Tales from the trenches.
I inspected a unique pool recently, which you would need to use your imagination
to understand why it is unique. It was built over structural concrete vaults above
a five-car garage. The vaults were about four feet tall and accessible through
a hatch in the corner of the twelve-foot garage ceiling, which allowed me to discover
that water was leeching through the side wall of an in-pool spa. But that's not
what concerned me. What concerned me was sensible access and egress to the pool,
and this is where you will need to use your imagination. Think of it as a rectangle,
similar to a lap-pool but wider, with “potential” access and egress from all four
sides. A conventional guardrail that paralleled the deepest end, and separated
a guest bedroom deck from the pool, prevented any sensible access or egress. At
the opposite end, there was a reasonably large deck that at first glance appeared
to grant access, but a ridiculously cramped spa took up most of the space, and
left only a pie-shaped access-strip between the pool and the house, narrowing
from twenty-four to eighteen inches, unless of course one chose to enter the pool
by stepping down in to the spa and climbing over its dam. On the one side is the
house itself, with a bank of French doors opening onto a sixteen inch strip of
coping stone separating it from the pool, meaning that one could access the pool
by simply opening one of the French doors and stepping or jumping in. By jumping
in one would be risking injury, and diving in would be tantamount to suicide.
But, believe it or not, both of these are actually sensible alternatives when
one considers the last one. On the opposite side is a similar sixteen inch strip
of coping stones, paralleled by a fourteen inch guardrail, and a sheer drop of
approximately thirty feet to the street below; that's right, a sixteen inch wide
strip, with a fourteen inch tall guardrail, and a sheer drop of thirty feet to
the street below. Whoever designed this pool, whoever built it, and whoever issued
a permit and approved its certificate of occupancy, has absolutely no common sense
whatsoever. This pool is a bloody nightmare, and a lawsuit waiting to happen.
And, remember, to build to code means to build to the lowest possible standard,
and a permit is nothing more than a piece of paper issued by a bureaucrat who
is virtually indemnified against prosecution.
KEITH SWIFT
Porter Valley Software, Inc.
Get your FREE Avoiding Litigation CD: http://www.pvsoftware.com/nachi.htm
Dr. Swift will be a featured speaker at InterNACHI's national convention in Orlando
Florida: https://www.nachi.org/convention2006.htm
Commercial software: https://www.nachi.org/pvscommercial.htm
Porter Valley Software discount: https://www.nachi.org/portervalley.htm
Lorne Steiner becomes InterNACHI's Director at Large: https://www.nachi.org/directoratlarge.htm
