A few years ago, during my many visits to swimming pools as a safety expert, I talked to their owners about how they regulated the water level. And the answers often made me smile …
The classic method is to throw the hose into the pool and turn on the tap.
This is without counting on the twisted character of the hoses, which are waving in all directions like a revolting snake, to finally either water the owner (the blow of the sprinkler watered), or slyly wait for him to leave to get out of the pool and water the flowerbeds. It is therefore necessary to calculate the right length of hose to be immersed in the pool, which depends on the character of each hose, or even more safely wedge the hose on the beach. To do this, fetch the cinder block that hangs behind the technical room, or move that heavy teak sunbathing mat that is at the other end of the beach…
There is still the problem of the filling level.
Mathematicians get away with it by calculating the average flow rate of the pipe (number of mm filled per minute), the height to be filled, to arrive at a given filling time. They then program an alarm that will warn them when, when they return to close the tap, they will find that their calculations are wrong!
Empirical studies estimate the necessary filling time at a glance. Their intuitions are also often wrong. It is generally noted that the first two visits to the basin show that it is not sufficiently filled. Two cases follow: either the time scheduled for the third visit is too long – and the pool is too full, or the owner forgets this third visit, and the pool is far too full… In any case, water is often wasted – because if the pool is too full, it must be emptied … And how long does it take to empty it 😉
Some owners have told me that they have used every possible trick to make sure they turn off the water on time: program an alarm on their phone, involve designated co-responsible persons… Some of them programmed the alarm on the kitchen oven … But regularly, the co-responsibles are irresponsible and the oven alarm is inaudible …
Listening to all these testimonials – and after letting my pool overflow more than once myself, being both a bad mathematician and a distracted person – I decided to invent the automatic – and removable – water level regulator – NivOmatic!
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