Most Popular Swimming Pool Products On Amazon
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Swimming pools are a lifestyle, mostly because they have to be. If you own a swimming pool, chances are you can't afford to do anything else so the pool pretty much has to become your new lifestyle. All jokes aside, one of the ways that pool owners have learned to deal with the ongoing costs of owning and maintaining a swimming pool is to buy products on the internet where there is little-to-no price markup over manufacturing costs. Internet dealers have lower overhead than your local pool and spa store and so they can sell products at a lower price. This has actually caused quite a few problems in the pool and spa industry, as pool professionals now lose sales to online retailers on a daily basis.
This shift to purchasing online has caused manufacturers to react in an attempt to keep their product dealers happy. This is a subject that I wrote about recently in this article about buying pool equipment online which talks about the confusing mess that is the current state of the product supply lines in the pool and spa industry. That article however is focused on the purchasing of big ticket pool equipment like pumps, heaters and salt water chlorinators. While some pool owners do purchase big ticket pool equipment online, the vast majority of pool owners still shop locally for these items since the majority of them require technical considerations to choose the right one for your pool. So what are pool owners buying online? I took the time to review the top 100 swimming pool related products that sell on Amazon and compiled this list of the top 10 items that you should buy for your pool online (plus one that I think you should avoid).
Pool Water Test Strips
Unsurprisingly, pool test strips
are one of the most commonly ordered swimming pool items from Amazon. If you are doing things properly then you should be testing your pool water often - multiple times per week at least. The only concern is that test strips are not the most accurate way to test pool water, and can often give false readings. Even under optimal conditions, test strips are not great for determining water pH, but for convenience and quick testing they can not be beat. They are small, ship easily, and are less expensive from Amazon than most pool stores. These strips do not test for everything that you should monitor in your pool, but they do include the most common items that you need to adjust: chlorine, pH, and total alkalinity.
Automatic Water Fillers
This product is an aftermarket automatic water leveler
which is designed to maintain the height of the water level in your pool without you needing to drag the hose out and turn it on every week - not to mention that they prevent you from forgetting that the hose is running and flooding out your pool! It is no surprise that this product is very popular for pool owners to order and install themselves. Traditionally an automatic water leveling system is something that is built in and integrated into the pool design. An aftermarket water leveler is not as good since it sits in full view on the pool deck, but on the flip side it is so easy to install that no pool professional is needed.
Swimming Pool Alarms (UL 2017)
This swimming pool alarm
is one of the most popular pool items that people buy from Amazon. My concern with pool alarms has always been the concern that they create a false sense of security when in reality the only real security around a pool comes from direct supervision. With that being said, if the pool alarm is used as a secondary, or back up form of protecting the pool area, then I wholeheartedly agree. This alarm in particular is not a water disturbance alarm. This is a door, window or gate access alarm designed to meet the UL 2017 Child Pool Safety Law. This alarm is operated with a single nine volt battery and mounts easily with double sided tape.
Replacement Salt Water Cells
This is a replacement salt cell
for an electronic chlorine generator and it is of little surprise that these are one of the most popular items that pool owners are buying online. Salt cells last between three to seven years on average based on a six month swimming season schedule with four or five years being the most common. If you are located in a year-round swimming environment with blazing sun then you would expect to get substantially less time that this. Since these replacement cells are expensive, and replacing them is as simple as unscrewing two unions, and plugging in the new cell, it is no wonder that pool owners are taking on the task of replacing their cells on their own. If you want to replace your own salt cell, this article lists every model of salt water system with links directly to where you can purchase the replacement cell online.
Pool Critter Escape Ramps
The FrogLog critter escape ramp
is one of the most popular swimming pool items sold on Amazon and it is easy to understand why. Nobody likes opening the skimmer lid to clean the leaves and debris out of the strainer basket only to discover a dead, bloated possum (or whatever) floating in there. Even worse is finding one that is only mostly dead as you need to deal with a half dead, possibly dangerous creature in addition to consoling your screaming and crying children. $20 to avoid dealing with all of that on a weekly basis sounds like a pretty darn good deal if you ask me. Not to mention all of the good karma you will gain by not murdering dozens of hapless creatures every year with your pool.
Pool Vacuum Cleaners
Automatic pool cleaners
are one of the most popular items, in general, that pool owners buy online. An automatic vacuum is a convenience item and at the top end of the price point, robotic pool vacuums can cost well over $1000 dollars. This creates a pretty large incentive for pool owners to buy these online themselves, but the technical complexity of the expensive vacs can be a deterrent. That is why this dead-simple pulse style "Kreepy Krauly" vacuum is one of the most popular swimming pool items sold on Amazon. It takes a small amount of assembly and calibration, but for the price pool owners seem inclined to order these readily since they are the cheapest pool vac available on Amazon that will most likely do what it claims to do and keep your pool clean. It also climbs the walls of your pool, which is a premium feature in robotic vacuums, but standard operating procedure for this style of suction vacuum.
Leaf Skimmer Nets
These deep leaf skimmer nets
are one of the most popular pool items that people buy from Amazon and this is due to two reasons. First, pool owners quickly learn how useless the shallow leaf nets are and look to upgrade to these deep leaf nets, and secondly these very affordable deep leaf nets are advertised as heavy duty. While they are certainly more heavy duty than the light duty, entry level deep leaf nets, every pool professional reading this is shaking their head as they know there is a vastly superior pool leaf net
that comes with a lifetime guarantee that is certainly worth the extra money. Leaf nets, even the ones labeled as "heavy duty" are prone to breaking from even moderate use. This is why pool pro's almost unanimously prefer the quality and lifetime guarantee of the ProTuff net.
Pool Leak Sealer
In addition to these 10 most popular swimming pool items that pool owners buy online there is also a very popular item which I do not endorse buying. This Fix-A-Leak pool leak sealer
is an extremely popular item that pool owners like to buy online. I can certainly understand why since having a leak in your pool can be an expensive proposition, and the prospect of an inexpensive chemical that you add to the water to fix it sounds great. The problem is that these no-dig leak repair products almost never actually resolve the leak problem, and even when they do they are more of a temporary solution. If you have any kind of appreciable leak underground in your swimming pool then this product is not likely going to help you resolve this. If you have an old hot tub with 100 pipes buried in foam that is leaking, this might be a better application for this product. If it is a matter of throw the hot tub out or try to quick fix with this product, then I agree to give this a try.
If you are interested in more Amazon products be sure to read the sister article to the one you are reading now - The 10 most popular hot tub products on Amazon. If you read this article because you like finding the least expensive way of caring for your swimming pool then I certainly hope that you own a variable speed pump for your pool. If you do not, then you absolutely need to read this article about how a variable speed pool pump saves you money and once you understand why VS technology is a massive costs savings on electricity, you can shop for a new variable speed pump by reading these variable speed pool pump reviews.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool specialist from Ontario Canada and one of the most trusted voices in the swimming pool industry. With over 20,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the Pleatco Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print. Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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