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A pool party can come to an end fast if bees show up uninvited. It turns out, most bees are attracted to pools because they want to quench their thirst. Luckily, there are a couple of ways to make sure they don’t crash the party.
Bring out the plants. While bees normally love plants, they aren’t friends with all of them – including mint and lemongrass. Feel free to plant these near your pool to act as a natural repellant.
Use dryer sheets. As mentioned before, certain smells can be a real turn off for bees. We use dryer sheets to give our clothes a fresh smell, but bees hate them. Place the dryer sheets in cups around the pool to keep bees away. Be sure to change them once they lose their scent.

Pool season is here and while many open their pools as early as March, Memorial Weekend is symbolically the start of pool season. Opening your pool properly will determine how quickly you and your family will enjoy the pool and will help you avoid potential problems such as chemical imbalance and improper filtration. Below are some key steps to properly opening your pool.
1. Clear or remove your pool cover. If you have an automatic cover you should have been keeping it clear of debris and making sure your pump off all the water prior to trying to operate the automatic cover. If you use a winter cover, remove the cover and store for the pool season. If you do not own an automatic pool cover you should consider a solar cover or other to help keep you pool warm and free from debris.
2. Retrieve all of your stored pool parts out of storage such as: return eyeballs,  o-rings, and  gaskets.
3. Check your equipment:

• Heater – Just like your home heating system you will want to have your gas pool heater or electric heat pump serviced and ready for the season.
• Filter – Whatever type of filter you use we recommend examining filter media to make sure it’s clean for maximum filtration. Consider having your filter cleaned professionally when you close or upon opening. Your family will appreciate clean water.
• Pump – Examine all the wires to ensure no damage, place basket in pump housing and to prevent dry rot and help with a better seal use petroleum jelly or magic lube on gasket before installing (this is also recommended for all o-rings and rubber gaskets).
• Automation – If your pool is equipped with this option reinstall the ORP and Ph probes. Note:  You should always store inside your house through the winter to prevent freezing.
• The chlorine generator should be checked on the inside to see if the grids are clean. If they are not clean, use a 50/50 muriatic muriatic muriatic and water mixture to clean.

4. Install the pool return eyeballs, pump, and skimmer baskets.
5. Make sure pool water level is at proper level – middle to upper middle of skimmer.
6. Prime the pump prior to operating. Once everything has been checked and installed, simply fill the pump basket with water.
6. Add chemicals – typically chlorine shock, algaecide, salt, stain and scale preventer.  Your initial chemical composition will vary depending the type of pool that you are running and current levels in the water. Don’t experiment with this.

• Chlorine pool – with a standard chlorine pool you will need test your water chemistry at least once a week (possibly more with extreme heat conditions) and add the necessary chemicals.
• Automated pools – you will need to recheck the water within a few days after pool has been circulating to check the reading. Then set all of your levels to your preferred setting and your done for the season.

7. Sweep and brush as needed or use a robotic cleaner (just put in water as needed and it does the work for you). For pools with a lot of large debris, vacuuming on “waste” will  bypass the filter to avoid extra filter cleaning.
8. Monitor the seals, gaskets, o-rings, gauges and fittings closely for the first couple days for leaks.
Opening your pool is a good time to think about converting to a salt water pool. Salt water pools have many advantages including being better for your skin and less irritation on the eyes.
Your pool really is a relatively simple system, however, like anything with pumps and motors, proper maintenance and operation are key. Many chose to have their pools professionally opened and maintained to ensure that everything is functioning properly and to help extend the life of your equipment. We offer many options for opening, closing, and maintaining your pool. Ask about our Mud Club VIP program.

We are continually asked who makes the best pool equipment? When considering what equipment we would use in our own pools and would feel comfortable giving a 5 YEAR WARRANTY to our customers we considered the three main manufacturers of pool equipment: Pentair, Hayward, and Jandy. We considered the warranty, reputation, ease of use (automation), wear and tear, manufacturing, training, and cutting-edge technology.
The Best
Hayward Pool Products has been the leader in pool equipment and innovation for decades and is the clear choice for our customers.
Why Hayward?
Hayward offers complete pool automation systems, so everything on your equipment pad is made by Hayward and Mud Slingers Pool and Patio offers a 5 YEAR WARRANTY on all Hayward equipment. Some pool builders only offer a one or two year warranty, so make sure you ask your builder what they offer.
Heaters
The most important part of a pool heater is the heat exchanger and on average to have replaced is $800-1000.  The three types of heat exchangers are: copper, copper-nickel, and titanium. Copper can wear down in 3-5 years with normal water chemistry, copper-nickel is 8 times more resistant to chemical wear than plain copper so life expectancy is >25 years, titanium will never wear down from chemical use. All hayward gas heaters come standard with copper-nickel heat exchangers. Electric heat pumps come with titanium heat exchangers.
Filters
If you want a clear and clean pool, your filter is a critical component. Sand is the most common and has been around since the beginning. They are very easy to use and maintenance time is minimized by simply backwashing when dirty, but it only cleans to a 30 micron particle so the water isn’t the cleanest it can be. Cartridge filters are very good and clean to a 5 micron particle, so water is very clean but cleaning the cartridge filter is very time consuming. A DE filter is like a hybrid of cartridge and sand, it has grids on the inside that with the combination of crushed sea shells coating them is essentially a double filtration that cleans to 1 micron or the equivalent of a red blood cell –  so ultra clean water. It also has the same backwash system as a sand filter, so you have the best of both worlds – ultra clean water and minimal maintenance time.
Pumps
Single, dual or variable ? A single speed pump run on high speed 24 hours a day so it consumes a lot of unnecessary power. A dual speed or variable speed pump is going to be the best option as it is not necessary to run your pump on high speed all day. Set your pump on high speed during the day so you have optimal filtration while swimming in your pool. At night you can turn it (or program it) to  low speed to keep water filtering and the heater running, but saving energy and money.
Pool Chemistry Automation
Itchy skin? Cloudy water? Red eyes? Water chemistry is the part of pool ownership most people will talk about. Older pools must be monitored daily to ensure proper chemistry and often wind up having ridiculous amounts of chemicals in them. Hayward has been a leader in this cutting edge technology for years. The Hayward Pro Logic and Gold Line controls have  made pool water chemistry very inexpensive to operate and virtually automatic. Your time messing with chemicals is reduced to checking an Omni Logic touch screen to get the water chemistry correct. Simple.
The pool industry has come a long way and Hayward has been leading the pack by investing in technology that makes your pool automatic and nearly maintenance free. Gone are the days of lugging harsh chemicals and dipping sticks in the water. Now owning a pool means more time relaxing with your family.