One of the most common questions we receive from aquatic users and operators is, “What temperature should I keep my indoor pool?” While that seems like such a simple question, it’s quite complex depending on who the primary users and what types of programs you are offering at your aquatic facility. This question has really transformed indoor aquatics over the past 15 to 20 years as the industry has moved from a single body of water indoors, to multiple bodies of water depending on the needs of the aquatic user groups, competitive, recreational, instructional and wellness and therapy.
Competitive swimming prefers colder water that is typically below 82 degrees, while recreational, instructional and therapy users like it a little warmer, usually 86 or even a little warmer for true therapy purposes (closer to 92 degrees). So, if you only have one body of water and are serving all these various user groups the answer is to keep the water at 84 degrees, so everyone is equally unhappy! In all seriousness, 84 degrees is the happy medium that is just a little warm for competitive users, and a little chilly for recreation and instructional users, but it’s not too extreme for either and both can function for the time they are in the water. One piece of advice that I learned during my days as an aquatic operator, you can never please everyone and will always have complaints about water temperature. This makes it even more important to ensure the water temperature at your facility is always consistent, no matter what that temperature is. The second that 84 becomes 83 you’ll hear about it from the instructional and therapy users, and when 84 becomes 85 you’ll hear about it from the competitive swimmers. Do your best to maintain consistency and to educate your users on why you keep the pools at a certain temperature.
