THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605030054
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JEANNE MOONEY, SPECIAL TO HOME & GARDEN
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
PERHAPS YOU'VE ALWAYS wanted to set the water temperature of your spa from the comfort of your automobile.
Grab the car phone, guy. Pool and spa retailers have a remote control for you.
Or maybe you're a swimmer. You don't want a diving board or a deep end or room for water volleyball. You just want to churn.
Suit up, dude. Retailers have a lap pool for you.
In fact, they have lots of trendy pool and spa products to get you started or glamorize what you have. And if you hurry, you can still be the first on your block to own one.
A word of caution, though: don't be surprised if your brother-in-law in California gets fiber optic lighting or a waterfall first. Specialty items can be slower to sell in South Hampton Roads than in other regions of the country, some local retailers say.
For instance, take an automatic control system for your pool and spa. It allows you to program the water temperature, the lights, even the waterfall around your schedule. The system sells for around $2,500.
``There's maybe a dozen of them out there'' in this area, says Steve Rotch, president of the Tidewater Chapter of the National Spa and Pool Institute, an association that sets ethical and professional standards for it members.
The system works much like a thermostat and is operated from inside your home, pool or spa. Better yet, a telephone-operated remote-control device is available for the spa. So if you're on the road, you can phone your spa and tell it to be hot when you get home.
``I don't think anybody has one of those here yet,'' Rotch says about the remote control. ``That's popular in the D.C. area.''
Lap pools are another niche product, but not something in demand locally, says Michael Shammas, co-owner of Aegean Pools Inc. in Chesapeake.
``People ask for them, but there's not many we install,'' Shammas says.
Lap pools are narrow, in-ground pools, typically less than 10 feet wide, with a level shallow depth of 4 1/2 to 5 feet. Their lengths vary with customers' wishes.
Customers find lap pools to be pricey, about as much as a full-size in-ground pool, Shammas says. And their use is limited.
``Most people want a pool they can swim in, they can play in,'' he says. Typically, the customers opt for a full-size pool if they have enough back yard.
For people who want to swim and have their spa, too, there is the swim spa. It's a big spa - 9 feet wide by 15 feet long - and it shoots a current of water a person can swim in.
``They're not reality,'' says Bill Savidge, sales manager and vice president of McBroom Great Atlantic in Virginia Beach, a retailer of spas and above-ground pools.
Though spa water temperatures are adjustable, they usually are set higher than the 78-degree temperature many people prefer in swimming pools.
``You get so tired so quickly,'' Savidge says of swimming in hot spa water. ``You start sweating.''
People inquire about swim spas, ``but when they find out the price, they back down,'' says Shammas of Aegean Pools. Swim spas can cost $15,000 to more than $20,000, he says.
People who live in apartments also can have a spa. One model, called the Fun Tub, is portable and feels something like an overstuffed chair, says Wayne Rouse, president of Portsmouth Pool Center.
Made in Virginia and new this year, this spa uses a vinyl liner, not fixed acrylic, where you sit and soak. That makes for a softer feel, Rouse says, but there's a catch: all seats are upright. You can't lie down, as in a fixed-acrylic model. Also, the jets in this spa won't oscillate or rotate.
The spa sells for about $2,900.
If you want to dress up your pool for nighttime entertaining, you might try wrapping it in fiber-optic lighting. Around the perimeter, it gives the waterline a neon look. In the pool, it gives off an opaque illumination.
Perimeter and in-pool fiber-optic lighting cost about $2,500, Rotch says. In-pool lighting alone runs about $1,500. Traditional lights cost $500 to $700, by comparison.
Builder Jack Schoch uses fiber-optic lighting around his pool, which is shaped like a figure 8. The lights also illuminate a waterfall and a glass-block wall set against a white marble background.
Schoch built his pool as a showpiece in the back yard of one of two homes he constructed at Homearama '95 in the Lago Mar section of Virginia Beach.
``We haven't had a chance to use it,'' Schoch says of his pool. But, he promises, ``We're going to have a lot of parties.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo courtesy of NATIONAL SPA AND POOL INSTITUTE
Fiber-optic lighting can create dramatic effects in or around a
swimming pool.
Photo courtesy of NATIONAL SPA AND POOL INSTITUTE
Lap pools are narrow, in-ground pools, with a level shallow depth of
4 1/2 to 5 feet.
by CNB