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The backyard story

Apparently it was a bad winter in New England for swimming pools. Have no idea what that means? I’ll tell you. It’s supposed to snow before it gets really cold. The snow insulates the ground and keeps the ground from getting especially cold. If it doesn’t snow early enough, the ground gets cold and creates frost heaves. The frost heaves rise up and attack your pool liner. Your pool liner tears and pours gallons upon gallons of murky, smelly, greenish water into your yard. The water rises up, finds a crack in an old window that doesn’t ever even see daylight, and pours into your recently remodeled basement. Your husband assumes that the water is due to melting snow, so the two of you (note:one of you is pregnant) spend half the night mopping it up, digging a trench, and trying to seal the aforementioned window. Meanwhile, the missing water in the pool is no longer available to hold up the pool cover which is heavily encrusted with ice (which I insisted would be a problem last fall and which my husband insisted wouldn’t). The pool cover pulls down on the pool walls. Since they no longer have water to hold them up, they buckle and the whole less-than-two-years-old-multi-thousand-dollar-pool collapses.

Here’s another lesson. Pool warranties don’t cover damage due to ice. Oh, and another. Insurance companies (at least the one we bleed money to) also don’t cover damage due to ice. How do they know the damage was caused by ice if no one has come out to see the pool? Good question. Apparently, mentioning “ice” in a conversation with your insurance agent is enough to remove any chance that you’ll see a penny from them.

After much debate, we bought a pool from a different company. If you’re in Massachusetts or New Hampshire and looking for a pool company, drop me a note. I want to tell you one specific company to avoid (for more reasons than a collapsed pool).

Anyway, the pool was installed last weekend and I can’t wait to swim., First we have to get the pump up and running before the mosquitos permanently take up residence in our back yard. Hopefully between Little Guy and Little Gal, I’ll have a moment to take a dip. And hopefully, this winter is a better one for swimming pools.

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