for New Equipment Installation - Residential homeowners within service area
Ask About
Energy-Saving Variable Speed Pool Pumps
Pool Journal · Word of the Week
Aqueduct: The Water That Leads the Way
by Larry Szulc, Spectrum Pool Care
Long before pumps, the Romans moved water across valleys on arches of stone. Los Angeles has its own famous aqueduct, ending right here in the Valley. And every backyard pool has a small one of its own.
Aqueduct joins two Latin words: aqua, “water,” and ducere, “to lead.” An aqueduct is a channel that leads water from where it is to where people need it. The same ducere gives us conduct, produce and educate, which means “to lead out.”
Rome’s first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, was built in 312 BC. Over the following centuries the city’s engineers built many more, carrying water for miles on a gentle, carefully measured downhill slope, sometimes underground and sometimes high on arches of stone, with nothing but gravity to move it.
Los Angeles has an aqueduct story of its own. In November 1913, water from the Owens Valley, more than two hundred miles to the north, tumbled down the stepped Cascades near Sylmar into the San Fernando Valley for the first time. The engineer who built it, William Mulholland, is remembered for one of the shortest dedication speeches on record: “There it is. Take it.”
From Roman arches to the Cascades in Sylmar, an aqueduct is simply water being led, patiently, to where it does the most good.
The Pool
The Little Aqueduct in Your Backyard
Every pool has a small aqueduct of its own: its circulation system. Water is led out of the pool, cleaned and warmed, and led back again, all day long.
Out through the skimmer and drain
The skimmer draws from the surface, where leaves and pollen float; the main drain draws from the deep end.
Through the pump and filter
The pump is the heart of the system, and the filter catches the fine particles that would otherwise cloud the water.
Warmed and treated
On its way back, water may pass through the heater and a chlorinator or salt cell.
Back through the returns
The return jets send clean water back and keep the whole pool gently turning, so no corner sits still.
The time it takes to move the pool’s entire volume through the filter once is called its turnover. Most residential pools aim to turn over at least once a day, more in summer. Variable-speed pumps do it the Roman way: slowly, steadily and efficiently.
From our routes: when water looks tired, circulation is one of the first things we look at. Clean baskets, a clear filter and well-aimed returns keep a pool’s little aqueduct flowing.
Written by Larry Szulc, owner of Spectrum Pool Care, a family-owned company serving the San Fernando Valley, Westside, Santa Monica and Malibu since 1999.
