Top 5 reasons why a pool fence is important

The importance of pool fencing cannot be stressed enough when it comes to the safety of your family. Imagine what would happen if your young one accidentally tripped over and fell into the pool? Regardless of whether they can swim, a pool in your backyard without a fence is an accident just waiting to happen if children are also nearby. What if this happened to you or your friends? Well, you don’t have to worry if you have a fence around your pool, since this may help prevent such accidents. In addition to that, and most importantly, having a barrier around your fence is the law in Australia.

Here are five reasons why I think that a pool fence is so important and hopefully these will make you consider installing one today.

1. It prevents drowning

When I talk about accidents around a pool I’m thinking more of someone slipping on the edge and hurting themselves, or accidentally falling in when they weren’t intending to get into the pool. A child drowning isn’t an accident, it’s a preventable tragedy. A fence around your pool is critical to preventing children from drowning, by preventing physical access to the pool by young children when they’re not being supervised. A pool fence will ensure that your young ones can’t access the pool area without having supervision from an adult. So, preventing children from accessing the pool and therefore reducing the risk of drowning is the number one reason to get a pool fence, that’s why it’s at the top of my list. It is also a recommended security feature for households with disabled or special needs people. Thus, having this poolside fence along with handicapped access ramp and hand drills may be a reasonable expense covered by NDIS funds. 

 

2. Safety of animals

You may not have thought of this one before but if your pool is located in the backyard, chances are that animals may be tempted to investigate your pool and either jump in or fall in. This could mean more work to keep the pool clean, or in the worst case, an animal of a pet could become trapped in the pool and drown.

Even if you don’t have a pet, your neighbours might have a cat or a dog that could get into your backyard. Cats obviously can climb fences and love to wander and explore the local area. While it’s common for dogs to dig under suburban fences to escape their own backyard, or even jump over the fence at times. (Especially during fireworks, dog’s often get very scared of the noise and in a panic will jump over fences and barriers that you would otherwise think can contain them).

So having pool fencing can prevent animal drownings.

 

3. Enhances the safety of your backyard

The whole idea of pool fences is to provide you and your family with safety, right? With a pool fence you will not have to worry about leaving your children playing outside around the pool. After all, there is a barrier between their playground and the water in the pool.

Now apart from children its still easy for anyone else to accidentally fall into the pool.

My grandparents had a pool without a fence in their frontyard (many years ago when it was acceptable to not fence off a pool).

One day they were throwing a party outdoors, and when one of the guests arrived and saw my grandmother, they marched over excitedly to greet her. The guest was so excited that they didn’t see the pool (it did still have the cover on) and they stepped right into the pool and plunged in fully clothed! Fortunately they weren’t hurt but a pool fence would have prevented anyone from falling in accidentally.

 

4. Keeps the pool clean

Everyone loves swimming in a clean pool. Everyone likes looking at a clean pool. A fence around it will always make sure that the pool stays free from any large unwanted waste items like papers that may be blown in by wind or even branches or large leaves.

Ok so a pool fence is only going to stop large items, (well not all large items judging by this pic) if you want to keep leaves out you’ll need a pool cover, but if there’s a big storm with crazy winds a pool fence will stop your outdoor furniture from ending up in the pool 😉

 

5. Isolation of the swimming pool from your house

A pool fence creates a separation from your main house. When a fence is safely installed, it effectively creates a barrier between your house and the swimming area. So even if your young children wander around the house unsupervised, the fence will always prevent them from accessing the pool area.

Pool fencing doesn’t require that much work or expense to install. There’s cheap pool fencing options if you’re worried about the overall cost and if you’re handy there’s DIY pool fence installation options as well. In the end, whether your pool fence is expensive or moderately priced, the safety it provides will give you a peace of mind that is worth far more than money.