Door Alarm - leading to the pool - experience with which ones are best?

[Michelle Creek]

I'm in CA and our city is telling us a removable fence is not enough, and that we must get door alarms. I see they offer special pool door alarms and regular ones online...but really, what is needed for pool safety? We're doing away with the fence since it's not requried and using a pool safety net. The alarm is also needed. Any help on which ones are good and what features are important would be great.

Thanks!

[PoolDoc]

You probably want to check and see if there's a list of "approved" devices . . . for whatever jurisdiction governs you.

And be sure to find THIS year's list! A lot of regulatory stuff is more about heedless "Well, something has to be done" driven by political considerations, than it is about a reasoned and proportionate response. As a result, the regulation comes first, and the reasoning follows later, if at all. This, in turn, results in some pretty extreme instability in requirements when regulations are new.

For example, this year the US CPSC threw out all the approvals for commercial drain covers on the Friday before Labor Day weekend . . . AND mandated immediate replacement. I'm not even sure if there ARE any approved replacements, but I know the local wholesaler didn't have any.

I'm reminded of a quote my younger son has on his Facebook: "Trying to get a politician to do something good for the country is like trying poke a cat out from under the porch, using a piece of rope". (For all you big city folk, that means it's hard to do ;-)