Most commercial pool owners know the frustrations of trying to protect pools from the weather, sun and frequent use. Luckily, many common pool problems can be solved by installing shade structures. High-quality, effective shade structures will create a comfortable environment for swimmers and increase traffic to your business.
We discuss several pool issues, how shade can help, and how USA SHADE — a leading commercial fabric shade structure manufacturer — can create custom, durable shade structures for your commercial pool.
Pool Problems and Shade Solutions
Below are eight swimming pool issues and how a shade structure can help your business combat them.
1. Chlorine Evaporation
Chlorine is a vital tool for pool owners to create a safe and clean swimming environment for visitors as it:
- Disinfects the water: Chlorine is incredibly important in public pools as people can get various water-borne diseases from swimming, including cryptosporidium, norovirus, Legionella and E. coli. These diseases can cause diarrhea, vomiting, coughing, congestion and skin rashes. Chlorine reacts with the water to form hypochlorous acid, an effective disinfectant that kills most germs within minutes.
- Prevents bacteria and algae growth: When the weather heats up, bacteria and algae in swimming pool water multiply rapidly, making people sick and the pool green and murky. Chlorine works to break down organic matter in the water — like sweat, urine and dirt — into harmless byproducts. It is also an effective algaecide, preventing algae from growing.
To keep your pool clean and clear, maintain chlorine levels at 1–3 parts per million and the pH between 7.2 and 7.8. Maintaining these levels is essential as too much chlorine will irritate swimmers’ eyes and skin, while too little will fail to kill bacteria, viruses and algae. Unfortunately, the sun makes it hard to keep chlorine levels stable. UV rays turn chlorine into a gas, which then escapes the water and reduces the amount of chlorine in the pool. It only takes a few hours for the chlorine to evaporate from pool water completely.
The best solution to keeping chlorine levels stable is to install a shade structure over pools and splash pads. This will stop the sun from warming the water, which helps reduce the rate of bacteria and algae growth. Additionally, a shade with UV-resistant fabric will block the sun’s harmful UV rays from the swimming pool, making it easier to maintain chlorine levels.
2. UV Damage
Chlorine isn’t the only thing affected by the sun’s damaging UV rays at your business’s pool. Every piece of furniture and pool accessory exposed to the sun will deteriorate over time. Materials such as wood, plastic, fabric, resin, varnish and paint all degrade or discolor under the sun. UV rays can even damage the swimming pool itself, resulting in increased maintenance and repairs. Repairing a pool is costly, and your business will need to close the pool for the duration of the process.
Similar to preventing chlorine evaporation, a UV-resistant shade structure will keep the sun’s rays away from your swimming pool and provide shade for pool equipment, including furniture, nets, covers or play structures. Set up these shade structures to keep the sun away at all times. Pool equipment shade will prolong the life of everything in your commercial swimming area.
3. Hot Surfaces
Going to a local public swimming pool on a hot day is a great experience for the whole family and allows everyone to cool down. After a few hours in the sun though, the areas around the pool will become hot and uncomfortable to walk on. Most people don’t wear shoes in pools, so they’ll be barefoot and struggle to walk on hot pathways. In extreme cases, hot surfaces can even cause skin blisters and burns.
To prevent the sun from heating up surfaces and keeping visitors away, your business can install shade structures around the pool and over walkways. This will block the sun and keep the temperature of surfaces down, making the area more comfortable for visitors. Sufficient shade coverage is also a competitive advantage, as your business can advertise a cooler and safer swimming facility during hot weather than other facilities in the area.
4. No Shade
Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in America, and being sunburnt more than five times can double the risk for melanoma. While plenty of people enjoy getting some sun, being able to hide from the sun is crucial to avoid getting burnt. Without shaded areas to sit and spend time at the pool, visitors and employees will have a greater risk of getting skin cancer. Plus, people may get uncomfortable quickly and not want to return in the future.
The main function of most shade structures is to provide shade for pool areas, allowing visitors to enjoy themselves while staying safe from the sun. This is especially important for people in water, as sunblock may wash off and expose skin to UV rays. Employees will feel happier and cooler having shade in their work areas, resulting in greater satisfaction and staff retention. UV protection is also a selling point for commercial swimming pools, as concerned parents will have peace of mind with their kids playing outdoors if there is shade.
5. Dirt and Debris
Keeping a commercial pool clean and free of leaves, sticks and dirt is essential to providing a positive experience for swimmers. A dirty pool will clog filters, pumps and cleaners and look unappealing, which can deter people from visiting. Cleaning pools is tiresome, and when it’s windy and rainy, lots of debris can end up in the water.
A shade structure is an effective tool for your business to keep debris out of the water. Leaves and sticks from trees will land on the fabric and slide off into the areas around the pool, which staff can easily sweep up. This will help keep filters relatively empty and reduce the number of times staff need to skim the pool.
6. Poor Aesthetics
A clean and well-designed pool area will attract regular visitors, which is something every commercial pool owner needs. However, making a swimming pool facility look good can be tricky when your business focuses on practicality. Your business may have the best pool, excellent areas for kids to play and ample seating options, but it will all fall flat without the right decorations.
Shade structures come in various types and styles, and your business can customize them to suit your brand. Choosing your brand’s colors will help these structures integrate with the facility’s design, or select natural colors to match the greenery around the pool. Bright colors or animal-themed shade structures will also add a touch of excitement to a kid’s swimming area. The options are endless, and these structures will make your commercial pool look more aesthetically pleasing.
7. High Electricity Bills
When the sun comes out, and temperatures rise, people often seek the comfort of swimming pools to stay cool. However, the sun also heats up the water in the pool, and visitors will feel dissatisfied when the water makes them feel as hot as they are outside. Rain can also make pools cold and unpleasant to swim, especially when the weather is cooler. Installing a pool cooler or heater can help control the pool’s temperature, but these can ramp up energy usage and costs.
Instead of costly equipment to keep water cool or warm and paying high electricity bills, consider investing in waterproof shade structures. While installing them may be expensive, they’ll keep the rain and sun away from the water. This will go a long way to keep water cool in summer and warmer in cooler weather. Your business will benefit from decreased energy consumption, and guests will have shade while they swim.
8. Limited Lighting
For some commercial pool facilities, allowing people to swim when it gets dark is part of their business offerings. Installing large lights lets people see when it gets dark, but they may look unsightly and won’t be of much use when it starts to rain or storm.
Your business can solve this issue with shade structures and integrated lighting. Light fixtures mounted to shade structures are less obvious than separate light poles, making the area look clean and visually appealing. Additionally, having lighting under the shade structure will create a well-lit, safe location for night-time swimming, even in bad weather.
Why Choose USA SHADE
USA SHADE has created innovative fabric shade structures in North America for over three decades. We’re the leader in our industry and have installed more than 300,000 shade structures for clients nationwide. We’re committed to quality, integrity and creativity and will work closely with your business to bring your shade structure designs to life.
Discover why we are the top choice for shade structures:
- Turnkey services: Our team of experts will handle every step of the shade structure process. From risk assessments and concepts to 3D rendering, fabrication and installation, we do everything. We also have dedicated project managers to ensure the project runs smoothly.
- Various structures: We have over 140 pre-engineered modular structures to choose from and can help your business select the best one for your commercial pool area, including over the pool.
- Waterproof fabric: USA SHADE offers waterproof shade structures for businesses to safeguard against rain and poor weather.
- Heat protection: With our fabric shade structures, your pool can see a 25-degree temperature reduction, keeping surfaces and water cool and creating a comfortable environment for visitors.
- UV protection: Our fabrics include a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) mesh, which can block up to 98% of the sun’s rays, reducing the risk of burns and skin cancer.
- Customization options: Our structures have multiple customization options. Your business can select the powder coating and fabric’s color, the structure’s size and height and the full design if your pool needs something specific. We can also incorporate lights or other accessories into the design if your business requires them.
- Quick ship option: If your business needs a shade structure fast, we offer quick ship products with a four-week lead time from the order release date. While customization options have some limitations, we’re confident we can get these structures to your pool quickly.
- Certifications: All USA SHADE structures meet local building code requirements, and we have IAS accreditation and DSA approval.
- Warranties: We design all our structures and fabrics to last for years with proper care and maintenance. We take pride in the quality of our products and offer a 10-year limited manufacturer’s warranty on our steel and most fabric types. This warranty covers structural integrity, fading, deterioration, discoloration and breakdown.
- Replacement fabric: When it’s time to replace your structure’s fabric or want to upgrade it, we offer replacement fabric services to ensure it’s done right. We can also repair your shade structures when they’re no longer under warranty.
Commercial Pool Shade Structure Inspiration
If your business is considering adding shade structures to your commercial pool facility, it can help to see examples of other completed projects to get some inspiration for your own. Below are a few areas where we’ve helped companies provide shade and protection for their clients.
Lounge Areas
Jefferson Platinum Triangle is a luxury apartment community in Orange County, California. Their gorgeous pool area receives plenty of sun throughout the year, and they needed a way to create shade over the lounge areas around the pool to keep tenants comfortable. They chose the Pegasus shade structure from USA SHADE to cover the pool-side loungers and create some visual interest.
Seating Areas
Benches and tables around swimming pools allow visitors to sit and chat, eat or work between swimming or watching friends and family swim. However, sitting in the sun for long periods harms your health. Elizabeth Milburn Park in sunny Texas solved this problem by installing our six-post and single-shade structures over their seating areas.
Carson Junior High School also provided shade over their stands with our unique wave structures. These structures feature peaks and valleys to represent a wave. They look fantastic in aquatic centers and water parks to add a fun, thematically relevant decoration to the space.
Water Features
Keeping swimmers cool and protected from the sun while they’re in the water is important in some commercial pool locations, especially in children’s water parks. Centennial Hills Park is a USA SHADE client who chose our butterfly and flower-shaped shade structures to protect kids as they play in splash pads.
Sinsheimer Pool in California opted for a sleek and simple hip shade structure to cover their swimming pool and match the design of surrounding buildings. Guests at this facility can comfortably relax or exercise in the pool for longer periods.
Request a Free Quote Today
For more information on how USA SHADE can assist your business with commercial shade structures, browse our product brochures and our range of shade structures. We offer both pre-designed structures for quick and simple installation and full custom designs tailored to your outdoor space. Your business can also use our handy structure builder to visualize your design as a 3D model.
When your business is ready to get started, contact our team online or complete our quote form to receive a free quote. We look forward to working with you!
