Solar Roller Aboveground Split-Cover

Aboveground Split-Cover,
originally uploaded by solarfactory.

Solar Roller Aboveground Split-Cover System Demo Video of customer rolling in seconds.

Legislation to Mandate Pool Covers

THE MESSAGE

Just 200 pools using covers can save 3.5 million gallons of wasted water every year. A pool left unchecked can completely evaporate. Energy is also used to create 3.5M gal of drinking water. THIS HAS BEEN THE MESSAGE...

There is a solution now for covering ALL pools that costs less than any other solution out there (~$300 for both cover and roller) and pays for itself lowering your water meter costs.

CONSERVATION BLINDNESS

Yet large corporate pool shop chains like http://pinchapenny.com refuse to even consider the solution saying they don't feel there is an interest by retailers in a recent 3 line product rejection letter. This is a common problem in the corporate level pool industry, no one really cares to support water conservation. There is ONLY one way...

LEGISLATION TO MANDATE POOL COVERS!

We need NATIONAL POOL COVER LEGISLATION NOW! This is the ONLY way industry complies, by mandates. Just like the recent child safety drain covers had to be mandated by law, the industry will not voluntarily comply to change, even though pool covers pay for themselves.

More on how covers save water at http://solarfactory.com/Solar-Factory/Solar-Roller/blog-half-pool-covers.html

THE BIO-COVER

Phase II of this project is to produce a bio-degradable floating pool cover that is NOT a bubble cover. I have a superior design that allows some light through, but is thinner for rolling up and stocking on store shelves everywhere like tarps are now, and lasts longer with a 5 yr life-span and a clean after-life that does NOT clog up landfills like the existing PE bubble covers.

It makes no sense to mandate covers for green reasons just to have them clog up landfills. So the BIO-COVER is the SOLUTION, and only with the 1/2 cover design can ALL POOLS be covered making a MANDATE practical that even pays for itself despite that some agencies are offering rebates to get you covered.

THE ANTI-BACTERIAL BIO-COVER

Thirdly, I can see a future where science can design a cover material with ANTI-BACTERIAL PROPERTIES to further reduce Green Pool Disease, which also contain Mosquito larvae that breeds on pools, especially ones abandoned as homes are left for sale in a market of many foreclosures. These pools must be mandated to not be left to become cesspool mosquito breeding grounds.

I NEED YOUR HELP AND THOUGHTS

If you call yourself a conservationist then PROVE IT. I have put this out dozens of times and even though people say they are Go Green, they DO NOTHING to evaluate my solution for covering pools.

The recent flat 3 line product rejection letter from http://Pinch-a-Penny.com has lit a fire under me. It is extremely depressing on the other hand after investing 20 yrs of my life and all I have (including the sale of my home) to see how the pool industry does not care at all for a solution that over 500 of my direct customers love. But it's not about a product for me anymore, it's about conservation.

QUESTION to you and anyone reading this DISCUSSION.

I am feeling I need to become a NON-PROFIT and devote the patent to the public via the non-profit (else everyone blindly just sees $$ as my motive), and to PUSH FOR NATIONAL MANDATES TO COVER POOLS. I live on a shoestring budget at this point having invested everything, but I want to hear from anyone and everyone about how I would:

1) Easily convert from a C_Corp to Non_Profit and

2) Have a Strategy/Plan/TEAM to FIND LEGISLATORS THAT WOULD SPONSOR A BILL FOR NATIONAL POOL WATER CONSERVATION.

Thanks, David Hoff

Inventor of the Solar Roller Integrated 1/2 Pool Cover System

See my "Rant Marketing" and Green Papers @:

* http://twitter.com/solarfactory
* http://solarfactory.blogspot.com
* http://InventorsDiary.com

Reply to Pinch-a-Penny.com 3 line Rejection Letter

Below is my reply to the narrow minded 3 line flat out product "rejection letter" by www.PinchaPenny.com, a large +100 store retailer based in Florida. My goal here is to expose the stale backward anti-conservationist fat cat thinking that's running (and ruining) our corporations in the pool industry.

Trying to be a nice guy just doesn't work in good ole boy country club world of narcissistic executives. So I am rolling up my sleeves and taking it to the streets.

Help me in the call for:
NATIONAL WATER CONSERVATION LEGISLATION TO MANDATE POOL COVERS ON ALL POOLS.
Just 200 pools using covers can save 3.5 million gallons of water every year for an estimated 200 BILLION gallons nationwide. If you don't care about drought, what's the cost of the energy to produce that drinking water?

Content to also be posted to:
http://inventorsdiary.info
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1493247026
http://solarfactory.blogspot.com
http://davidhoff.ning.com
and more ...

-- the reply --

Hello Tammy, you seemed like a very nice gal on the phone but now I have to state my peace and does not reflect on you personally, but your company.

I just got a "three sentence" rejection letter from Curt Van Leuven stating he doesn't feel my product will generate any interest. I am so insulted that there is no discussion even by your company considering severe drought in GA and the increased focus on water conservation. I have 100's of satisfied customers, and to say there isn't any interest in saving water with drought looming in many places and the energy it takes to produce water, is pure idiocy to say it lightly.

I am not even going to try for a round two with your company, but am fighting head on the attitudes of disinterest toward water conservation in the pool industry, especially by retailers like you. One way of doing this is my http://twitter.com/solarfactory ability to rant and rage against the attitudes of resellers and industry publishers alike, calling it like it is publically and specifically the disinterest toward water conservation by www.pinchapenny.com.

I shall continue to call out awareness of your abject rejection concerning such an important issue as water conservation and that it means so little to you that you can reply with a three line rejection letter when I have spent 20 years of my life fighting for the patents, fighting to protect my trademark getting an injunction against Swimline, selling my home to spend 1/4 million dollars on inventory of over 3000 units sitting in my warehouse, and by the spirit of your letter I should just give up...that there's no interest in such a dumb product as mine!

So I am rolling up my sleeves and you should note to Google for your name in my fight for water conservation and how you don't mind selling Sun Rings that are slow to remove, have a high return rate, are expensive, blow around in winds, bunch up at the end of the pool, don't provide full coverage, take 10 minutes to fish out of the pools only to sit on your deck like a pile of pancakes, and yet you turn your nose up at the Solar Roller that has almost no returns, a high customer satisfaction rate, cost less, works in under 30 seconds, and weighs less than a 3 year old kid because the heavy water drains out the end, and can even roll and stay in the pool for virtually no work at all to use. Plus the patented Solar Roller makes using a pool cover completely safe because you cannot be engulfed by the split-cover solution, and that it provide a ridge of support spanning the cover sections.

Moreover, the old days of narcissistic fat cats sitting in their back rooms making decisions that have no respect for the little guys is over in the age of the internet. My goal is to work with legislation to make covers a mandate, just like it took VGBA legislation to save lives, and I will use this letter as evidence of rejection by the pool industry of innovators trying to provide conservation solutions.

Isn't it irony that the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker had to die before the industry would do the right thing with preventing drain entrapments. So is the pool industry...but look for change in the making.

Thank you,

David Hoff, Inventor CEO
Solar Factory Pool Products, Inc
Folsom, CA 95630
http://solarfactory.com

Solar Roller Half Pool Cover Demo

Solar Roller Installation Demo

Solar Roller ® - Join the HALF POOL COVER Revolution!

Promote WATER CONSERVATION and Join the HALF POOL COVER Revolution! Half Covers are the only way to cover Freeform Pools so every pool can be covered. WHY? It only takes about 200 pools using covers to save an entire city tank of water. Full Cover's TOO BIG, Sun Rings TOO SMALL, Half Cover's JUST RIGHT! Tell your water agencies, PROBLEM SOLVED...

read more | digg story

I need suggestions...

"Half Pool Covers" fit most free-form pools up to L-shapes (that otherwise are unable to be covered) and provide considerable water savings by stopping evapo-tranpiration. Read more at the Solar Factory website.

I need suggestions for how to get half-covers included in more local rebate programs and recognized by water districts in the way that Las Vegas is already doing.

Suggestions, please!

Water Conservation using Half Pool Covers

2009-01-27

WHITE PAPER: Revolutionary Use of Half Pool Covers Every year swimming pools are wasting billions of gallons of water that can be saved. This paper addresses the problems with the current use of full pool covers and how half covers are the solution to pool water conservation. It is well known that pool covers can reduce water evaporation by up to 95%, yet less than 30% of pools are using covers. The current limitations imposed by full covers for the most part boils down to two problems. The Twofold Problem First, full covers are difficult to stock. Full covers are bulky and must be stocked in 50 or more sizes requiring a sizable amount of floor space to have covers on hand for the myriad of pool sizes. If a size goes out of stock, the customer has to wait until the warehouse reorders another truckload of covers. This distribution and stocking problem severely limits the available stock on hand at any one time and prevents the customer from being able to purchase on demand. Second, full covers for the most part fit only rectangular shaped pools. Covers initially come off the production line as sheets in rectangular shapes and are heat seamed together for various widths. They can be further cut into oval or round sizes, but nevertheless most of the pools built today are irregular free-form shapes and custom designs. In order to accommodate free-form pool shapes the customer many times must oversize the cover which means ordering an even larger than needed cover and cookie-cutting the cover to the free-form pool using the inside of the pool cove as a guide. This however can create a lot of waste. And how do you accommodate say an L-shape pool? The twofold solution is that by using half covers, the number of cover sizes for distribution and stocking can be reduced from over 50 to just 4 half cover sizes (see below) which can be mixed-n-matched to work with almost all pools up to L-shapes solving both of the aforementioned issues. Encouraging the industry to distribute half covers allows more people that ever to cover their pools. This practical way of using half covers revolutionizes the way covers are stocked and distributed, never incurring oversize shipping charges, and allows dealers to have covers in stock so pool owners never go home empty handed. By solving the problems preventing all pools to use covers, in the wake of water shortages that are only getting worse, it becomes a mandate to encourage all pools to be covered. The Added Problem with Handling Full Covers Another overwhelming limitation to full cover usage is that historically the only device sold for handling these covers has been the deck reel, an expensive bulky towel rack like device that sits at the end of the pool consuming valuable deck space. The problem with deck reels is that even if you cookie-cut your over-sized cover to fit your free-form pool, deck reels do not handle curvy free-form pool covers very well. Also if you have limited or no deck space where are you going to put your reel? That said, as things stand today, only pools that can accommodate a deck reel have a solution for taking the covers on and off the pool, which is much like having invented breakthrough inflatable rubber tires for the auto industry, but no jack to remove them with on 70% of the cars. For all those millions of pools without a jack, there is an innovative half cover rolling solution that can assist in the removal and handling of covers for pools that can't use a deck reel. Because most custom free-form pools cannot use a traditional deck reel, many of those pool owners are already splitting their bulky pool covers to make them easier to remove by hand, and are doing so at the advice of pool shops who want to sell them a cover, but cannot sell them a reel. The half cover rolling device just takes this a step further, and makes it possible for custom free-form pool owners who want to purchase a cover to have a means to handle the cover too. The Industry Change to Half Cover Distribution As mentioned above to be expounded on here, distribution of full pool covers today is a nightmare for distributors because full cover distribution requires a multitude of covers sizes to support the many different size pools out there. Enabling custom shaped pools to use half pool covers, the plan is to revolutionize the way covers are distributed, lowering the cost for everyone and making stock on hand a top priority to solve the problem with special ordering or waiting for a cover to come in stock. Four Sizes: Employing the revolutionary strategy to provide half pool covers will solve this problem to support the majority of pools under 20x40ft. By shifting to the four size distribution model, half cover sizes (14x14, 16x16, 18x18, 20x20) can be mixed and matched to each half of the pool. Furthermore, online internet retailers can ship the lighter more compact half cover sizes, avoiding dreaded overcharges due to weight, making shipping costs more predicable and controllable. For handling the covers, stores can provide the lightweight compact half cover roller device that currently ships coast-to-coast at a fraction of the cost of the heavier/bulkier deck reels which require two boxes. For anyone doing business over the internet, shipping lighter and more compact half covers alone is a remarkable dollar saving breakthrough. Out of the Warehouse and Into the Stores: For retail stores, by reducing pool cover stock sizes from the multitude of covers sizes (that must be special ordered from the warehouse and delivered next day or longer if on back order) to just four sizes, covers can easily be stocked right at the store. With the new half cover distribution model, retailers can now have "stock on hand" for immediate purchase. Having stock on hand will substantially increase cover sales helping people more than ever not only have a warm pool, but most importantly conserve water and chemicals to help our environment. Potential Market Expansion using Half Covers Water agencies realizing the great value of pool covers to save water are beginning to offer rebates toward the purchase of a pool cover. For instance, Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) offers a $50 rebate for pool covers. On the international stage the hard hit drought stricken Australia offers pool owners a $200 rebate toward a cover and roller system. Getting the Word Out: In light of the pressing need for pool covers, the greatest need is to inform everyone that the concept of using "whole pool covers" to cover the entire pool severely limits the distribution of covers, and also requires the consumer to purchase an expensive and awkward deck reel, or remove the cover by hand; emphasizing too that this solution only works on less than 30% of pools substantially limiting "use" of covers. Conversely, using the Split-Cover System, almost all pools can now use a cover, and is more cost effective for everyone resulting in higher sustainable sales for the industry overall. A few years ago an alternative product called Sun Rings came into the market and many retail and online stores are carrying them, but a typical pool needs 10-15 rings at over $30/ea, the rings can bunch up at the end of the pool on windy days, are slow to fish out of the pool one at a time, and according to some retailers have thus experienced a higher customer return rate. On the other hand, the half cover system has a high customer satisfaction rate. It's easy to see then that whole covers are too big, Sun Rings are too small, and half covers are just right. Water Conservation Programs & Rebates Current water shortages in parts of the nation, especially as mentioned in western U.S. areas like Las Vegas, are requiring communities to be on year round water restrictions and may potentially drive the increased demand and expansion of the pool cover market. Programs such as Water Smart in the Las Vegas area, and Water Sense sponsored by the EPA are dedicated to conservation. Additional programs by agencies offer pool cover rebates at participating dealers. To do it's part in the fight for water conservation nationwide, the half pool cover distribution model will greatly assist in supplying stores everywhere with just-in-time stock on hand. In this way over time we will be helping to save billions of gallons of wasted water nationwide, by facilitating the distribution of pool covers in a much needed and better way. It takes about only 200 pools using a cover to save an entire city tank of water because a pool left unchecked for a year can completely evaporate... and that's a lot of wasted water! Water Loss Calculation Let's calculate the number of wasted tanks of drinking water through evaporation by pools. Sacramento: Using an average evaporation rate of 17,500 gallons/pool annually, it takes only 200 pools to waste an entire city tank of water. If Sacramento has over 50,000 pools, then Sacramento alone wastes 250 tanks of city water every year (or) 2,125,000,000 (that's BILLION) gallons of water every year! What's that make you think about when they start rationing water and your lawn's going brown, while your bill's going up? The 17,500 gallon/annual evaporation figure is probably conservative (other reports site 1.5"/week). In Australia one study by Sealed Air Corporation states over 86,000 liters per year, or over 22,700 gallons annually evaporates from the pool. In Las Vegas, the average is 100 inches per year, yet all evaporation rates vary depending on a number of conditions. Nationwide: If the nation has around 8.5 million inground swimming pools, then nationally we waste 42,500 tanks of water every year. This amounts to 42,500(tanks) x 3,500,000(gals) = 148,750,000,000 gallons of water annually in the US alone. Again, that's BILLIONS! Add an additional 30% for aboveground pools to approximate another 45 billion gallons of water evaporation, and we are looking at almost 200 billions gallons of water wasted annually in the U.S. alone. Aside from the water conservation issue, think about the cost of energy used to process and create that amount of drinking water. Worldwide: Now think worldwide and one doesn't have to ask if this is an issue that is rife to be addressed with a sense of urgency by all parties involved. About the Rolling Device The key to the innovative half cover solution is the Split-Cover System that rolls half the cover at a time, so almost all pools up to L-shapes are able use a pool cover. The patented system includes two individual free-floating rollers that are fastened directly to the underside of the buoyant half covers, each roller spanning the middle of each half cover. Custom locking fasteners are used that button the rollers to the covers and are removable if you wish to detach the covers in the off season. The lightweight free-floating adjustable length rollers span across the middles of each half cover (similar to how reels are placed across the middle of a round pool) but are directly fastened to the underside of the cover. The rollers are supported entirely by the buoyancy of the cover, so nothing attaches to the pool and is completely free-floating with the cover. To operate the system, the customer just pops on a removable crank handle to one end of the roller tube to begin the rolling process. By turning the crank, the roller pulls both ends of the cover into the middle to wrap around itself right on the water, resulting in nice compact floating roll that, once the water drains from the end, weighs less than 30 lbs (about the weight of a 3 year old), so is compact and easy to handle. When not in use the device is completely hidden so is not an eye sore to your beautiful backyard pool setting that you paid so much for. The innovative split cover remedy in short requires no deck space, accommodates almost any shape pool up to L-shape pools, is light/compact and completely hidden, and is easy enough to roll a cover in under thirty seconds. Switching to the easier to distribute half pool covers endeavors to help the millions of custom pool owners by providing them a practical solution and a choice they never had before, and moreover, to help us all do a better job at conserving precious water. Conservation is the Goal In summary, the half cover distribution model will be doing it's part to conserve water and support the cause of many water starved communities (such as Las Vegas, Australia, and others) that are water rationing and promoting pool covers through rebates so consumers will do the right thing and cover their pools. Efforts to change the way pools are covered will revolutionize the distribution and stocking of pool covers, leading the industry to change it's distribution model which will dramatically conserve precious water. In the half cover distribution world, retailers and wholesalers will never be out of stock utilizing the revolutionary "just in time" stock on hand distribution model. Retail stores will more than ever have an incentive and the ability to stock covers at the store for immediate sale, rather than special order from the warehouse requiring customers to come back for pickup, and wholesalers will move more inventory out of the warehouse and into stores. The warehouse will benefit because they can enjoy the same profit margins, but move stock immediately out to retailers rather than waiting for truckload deliveries in their space constrained warehouses. And the customer will be able to get what they want, when they want it so that everybody wins in the never ending fight for water conservation. Questions and Comments Please send any questions, comments, and suggestions about this device for your pool to info@solarfactory.com or visit www.solarfactory.com.

Share This Description TITLE: Solar Roller ® - Join the HALF POOL COVER Revolution! DESCRIPTION: Help Promote WATER CONSERVATION! Half Pool Covers are the only way to cover Freeform Pools so every pool can save water. It only takes about 200 pools using covers to save an entire city tank of water. Full Cover's TOO BIG, Sun Rings TOO SMALL, Half Cover's JUST RIGHT! TAG: (suggestions) water, conservation, swimming, pool, covers, save, solar, cover, roller, reel