Let us show you how this easy task can save you tons of time and decrease your equipment and maintenance costs long-term.
Circulation System
We’ll be evaluating the performance of your circulation system. A great place to start is at your flow meter. When we’re meeting designed specifications for flow and turnover rates, your pool is set for circulation success. Happy patrons follow.
Heater Equipment
Heater fires are a major risk from a safety and cost prospective. Smoke damage, replacement parts and days of shut down are the result of heater fires. We’ll work with your team to avoid these big issues.
Material Safety Data Sheets
If you have chemicals in the pump room, you need their associated MSDS (SDS) documents (OSHA regulates and audits these regularly). They should be cataloged in a binder and stored conspicuously in your chemical storage area. Beyond that, you should be training your team to operate based on the chemical safety standards associated with their respective data sheets. Fewer chemicals stored at your facility makes this a much easier task to accomplish.
Personal Protective Equipment
Your MSDS sheets are going to recommend a bunch of PPE. We’ll dig into the list with you and make sure your crew is well prepared and using PPE as regulated.
Chemical Storage
Most chemical storage standards are common sense. Avoid any opportunity for chemicals interacting with each other inadvertently. We’ll check to make sure chemicals are stored neatly, separated by category, clearly labeled, not stacked, double contained and so on. Our well-trained eyes spot chemical storage issues quickly. We also identify quick workarounds for chemical storage issues and typically resolve these problems on-site.
Measurement Devices
We can’t dose chemicals appropriately without appropriate measurement devices. We’d love to see how you’re measuring chemicals, both from a safety and from a cost-efficiency prospective.
Other Safety Equipment (Fire Extinguishers, CO3 Alarms, Phones, Emergency Lighting…)
Additional risks are around every corner. We’ll be looking ahead to make sure you’re well prepared. We keep up to date on the latest aquatic incidents, accidents and their associated lawsuits. The goal – to keep you well informed.