Removable Pool Fences

I was reading recently about removable pool fences and thought at first that this was just another name for temporary pool fencing. But after a quick bit of research, it turns out that they are very different ways of fencing off a pool.

I found in company in the United States called protect-a-child that offers a removable pool fence product made of mesh and posts to form the section of fence. Each section is fixed to the ground via a twist-lock mechanism that means adults can remove the posts, but children cannot. The fence sections then have latches to lock them together.

There’s another company that makes a similar product but the fence panels are made from “poly-coated, open-weave mesh black fabric” which sounds like a cheap material but not particularly long-lasting.

I guess the idea here is that when only adults are around, you can remove all the fence sections and have an uninterrupted view of your pool, then when children come to the house you can re-install the fence.

Firstly that seems like an ineffective method of ensuring a pool is safely fenced from children, because let’s say friends pop-in unexpectedly with their kids, you then need to quickly dash outside and unpack your pool fence then go around twisting in the poles and re-installing the fence. That, or lock the children inside the house. Both of those scenarios seem like they’re not worth the hassle of a removable pool fence, and also they’re simply not a safe way of ensuring children can’t access your pool without supervision.

In terms of a removable pool fence in Australia, I can’t really find any pool fencing suppliers who sell one. And that’s a good thing. The only time I can think that you might want to use a removable pool fence is if you have an inflatable pool and want to fence it while you leave water in it. But, the removable pool fencing products I mentioned above, and any others I can find online, don’t comply with Australian pool fencing regulations. And if safety is the primary concern here, then complying with the regulations is the best way to ensure that.

And before you even get into pool fence panel gaps or materials, I’m pretty sure that removable pool fencing stumbles at the first hurdle because Section 2.1 of  AS 1926.1-2012 states:

The barrier shall be a permanent structure.