Automatic pool cleaners are essential pool supplies that should be purchased by every pool owners. Instead of purchasing manual ones which require you to exert a lot of effort, the automatic ones will allow you to leave them running to do the job. This means more recreational swims for you rather than tedious clean-ups.

Before going down to pool supplies stores and acquiring one of these things, you need to learn a thing or two about automatic pool cleaners. Arm yourself with proper information so you don’t easily get confused and overwhelmed with the wide range of choices available there. Hence, this knowledge will make your shopping experience a very enjoyable one.

You should know that there are three different types of automatic pool cleaners. There is a suction-side, pressure-side and a robotic one. As their names imply, suction-side cleaners rely on suction power to remove fine particles while pressure-side cleaner uses pressure to force dirt into its bag. The robotic cleaner runs independently on its own. As far as cleaning efficiency is concerned, the robotic cleaner reigns superior.

Next thing you should take into consideration is your budget. Like most pool supplies, automatic pool cleaners vary in prices. They can cost a few hundred to several grand depending on how much you’re willing to shell out. The cheapest among the three are suction-side cleaners. Pressure cleaner costs a little bit more. But, the most expensive among them is the robotic-type.

Lastly you should think about the ease of installation and maintenance. Suction and pressure-side cleaners need some form of installation before you can use them. Robotic cleaners need only to be plugged and dropped off the pool. As for maintenance, robotic and suction-side cleaners should be taken out of the pool once they finished their routine cleaning. Pressure-side cleaners, on the contrary, can be left in the pool and set on timer so it can perform automatic clean-ups every day.

Whether you are building a new porch or renovating an existing one, there are specific things you can do to ensure safety, security and curb appeal at the same time. From the walkway leading to the porch to your porch amenities, you have several options to extend your enjoyment and comfort. No matter your age or physical abilities, everyone benefits from some simple improvements.

Here are some tips for you:

Walkways

Walkways need to be clear of obstructions, but also check to make sure they have a level surface. Uneven pavement, stones, bricks, concrete, or other materials can cause you or a visitor to trip and fall. Keeping your walkways in good repair not only adds curb appeal but also makes good economic sense as well.

If feasible, add lighting along the path. You can opt for either low voltage or solar lights. The light should be sufficient to actually light the pathway, not just be decorative to your landscaping. Solar powered lights power on and off automatically depending on the level of light. Low voltage lights usually run on a timer so you can adjust them as daylight hours shorten or lengthen.

Steps

Since most accidents happen at home and falls top the list, especially for seniors, be sure that your steps are safe. Installing hand railings should be a top priority. Many small porches have only a few steps and in many locations railings are not required. Check your local building codes. However, regardless of code requirements, I encourage you to add railings if you don’t have them. Railings can be very decorative and add to your home’s curb appeal.

Porch

Not only do many porch steps not have railings, but many porches do not either. Your local building codes may not require them but in addition to adding immense curb appeal they also protect your family and visitors. There are a multitude of styles and materials available to maximize your home’s curb appeal and satisfy safety requirements.

If installed, the balusters (the vertical posts) must not exceed four inch spacing between them. Railings (also called balustrades) must extend at least 30 inches from the floor. For safety avoid installing balusters horizontally. This will only encourage small children to use them as a ladder.

Lighting

Want to brighten your porch? Updating your lighting fixtures is a great way to spruce up your porch and give it an up-to-date look. When choosing a single fixture (for over your front door) select one with dual bulbs. That way if one burns out you’ll still have light. Better yet, two lights, one on either side of your door look great and provide even more light. You may also want to consider adding motion sensors to the lights. This is great for security reasons and ensures you’ll have lighting when you leave at noon and return after dark.

For curb appeal, while you are changing the lighting, think about changing the door hardware to match the lights. Don’t forget the doorbell; most really need to be replaced and it’s an easy do it yourself project!

Package Shelf

Ever try to open a locked door and you are holding packages? Adding a simple shelf beside the front door can help everyone in the family. Or, consider placing a small shelf unit beside the door. This especially helps seniors but is handy for Moms, Dads and everyone.

These are just a few of things you can do to make your porch safe and simultaneously add lots of curb appeal and value to your home. Making your porch, steps, and walkways safe is just good common sense and in the end, makes your porch much more enjoyable.

Prioritising Your Choices

The “Your Home” project should be about improving the quality of life of the residents and reducing the overall environmental impact. Cost is usually the main consideration when selecting what to include and what to leave out. Creating the perfect sustainable home will be out of the range of most budgets – but what does that mean anyway. This sums it up: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the future without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987 Brundtland Report).

Planning a reno includes prioritising the things you want to achieve such as more space, a better kitchen or bathroom, more sunlight, reduced energy and water consumption etc. Search the internet for facts on suitable materials, types of glass, well designed lighting, and energy saving appliances.

The following important considerations are helpful when decisions have to be made on designing, buying, building or renovating a home.

Energy Efficient, Sustainable Homes

These are rapidly increasing in value owing to their greater comfort levels and lower running costs. Your home will be around for at least 50 years and its resale value will be increasingly linked to these features. Sustainable housing include technologies that cover a wide range of topics including rainwater storage, solar energy, composting, renewable building materials, efficient appliances. In Australia there are now whole housing developments being built as sustainable homes.

Reducing Energy Consumption

This is an urgent priority. Global warming and its effects on climate change are already becoming apparent.These will invariably lead to higher prices for energy from non-renewable sources. Look for appliances with high star ratings that will not only save on your pocket expenses but will help save our planet. Little things like monitoring your gas and electricity bills for unexpected increases then working out how you can further decrease your usage; Insulate hot water pipes; Set the thermostat at 60-65 Deg C on storage hot water systems and 50 deg C on instantaneous systems; Turn off hot water systems when on vacation; Put a timer on the electric booster of solar hot water heaters and on peak electric storage systems to avoid heating water when not needed; turn appliances off at the wall (you’ll be amazed how much energy you can save – not to mention reduce the risk of fire).

Water Usage

Water is in short supply the world over. Rising demand for houshold water is competing with needs of agriculture and both are reducing the environmental flow needed to keep our rivers and waterways healthy. The application of these ways to use water in a sustainable way will depend on whether you live in the country or the cities, in the tropics or the temperate areas. Examine these suggestions and decide what may be able to improve your quality of life and reduce your impact the on the environment. Install AAA rated shower heads and dual flush toilet cisterns that save water; Reduce water demand; Rainwater harvesting; On-site wastewater reuse; Waterless toilets; Stormwater management; Outdoor water use; Fix leaking taps.

Passive Cooling

Air movement is the most important element of passive cooling, and this is produced by fans. They increase cooling by increasing evaporation rates. Hot humid (tropical) climates limit the body’s ability to lose heat by evaporation of perspiration. Sleeping comfort is a significant issue. Design eaves and shading to permanently exclude solar access to rooms; Maximise shaded external areas with trees and plants – this will also lower the ground temperature.

Use low energy ceiling fans and natural cooling whole house fans to draw the cooler air in from outside and when there is no breeze. Note that natural cooling whole house fans also remove the odors and toxins from your home and lower the need for refrigerated air conditioning. Choose windows with maximum opening areas e.g. louvres or shutters – avoid fixed glass areas.

Hot dry areas require the introduction of water into the atmosphere. Evaporative cooling is an effective passive cooling method and works best when relative humidity if lower (70 percent or less during hottest periods) and the air has a greater capacity to take up water vapour. Design solutions include the use of pools, ponds and water features immediately outside windows or in courtyards to precool air entering the house. Carefully located water features can create convective breezes. Other cooling tips in tropical areas can also be applied to hot dry areas.

Passive (Solar) Heating

In cold climates establish where your sun moves during summer and winter and design your windows to let the suns heat in while insulating against the cold. In hot and moderate climates admit light but reject the heat. Open floor plans allow more sun inside. The sun’s heat is stored in the thermal mass of your building – concrete, masonry, stone slabs – and is slowly released. Proper building orientation will allow solar heat to enter the home in winter, while allowing in as little sun as possible during summer. Shading and overhangs also reduce excessive summer heat, while still permitting winter sun. In passive solar designs, the optimal window-to-wall area ratio is 25-35 percent.

I hope that this information has helped you make important decisions on your most important projects.

Fitness Balls are the new craze! They are affordable, easy to use, and effective. Why are fitness balls making such a difference in people’s workouts? Read on…

Fitness balls are gender neutral. Women love them and guys admit that they provide a very intense workout compared to using a bench. It is no surprise that both men and women are catching up to the trend with more gusto than the 90’s aerobics dance craze.

Those who have tried using fitness balls even once and those who have seen friends and relatives achieve the amazing results, which fitness balls are known for, are becoming fanatics when it comes to trying out new moves and routines on the hardest and softest piece of work-out equipment yet.

So what is the big deal with fitness balls? I’ll give you three good reasons:

Reason Number One:

Nearly everybody is at a fitness level when it comes to using fitness balls. It doesn’t matter if you are recovering form a sports injury, have one or two limbs in casts, if you are pregnant, are 5-years old, or are 95-years old, there is an exercise routine you can use the fitness ball for.

It really doesn’t matter what your limitations are. There are no minimum weights, dumbbells, barbells, or strenuous machinery to use. What ever your inhibitions are such as age, fitness level, weight, or physical abilities, fitness ball exercises are fun and enjoyable.

Everybody can maneuver a fitness ball during their routine since they are light weight and don’t require much more effort than your physical strength dictates. You actually feel encouraged to work out more since the only resistance is your own body weight and gravity.

Reason Number Two:

Other exercise equipment has you pushing against a static, unmoving surface. Your body does not need to worry about building core strength or keeping its balance. Fitness balls also are more effective due to these same reasons.

Recent fitness studies have proven hat core strength is doubled when using the ball as part of your workout. Moves such as sit ups, curls, and back exercises require double the pressure when on a ball as opposed to a floor or bench.

The tension created from raising the center of gravity coupled with the instability of the fitness ball encourages the body to develop more poise and balance. Those who use a ball regularly enjoy leaner, more defined abdominals and find themselves more stable and physically balanced when carrying out their daily activities.

When using the fitness balls you not only use the muscles required to carry out those curls, push-ups, and squats, but you also use all other muscles in your body to keep you balanced. This means you whole body is engaged when on a fitness ball. This intensifies the workout and doubles your efforts.

Reason Number Three:

Fitness balls are light weight and portable. If you are always on the go, like to work out at work, or travel for business or pleasure, you can take the fitness ball with you. Simply deflate it, fold it up, and don’t forget to pack the handy foot pump.

Now staying at a hotel with limited or non-existent fitness equipment doesn’t have to be an excuse to miss you workout, nor does going camping, hiking, or staying with family or in the cabin by the lake. You ball is good to go.

Since they are light weight and easy to use, many are also using the balls as substitute chairs in their home office or around the home. Don’t think you have enough time to exercise? Keep it by the television of by the bed and a quick five minute workout sheet and you are ready to go. You can workout anytime, anyplace!

Join the Hot Craze for a Hot Body

Though women do tend to love the fitness balls more than men, men are catching on too. Most men report that adding a fitness ball routing intensifies their workout and speeds up their fitness goals. Six-pack abs and rock hard gluts are easily achieved!

Others like them simply because they seem effortless and are relatively inexpensive to purchase. They can be taken on trips, used nearly anywhere, and provide a total body workout.

 ~ Out of the Box Boot Camps ~ Fit Body Boot Camp / Rancho Santa Margarita

Recently Southern Californians have been asked to reduce water consumption due to an extremely dry season. Surely there are many parts of the world in similar conditions. In order to avoid a potential future drought, action needs to be taken to conserve water. One of the most effective ways to conserve water is to properly setup your sprinkler systems.

Here are 6 tips to proper sprinkler setup:

Fix sprinkler heads that overshoot onto the sidewalk or you neighbors driveway. This is usually an easy fix by simply turning the sprinkler head to face the proper direction. You may also need to change the head to the proper shape to avoid over spray.

Don’t water during heat of the day. The main reason for this is that water will vaporize and evaporate much more in heat.

Water in early morning hours. This reduces evaporation and is a healthy time to water for lawn and plants.

Reduce runoff by setting timer for two shorter periods. set periods 15 or 20 minutes apart. For example, if you currently water each of your timer zones for 10 minutes, you can reduce runoff by setting a 5 minute time, wait 15 minutes then set another 5 minute time. This allows water penetration into the soil.

Turn timer off on a rainy day and leave it off for two or three days after rain or set the “rain delay” feature on timer.

Convert some of your spray heads to a bubbler or drip system. In areas where most of the water is hitting bare dirt, a bubbler or drip is a direct hit on the plants that need water.

Do your part in water conservation by giving your sprinkler system a tune up.

Are you looking for a solar heater to use for your in ground pool? Do you want to know how to build solar pool heaters for in ground pools? There are some advantages to building your own solar heater and you can use this advice for both in ground and above ground pools.

First, you are going to have to make sure you have a place to mount the heater that gets continual sunlight throughout the day. You need at least 6 hours of sunlight and the more you have the better. Make sure this spot is at least a 8 foot by 4 foot area or bigger. This could be your rooftop, a shed rooftop, or any other area that would work.

Second, you will need a pump that will pump the water slowly, some pvc piping, some black tubing, and a shut off valve. The idea behind this is that you are going to pump the water very slowly out of your pool and through about 50 feet to 200 feet of black tubing (about 1/2 inch in diameter to 3/4 inch) very slowly. As it goes through it will be heated by the sun and pumped back into your pool.

Last, you are going to put a shut off valve on the end that you use to return the water. Make sure to shut this off at night and when you do not have the heater running. You can put your new heater on a timer by plugging the pump into the timer so it will only run during the sunlight hours. This is one of the best solar pool heaters for in ground pools that will not cost you an arm and a leg.

There are many choices when it comes to getting a pool heater and one of those choices is electric pool heaters. Are you considering a heater for your pool? Do you want to extend your swimming season by a few months? Here is how to do so with an electric pool heater and another option.

Electric pool heaters are definitely going to cost you. They have a high cost for keeping them in working shape and they will run your electric bill up quite a bit as well. This can be reduced and still give you the warm swimming water you desire if you know what you are doing.

You will want to get a solar pool heater as well as an electric one. The solar heater will cost you much less and will save you on your energy costs. Run it during the day, when the sun is out and is shining brightly down on it. Then, run your electric heater at night.

You can put both of them on a timer so that your water stays nice and warm for swimming. You should shut the solar heater off as soon as the sun has reached a spot that it will no longer heat the tubes of your solar pool heater. Then, wait about 6-8 hours to have your electric pool heater turn on. There is no use in wasting energy when you are asleep, but if you plan to swim by about 10 or 11 in the morning, then having it kick on around 7 or 8 would be great.

I purchased the The Oral B Triumph 9900 toothbrush with smart guide because I saw the early rave reviews from it and had to see what was all the fuss about. I thought some of the features were very interesting but I didn’t see myself using them. Boy was I wrong.

This toothbrush is the king of toothbrushes, 41,000 pulses that go in and out and 8,000 that go side by side per minute, leaving the Sonicare’s 31,000 pulses per minute in its dust. It also has never before seen features, the wireless LCD display that has a pressure sensor that tells when you’re brushing too hard, a timer that helps you clean each quadrant of your mouth completely, and the display even alerts you when to change your toothbrush head (my personal favorite). Not enough? Try a four speed brushing function that allows you to select a clean mode which really removes plaque, a sensitive mode for effective cleaning for those with sensitive gums and teeth, a massage mode to stimulate healthy gums, and a polish mode which really whitens your teeth!

I always had a problem with plaque developing behind my lower front teeth. I decided if this toothbrush was going to be the best out, it had to accomplish and defeat my troubled lower front teeth. For the experiments purposes, it worked out because I had visited the doctor only 2 weeks before starting the Oral B Triumph 9900. I used the Triumph 9900 twice a day for six months and just by running my tongue over my teeth, I could feel the difference. I was confident in going to the dentist, and I was right. The hygienist told me how my plaque build up had drastically improved from my last visit and told me “whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

I’ve used a great number of electric toothbrushes but this one blew me away. Every feature on it has a useful purpose, a definite keeper!

The chlorinator itself is like a small chlorine production factory. You add salt to the pool, your pump and filtration process pass water over electrodes in the chlorination, converting salt to chlorine.

Nowadays, most new pools are built with a chlorinator system and system costs are now cheaper than ever. Chlorine has a bad smell, heavy and worrisome to handle. You don’t have to put up with the harmful effects of chlorine i.e. degrading costumes, more friendly to hair and skin. Salt is softer on skin and naturally feels better to swim in than standard chlorinated water.

As technology has moved on, newer chlorinators can clean themselves and built in controllers and timers regulate the Chlorine production. The amount of salt needed to effectively chlorinate a pool is only about one fifth of seawater salt levels and it never evaporates.

Getting the salt levels correct for your Chlorinator and size of pool can extend the life of your salt cell. The salt cell can wear out over time or calcium deposits build up and they need cleaning. Replacing this salt cell is the biggest single maintenance cost. Shock treatments and other balancers are still needed but manual maintenance is usually less than a same size chlorine pool. Overall cost comparisons vary but in general with costs coming out roughly similar or slightly less for saltwater.

There are many different brands of salt chlorinator on the market and it is a bit of a minefield to chose. Self cleaning require least maintenance and automatic timers are useful. Finding the right replacement salt cell can be tricky. Cross checking photos and cell lengths and other dimensions are a good idea if buying online. There are many generic salt cells on the market now for popular brands. This can save money and better quality cells come with warranties and are made of high quality components.