Top 5 Tips In Choosing Pool Safety Alarms

There is nothing like a nice, afternoon dip in the privacy and safety of your own private, backyard pool. But too often, such a concession to the simple pleasures of life could be the cause of tragedy. Statistics reveal that many victims of accidental pool drowning are children under five who evade adult supervision, sometimes for as little as 5 minutes. By the time the adult realizes the absence of the child, it is often too late. One way to circumvent this is with the installation of pool safety alarms.

Pool alarms come in three basic types: wearable devices strapped onto the wrist of a child which is triggered when the child goes into the water; subsurface disturbance sensors that are designed to attach to the side of the pool; and floatable surface wave sensors that are designed to stay on the surface. These were tested by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission under various conditions to determine the reliability of the alarms.

The subsurface sensors were found to be more reliable than the surface wave sensors for alarm triggering and resulted in fewer false alarms for events that could not constitute an event consistent with a child or pet entering the pool undetected. The tests showed that among the three types, the wristband sensor is the most reliable and with the lowest incidence of false alarms.

Another type of alarm, the infrared motion detection alarm was not included in the test. It detects the movements of an adult, child or pet when it interrupts the continuity of the beam surrounding the pool.

There are many pool safety products available in the market such as wristband sensors and other types of pool safety alarms which meet state or local regulations. However, choosing the right kind of pool safety alarms should be carefully considered.

The following tips may be of assistance in making the choice:

  1. The alarm should be easy to install. For wristband sensors, you will need one for each child, and each sensor is associated exclusively to one alarm. It can also be used for pets.
  2. It should be tamper proof. A child must not be able to easily remove the sensor or the actual alarm from his arms.
  3. The range should be far enough to enable placement of the alarm at a strategic place inside the house. Two hundred feet or more is the recommended range. There should also be a remote transmitter with good range.
  4. The alarm should indicate when it is low in battery. The same should be true for the sensor.
  5. For subsurface disturbance and surface wave sensors, the alarm should be able to detect a load of 18 pounds, the approximate weight of a mobile, one-year-old child.
  6. The alarm should be loud and activates within 20 seconds whenever the sensor is dropped in water or when an appropriate object is dropped in the pool.

Personally testing the actual alarm installed in the house at regular intervals is recommended. However, it must be remembered that pool safety alarms are not sufficient in themselves to provide the requisite safety of children from pool accidents. It should be complemented with pool barriers, door alarms and safety pool covers. At all times, vigilance and alertness is necessary to make the backyard swimming pool a safe haven for long, lazy summer afternoons.

Pool Safety