Have you put up a safety fence around your pool, or are you going to hire full-time lifeguards to watch your kids while they swim this summer? Think about how many kids come to your house when it's hot out and how easy it is for them to get into trouble. Then think about how much peace of mind you want for yourself and your family. The only solution is a fence around the pool.
What could go wrong, anyway?
Without a safety fence around your pool, you leave yourself open to a long list of things that could happen. Drowning is the second most common way for kids under 14 to die from an injury they got by accident. A child can die in the time it takes to flip burgers on the grill or run inside for more cold drinks. You might hear a splash or you might not, but even if you do, it might be too late.
All water activities should be put behind the safety fence around your swimming pool. It's best to keep spas, Jacuzzis, wading pools, and buckets out of harm's way.
Homeowners' liability insurance protects you from the legal consequences of an accident, but a swimming pool safety fence will protect everyone who comes to your house from drowning.
Is a fence all you need?
Perhaps; perhaps not. It depends on how your yard is set up, how easy it is to get to the yard from inside the house, if there are rocks, tables, or chairs that can be used to climb over the fence, and a lot of other things. A fence around a swimming pool should be at least five feet high and impossible to climb. So that children can't get through, no hole should be more than four inches wide. You can put in alarms that make noise so you can hear if someone is coming through the gate. Self-closing and self-latching gates and doors around the pool must have locks that are out of reach of children, and all gates should open outward. You can even put safety covers on your pool to make it even safer. Putting a phone near the pool is another way to make sure help is always close by. You might also want to put up a sign with CPR instructions and tell everyone who uses the pool about it.
At the end of the day, a swimming pool safety fence is the best physical way to keep a child from drowning, but you must also keep an eye on them. As the owner of a swimming pool, it is your job to make sure that your family and anyone else who uses the pool is in a safe and healthy environment. Be vigilant for everyone's sake.
