{"id":723,"date":"2008-06-22T21:18:45","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T05:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simonburrow.com\/\/archives\/business-success\/swimming-pool-conversion"},"modified":"2008-06-23T08:46:54","modified_gmt":"2008-06-23T16:46:54","slug":"swimming-pool-conversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/?p=723","title":{"rendered":"Swimming Pool Conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Southern California there are about a million swimming pools that are rarely used.  Many were installed as a way to keep cool before central air conditioning was common.  Some were built for &#8220;the kids&#8217; who are now grown and gone.  And some were built as a fashion statement.  It is time to rethink this costly environmental burden on our urban landscape and create new and more acceptable uses for this installed base.  This is a huge opportunity to do good and make a lot of money.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/simonburrow.com\/\/photos\/photo\/2602540230\/P62200382JPG.html\" class=\"tt-flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2228\/2602540230_96a0e47f48.jpg?resize=500%2C221\" alt=\"P6220038_2.JPG\" border=\"0\" height=\"221\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I have spent the last week or so talking to people about his opportunity and have come up with a list of ideas for converting the unused private pool into at least usable space and at best an environmental positive.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spa Grotto.  Empty the pool cut a walkway down to the deep end install a spa and a fern garden with a small waterfall.  Very romantic.  The pool would be restorable if the next owner of the house had children<\/li>\n<li>Pond.  Lower maintenance and chemical cost by changing the pool into a ecologically balanced mini-lake.  Create wildlife habitat and a beautiful visual in the yard<\/li>\n<li>Reservoir.  Lease some of the million unused swimming pools to the MWD (Metropolitan Water District) to use as a part of the reservoir system.  With water shortages looming more storage capacity would be a big help.<\/li>\n<li>Grey Water System.  Use the pool as a biological filter to clean up the non-toilet waste water from a home.  The naturally purified waste water would be used to water the homes landscaping.<\/li>\n<li>Basement.  Most home in the west don&#8217;t have a basement.  Empty the swimming pool install a sump pump in the bottom of it and a deck over the top and create a couple of rooms of storage space and increase the size of the yard at the same time.<\/li>\n<li>Energy Farm.  Any swimming pool owner knows that without chemicals the pool will fill with algae in a very short time.  This process is a natural conversion of the suns energy into bio-mass.  Install collectors for the algae and a small still for converting it into backyard ethanol and you could be making your own gasoline.<\/li>\n<li>Pump Storage.  Find a neighbor with a pool that is a hundred feet different in elevation from yours.  Make a deal with the electric company.  Use cheap electricity at night to pump the water up the hill and run a generator with the water flowing down the hill during the high demand part of the day to power your air conditioner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/simonburrow.com\/\/photos\/photo\/2602540530\/P6180022JPG.html\" class=\"tt-flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3007\/2602540530_1548a18c46_m.jpg?resize=240%2C180\" alt=\"P6180022.JPG\" border=\"0\" height=\"180\" width=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I don&#8217;t know which of these ideas will work.  But I do know that swimming pools that aren&#8217;t used are a cost and they will be converted to more economically and ecologically sensible uses.  Brilliant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Southern California there are about a million swimming pools that are rarely used. Many were installed as a way to keep cool before central air conditioning was common. Some were built for &#8220;the kids&#8217; who are now grown and gone. And some were built as a fashion statement. It is time to rethink this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-success"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99jGb-bF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}