Who hasn’t sat and watched those old episodes of Gilligan’s Island and couldn’t help but admire the great, classic thatched roof huts. They used to be in style, you know, and Frank Sinatra was said to be a big fan of them and even had one out by his pool.

Bring the Tropics to You

It’s just simply impossible to be in a bad frame of mind when your sitting in in any type of ski enclosure and time seems to simply stand still. The good news is that they are coming back into style and are springing up in backyards everywhere. Hey! If you can’t get to the tropics then why not bring them to you!

You May Need an Approved Set of Plans

You really shouldn’t need any permits to build one in your backyard but that all changes if you are running power or water to it. If this is the case then you will need a complete set of plans that have to be approved by the county planning office.

Staying in Code Yet Retaining the Light Look

That can be a problem, because they have specific rules that govern how any structure can be built. A light structure such as a tiki hut may have some problems getting approved. One idea is to talk to others that have built them and see how they got around all of those problems.

The Floor of Your Tiki Hut

It seems to me that a simple cement floor might work best for your hut. It’s the same style of floor that you will find in the beach front, thatched roof palapas in Mexico. They also use steel pipe wrapped with rope and rough driftwood in the framing and it looks great!

Bring on the Margaritas!

There are some good sources for plans and materials online now, so you will definitely want to access them. Also, many of these same online venues have lots of tiki hut supplies as well. Also, don’t forget to pick up a good tropical drink recipe book because your going to need it.

Written by Jenny Gremoland. Find the best articles on the net about tropical hut including grass hut.

One of the great recreational innovations of the past ten years is salt water swimming pools. Their incredible popularity can be traced to two specific issues; maintenance and cost. For many years, pools had a reputation for being labor intensive on the maintenance side and running up big monthly bills for chemicals and upkeep. Salt water swimming pools have eliminated a large part of these issues. While the initial costs are higher and some maintenance is still required; most homeowners find the systems preferable to traditional chlorine tablets. The following are answers to some commonly asked questions you should know before purchasing your system.

• How Does It Work? Answer: As the name would suggest; salt water swimming pools involve the process of adding salt (about 20 lb. Per: 1,000 gallons) to your pool water. The water is then moved by the pump through cells consisting of titanium plates that are electrically charged; converting the salt into pure chlorine.
• What’s the Cost? Answer: Electronic chlorine generators for above ground pools run from $150 to around $ 500 depending on the manufacturer and the size of the pool. The price range for in ground models is between $ 600 and $ 1,200. Even though the upfront cost is more than traditional systems; the expense will be recouped many times over in savings on chlorine tablets.
• Will the water be salty like the ocean? Answer: No; the water may have a slight taste of salt, but will only have about one tenth the salinity level of ocean water.
• Will it eliminate the need for chemicals? Answer: No; while it will eliminate the need for chemical chlorine and reduce the needed amounts of other chemicals, some amounts of muriatic acid, calcium chloride, stabilizer, and other chemicals will need to be used from time to time to control ph, total alkalinity, calcium hardness, and other occasional conditions.
• What are the major advantages of salt water swimming pools? Answer: Easier maintenance reduced chemical costs, no chlorine odor, less irritation of the eyes and skin, and better control of water chemistry.
• Are there disadvantages to salt water swimming pools? Answer: The salt can be corrosive to metal equipment and patio furniture (granular and tablet chlorine is also) and it can cause scaling on tile and decks, which can be rinsed off with water. Overall, the effects are about equal to chemically chlorinated water.

Hopefully, we’ve helped clear up some of the issues concerning salt water swimming pools. Thanks for reading and good luck!

For a complete guide to saving money by taking care of your own pool maintenance; go to http://www.yourselfhomerepair.com/poolmaintenance-guide.html

For more tips and pool care advice; visit our website at http://www.yourselfhomerepair.com/swimmingpools.html

Glenn Whitehead is a former general contractor with over 25 years experience in the construction industry in Houston, TX. He is currently the webmaster of YourselfHomeRepair.com, a do it yourself home repair and improvement site with how to articles, tips for finding contractors, and help preparing contract documents

The cheapest way to heat your pool is to uses the free heat of the sun, but the initial out lay for the kit is quite high. Lets have a look at whats needed to heat a pool, and how it can be done on a budget.

Every solar heating system takes pool water, pumps it through a heat exchanger, and returns the water to the pool at a higher temperature. The method of pumping the water is usually the pools filtration circulating pump, which can often be quite large, in the 1 to 2 horse power range. this means that to heat your pool you would need to run your filter pump for up to 8 hours a day, which uses 6000 watts of electricity a day or 6 kwh.

The second part of the system is the heat exchanger, commonly these are glazed solar panels with a pipe looping back and forth across the panel to absorb as much of the suns heat as it can, typically the area of the solar panels needs to be greater than 50% of the pool area, and often up to the whole pool area in size to give a sufficient increase in temperature.

The forth part of the system is a controller that ensures that the system only runs when there is a difference in temperature between the heat in the heat exchanger and the water in the pool. If the system was to run while the pool was hotter than the panels the heat would be radiated away.

A solar heating system using the traditional solar panels could cost you between $2000 and $4000 depending on the manufacturer you choose,

ALTERNATIVES

If you have ever left your garden hose laying in the sun you will know how hot the water can get, so lets consider using black irrigation hose to heat the water, you will need an area that is as large as possible, possibly a roof where you can loop the pipe back and forth without kinking it. The area needs to be flat, (no humps and bumps) but can be inclined. The water would be pumped to the top of the incline and allowed to run back to the pool picking up heat on the way, the more pipe that you can add to the run the better, think in terms of 500 meters of three quarter inch inside diameter tube. If you are laying a patio around the pool, lay as much of the pipe in to the concrete just below the tile level as the concrete will get hot in the sun and transfer that heat to the tube. The cost of 500 meters of black irrigation pipe should not be more that about $100.

The pump is the next thing to consider, the 1hp filter pump will cost around $0.75 to $1.00 a day to run, so lets look at a 12 volt dc surface pump that will lift the pool water to the top of the incline, and if you connect it to a solar electric panel will work all the hours of sunlight for nothing. the other advantage of this method is that you can do without a controller as the pump will only work when the sun is out.

You would need to make sure the pump you choose will lift the water to the height that you need, but you should be able to find a solar pump for under $200, which apart from the time it takes to install will give you a cheap solar pool heating system for about $300 with zero running costs

by Graham A Taylor,
for more information about pool heating, visit poolheatinginfo.com