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A page for each question, answered before the first full stop

49 questions, one page each, with the answer in the opening sentence rather than after four paragraphs of preamble. Where the honest answer is that the published figure was taken under conditions your garden will never see, the page names those conditions and goes no further.

Choosing

Which piece of equipment answers the need at all, when the cheapest option in a family is the right one, and what a private pool does not need.

5

Flow & turnover

What a flow rate in litres per hour means once it is divided into a pool, how long a full turnover should take, and why head changes the answer.

4

Sizing & volume

Why a stated volume is not the volume of the pool, how freeboard is counted, and what the difference does to every chemical dose.

4

Hoses & fittings

Why 32 mm and 38 mm do not interchange, what a stepped adaptor costs in flow, and which thread a pump and a filter actually share.

4

Water chemistry

What pH does to chlorine, why a pool can read chlorine and behave as though it has none, and which figure the strips do not show you.

4

Disinfection

Chlorine, bromine, active oxygen and salt electrolysis: what each one is, what each one costs to run, and what each one gives up.

4

Filter media

Sand, glass and cartridges compared on fineness, bed life and the cost of a season — and why a media change is not a like-for-like swap.

3

Heating & covers

What a COP is quoted at, why a cover is the cheapest heating on the site, and how much energy one degree in ten thousand litres really takes.

3

Cleaning & robots

Runtime against the surfaces it is spent on, what a filter fineness in microns catches, and which pool walls a climbing robot cannot hold.

4

Installation

How flat the ground has to be, what goes under a liner, where backwash water goes, and which fixings a wall fitting needs.

4

Winter & storage

Why a pool is not emptied for winter, what a winter pillow is actually for, and which parts have to be drained before a frost.

3

Maintenance & wear

The one part per family that goes first, whether a spare exists for it, and which products were built to be replaced whole.

4

Spas & hot water

Why bromine holds where chlorine does not, what a heat-up rate means in practice, and how a spa differs from a small pool in every respect that matters.

3