Welcome to the 2026 Pool Season!

Wow did this summer come quickly!

So far this summer we've been thrilled to see so many of our members taking in the fun and excitement of pool season with their friends and families.

The new coping and tile work has drawn a lot of praise and we're sure those that haven't yet seen the work, will also love how it all turned out. In addition, we've also heard from quite a few people how nice it is to have a smooth surface to push against or stand on when swimming - hopefully, no more cut up toes and feet!

In addition to the obvious improvements to the pool itself, we've also been able to now test out the new pump and chemical systems. So far, it all seems to be working as intended. Should that hold through the year, we hope to see decreased chemical expenses and electrical use. Ideally, those are going to add up to tangible reductions in our operational costs which can help us better budget for future improvements, maintenance and unforeseen expenses.

Lastly, we did also just install some baby changing tables, one in each bathroom. These were something that quite a few of our younger members had requested and as the neighborhood gets younger, it seemed like something that made a ton of sense. Hopefully, the young parents that are members are able to get some good use out of them!

Now, it's not all sunshine and rainbows...

If you've been to the pool this season, we're sure that you have noticed the staining on the bottom of the pool. The stains come from leaves and debris settling into the bottom of the pool during the off season. 

In years past, we’ve been able to power wash those stains out but since we had the pool shell sanded down to smooth it out, we couldn’t power wash the shell.  In years past, our contractor would apply a solvent and then power wash the shell to get it clean.  This process does a great job of cleaning the shell, but it also removes a thin layer of the plaster.  This year, the process of smoothing out the shell so it didn’t feel like really rough sandpaper, reduced the thickness of the shell enough that we weren’t comfortable doing that this year.  Our contractor was concerned that if we did the same cleaning process this year, we could potentially end up with some thin spots that could crack once the pool was full.

As we’ve said before, the shell is already near the end of its usable life span.  Unfortunately, a full shell replacement was bid out at nearly $90,000 and we didn’t have the funds available to do a full replacement along with all the other repairs and improvements that were needed.  That would have necessitated a total assessment of around $650 per member on top of the normal dues and would have likely delayed the pool opening by around a month.

The work done on the shell this year should buy us between 7 to 10 years before a full replacement is necessary.  By then, this board hopes to have left the Association’s finances in a much better place than where we found them and we would anticipate being able to fully pay for a new shell with a minimal or zero additional assessments.

In the meantime, though, we will have those stains.  We’re already working with our contractor to see if there’s a way to cover them up before the season next year and the new cover we got should really help to keep additional debris from accumulating at the bottom in the years to come.

We hope you’re able to truly enjoy all of the improvements we’ve made this year.

Happy swimming!

-The Briarwood Pool Association Board