In place of our annual trip to CANCUN in 1999, we are going to attempt
to ignore
winter and pretend that summer never ends. To fool ourselves, we
need warm weather
and a pool to swim in, perhaps a green house for plants.
Yes, it's a 24 foot by 70 foot twinkie, growing out of the side of the house.
Inside the twinkie, is the pool, heated to a comfortable 93 F.
Technical stuff...
Pool - Doughboy 21 foot above ground pool
The twinkie is actually an air supported structure, a
plastic bubble, made of
two layers of 6 mil plastic greenhouse
sheeting. The original size of the sheet
was 42 x 150 feet. The structure is inflated using a
furnace blower.
Heat for the pool is provided by a 400,000
btu pool heater, with water being
circulated using 1 hp pool pump/filter.
The wind was a great big problem pulling the structure apart and requiring frequent rebuilding. Strong storms often lifted the landscaping ties allowing air to excape. As less air was available to support the structure, the wind would then cause even more violent movement of the plastic. It was quite dramatic at times. Strong ropes were used to anchor the structure to existing fence posts. Without these ropes, the structure would have blown away during the first wind storm.
Snow and ice were also a big problem. Thankfully, we didn't
get very much of either. Since the structure couldn't be heated, the snow
and ice couldn't be melted off. So, we devised methods to remove the accumulations,
the best being a push broom with a rope attached to each end. At the end
of each rope you need a fool that will stand in the snow and pull the broom
back and forth to remove the snow. Failure to remove the snow fast enough
rewards you with the structure collapsed into the pool. Then you had to
get into the pool (good thing it was 95 degrees) and lift what seemed like
tons of slush and dump it out, and swim whether you wanted to or not (Ginny
really liked this part and usually had to do it all by herself since I
was hiding at work or out of town....).