Myths and legend - reflections

By now, most of us have heard several myths surrounding health and water. Some of them are worth a good laugh, such as the story about too much chlorine in pool water turning hair green.

But others inspire more concern, such as the one I received from one of our readers, Alice Cunningham, who co-owns a retail store in Seattle. Alice was told by one of her customers that a local hot tub dealer had warned her about the temperature in her hot tub.

The dealer discouraged her from setting the hot tub water above 90 degrees for women or children, saying that those conditions lead to the shrinking of female reproductive organs.

It is obvious that some of our industry professionals need education. It is important to spread the truth about our products so we can pass correct information on to the consumer--and grow our industry responsibly.

Giving you the facts has been part of our mission at Pool & Spa News for decades. In our prior issue, we published a list of facts that retail store owners and their staffs could use to answer customers' questions about pools or spas. You can find that story in the archives section of www.poolspanews.com. Check our Web site for other information resources.

We want to continue our effort to educate retail store owners. You can help us by going to our Forum, also at www.poolspanews.com, and listing any myths that you have heard mentioned. We can take those myths and address them as a collection in a future issue.

Starting on page 38 are pictures and profiles of the Pool & Spa News 2002 Industry's Choice Awards winners. This year, the program has introduced a new type of award. For the past several years, we have had several esteemed builders who, because of their professional excellence, have been voted Industry's Choice Award winners by their peers over and over again. To give them special recognition, we created the Gold Circle Club.

Today's list of 14 members of the Pool & Spa News Gold Circle Club are listed in this issue. More extensive coverage, including photos and profiles can be found in the design section of our Web site. Congratulations to all our winners!

COPYRIGHT 2002 Hanley-Wood, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group