SwimmingPoolsThailand

We are pleased to announce that our Thailand Online Swimming Pool Shop is back online after a major refurbishment.

We would like to thank all our customers in the Na Klua, Banglamung, Nong Prue, Jomtien , and Huay Yai areas who continued to send in their orders by email, phone, and fax.

We are sure that new and existing customers will appreciate the much improved shopping experience, now available also in German and French.

For most products we can now offer same day shipping for orders confirmed before 12:00 noon.

Thanks also to ThaiVisa.com for your support throughout our downtime.

We are pleased to announce that our Thailand Online Swimming Pool Shop is back online after a major refurbishment.

We would like to thank all our customers in Chiang Mai who continued to send in their orders by email, phone, and fax.

We are sure that new and existing customers will appreciate the much improved shopping experience, now available also in German and French.

Thanks also to ThaiVisa.com for your support throughout our downtime.

We have an account with PayPal.

About 25% of our customers use it for paying for their orders by credit/debit card or their PayPal accounts. We do not know where their PayPal accounts are located. Many of our customers are absent from their second homes in Thailand when they place their orders and they are possibly using PayPal/credit card accounts that are not registered in Thailand.

Our PayPal account is headquartered in Singapore. All communications with them and with our customers are in English but the GUI allows us to select another language if we wish. The default language for this region is Thai.

Many web sites adjust their content according to the geolocation of the IP address that is being used by the computer or mobile device you connect to the Internet with but you can usually override this to show the language of your choice.

The Thailand Online Swimming Pool Shop

by Swimming Pools Thailand Ltd

Our new online store goes live at 08:00 Monday 16 February.

For the vast majority of our existing clients it has been business as usual.

We would like to express our thanks for everyone's patience and we hope you will enjoy the improved shopping experience.

In the meantime we can of course still be contacted at:

0800 893 646 HOTLINE English, French, German, Thai, and SMS messages (no voicemail). Enquiries about current orders. New orders by phone. Product and pool maintenance advice.

042 372 440 Central admin and answering machine. Pool construction office.

0423 72 441 Warehouse

042 372 442 Shipping office

042 372 443 Fax

Thank you all again for your comprehension and we apologise once more most sincerely for any inconvenience.

Thanks also to ThaiVisa.com for all your support during this process.

Some of you will have noticed that our website is currently down and showing a '404' alert.

We would just like to reassure our hundreds of customers and thousands of enquirers that we are still very much in business.

Our online store has grown at such a phenominal rate that it has overtaken the capacity of our server. SwimmingPoolsThailand is Southeast Asia's 'Amazon' of pool supplies and equipment and although our warehouse capacicity has grown with the demand, our server can no longer cope with the thousands of photos, product descriptions, and online shopping technology required for our operation.

Our webmasters are in the process of urgently installing new server hardware in our racks at the Bangkok Data Centre and we hope to be back online as quickly as possible.

In the meantime we can of course be contacted at:

0800 893 646 HOTLINE English, French, German, Thai, and SMS messages (no voicemail). Enquiries about current orders. New orders by phone. Product and pool maintenance advice.

042 372 440 Central admin and answering machine. Pool construction office.

0423 72 441 Warehouse

042 372 442 Shipping office

042 372 443 Fax

Thank you for your comprehension and we apologise most sincerely for any inconvenience.

UPDATE

This is not a cell from the chlorinators manufactured by Minder Pty, Australia. It is a cell from a model named Minder that was manufactured by the Autumn Solar Co, also in Australia. The cell unit and its parts are now obsolete . They can be replaced by the complete new cell unit (see photo) which however needs a minor plumbing change.

thank you very much for your input,,,, the brand name Is called Minder and the size is 8 inches in long and 3 inch wide,,,cheers,,,

The Minder Co. is a very small Australian company so international distribution may not be their strong point. However, their management is extremely responsive and helpful, and we will be posting here again as soon as we have their information regarding the availability of your cell housing.

If you know the brand, an extensive web search will almost certainly come up with something.

From the look of the product (square cell enclosure) it could be an older Hurlcon model (since liquidated and purchased by Astral). Bear in mind however, that retailers here in Thailand will probably only stock spare parts for the major brands of chlorinators that are sold here with sufficient demand to provide a performing after sales service and customer support, and even then only stock the major parts and components. Hurlcon was not one of the widely distributed brands although their products enjoyed a good reputation worldwide..

That said, the price you have been quoted is almost certainly for the cell unit (see some examples of spare parts for chlorinators in Thailand) and even then, all the individual parts of the cells such as the plastic enclosure may not be available. Baht 5,000.00 is indeed about the right price for the plastic enclosure, if you can get it.

If your unit is 10 years old, like SureChlore chlorinators from Poolrite, a former leading quality manufacturer who also recently went into liquidation, your product may be long obsolete and you may not be able to get spare parts at all. Complete generic cells and/or electrode inserts may be available online, but beware of the often excessively high shipping costs demanded by overseas pool stores and warehouses when supplyng to Thailand.

At the end of the day, you may be best advised to invest Baht 21,000.00 towards the cost of a new chlorinator of a brand that is widely distributed in Thailand, and from a retailer (whether online or a real store) who is a genuine accredited manufacturer's agent. There are only three brands that are widely sold here in Thailand.

Very honourable of you not to plug the fact that you stock both Weber and Crocodile platinum grouting Mr Swimming Pools Thailand.

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Our posts here are perfectly in accordance with the rules and regulations for ThaiVisa sponsors.

We do not stock Weber swimming pool grout in large quantities, however, it is our policy to offer a catalog of pool prducts as complete as possible. We carry a significant stock of Crocodile Platinum grout, mainly for our own use with swimming pool construction / refurbishment contracts. What we stock, we also offer online.

For online customers who live in urban areas, we do not hesitate to inform them that they can purchase some products slightly more economically in their nearby retail outlets. According to some sources, there may actually be more expats living in rural areas than in the traditional 'farang' hotspots, some of whom live 100s of Km from their nearest physical swimming pools supplies store or major building materials/home improvements hypermarket.

Both products are designed specifically for pools. It is a question of budget and/or customer preference. By default, we stock and use Crocodile Platinum grout for pools on small to medium domestic pool builds because it impacts less on the price of the pool.

On commercial and/or large budget pools, we let the customer decide after explaining the price difference. On high profile projects, the architects sometimes specify Weber, but probably just because they believe 'expensive is better'.

It is very difficult to get labour teams to tile and grout pools properly even if you show them how and provide them with the right tools. It is the moment when you have to supervise the construction every minute of the day because if you don't, they will do it their way, which is the wrong way, the long way, and often very wasteful of the expensive pool grout.

Using expensive Muifa or TheThreeTouch 'antique' style tiles is asking to use up to three or even four times time more grout than normal, thinner, close-laid tiles.

The special Crocodile Platinum for swimming pools is in stock at most larger Home Mart stores, but they will order it for you.

The Weber brand pool grout is sold in Global House and possibly in some branches of Thai Watsadu, Do Home, and Home Hub. It is about twice the price of the Crocodile.

No truly professional pool constructor would use any normal grout.

To prevent problems with grout and any other cementicious materials in pools, it is extremely important to maintain a correct water chemistry. In particular the Total Alkalinity and water hardness levels. Most people are not even aware of the importance of maintaining these levels, being content just to measure pH and Total Chlorine with the cheap simple test kits in the blue box (which are OK for very small pools only).

They do what it says on the box. Easy to install.

See the products HERE

Anyone living here can buy this stuff themselves at wholesale rates from the Pool Supplies shop on Mahidol Rd (Near the Ping River bridge), or from Siam Pools.

We just had an LED light flood and needed changing and we are well over our warranty period, John the MD at Siam pools came out today himself and had his tech install a new one, no charge.

They are true to their word in after sales and service as well.

Why get a company based in Isaan (or wherever) to do what can be done locally already.

We do not believe anyone is suggesting for a moment that an Isan based company should come all the way to CM to change a light. In fact the idea strikes us as a bit odd.

Our rainy season special offers will end on 30 September.

Delivered to your door in Krabi city, province, and islands*

See our special prices at:

Super-Savers on algicides, clarifiers, stain removers, cleaners

See also our complete range of chemicals - some prices due to rise next month

Chlorine - our super low prices due to rise next month

Using salt water chlorination?

Check out our new prices of genuine pool salt

*Shipping costs shown in shopping cart.

Our rainy season special offers will end on 30 September.

Delivered to your door in Chiang Mai city and province.*

See our special prices at:

Super-Savers on algicides, clarifiers, stain removers, cleaners

See also our complete range of chemicals - some prices due to rise next month

Chlorine - our super low prices due to rise next month

Using salt water chlorination?

Check out our new prices of genuine pool salt

*Shipping costs shown in shopping cart.

As stated, our comments are: 'according to feedback' (and we receive a lot of emails every day and in many languages).

We have no immediate plans to enter the construction market in CM for domestic pools - it's simply too far away (with mountain ranges and small roads for much of the journey). This would make our prices disproportionately high on new builds and refurbs, and we would not be able to offer routine after-sales support. In spite of our location however, we can be much quicker in Vientiane in Lao (where we have a depot), central Thailand, and some of the the southern provinces (where we also have a depot). The furthest we go north is Phistanulok, which in fact is practically (as the crow flies) directly east of our main depot.

We do however have a high conversion rate in CM on enquiries for blueprints and BoQ, complete sets of technical equipment for DIY builds and/or constructions being done by the 'house builder'. The comments accompanying such enquiries are often on the lines of 'we are unable to locate a pool organisation in CM that inspires confidence'. We also regularly receive requests for advice from people who feel their constructor may not be doing things quite right, or who may be supplying unknown (read: "pirate copies") brands of equipment, or has made a complete mess of things and been fired.

However, if you are from Siam Pools, or closely connected with them, you are welcome to contact us. We receive at least 4 enquiries a week from CM and neighbouring provinces asking for quotations for domestic pools or on-site construction help which we unfortunately have to decline.

Actual showers can be very localised. That said, here in northern Isan the rainy season has got off to a very slow start. Nevertheless, still time to stock up on swimming pool chemicals and salt at our special rainy season prices to replace the loss of all those valuable chemicals through rainwater dilution.

This seems to have happened very quickly. The web site of one of our suppliers with whom we have traded successfully online for a year or so suddenly went offline yesterday immediately following a new order we placed. We paid by credit card and were not aware of it until we saw the full refund from the credit card company. Checking the supplier the next day we found the site was already down. Rest assured however that the supplies received from them were at least the genuine article (sample sent to the US manufacturer and checked for authenticity).

Unfortunately the pool construction industry in Thailand has a poor reputation, and there are a lot of 'one-pool-wonders'. Even more sadly, we are called out often to repair pools that are as little as 6 months old - genuine after-sales service and warranty appears to be not always honoured. That said, not all established pool firms are sharks - prices will naturally be higher if the company has to travel a long way. The solution is to obtain plenty of quotations and go for the middle of the road. Established firms have a reputation to maintain, but some who appear to have a nationwide network of offices/stores may not necessarily be responsible for the quality of the work of their local franchisees.

A pool should not require any major repairs for many years, although if water chemistry is not maintained regularly and accurately, re-grouting could be required in as short as 2 years especially if the expensive special grout for pools has not been used Tiles will crack and become loose quite quickly if proper (quite expensive) tiles adhesive for pools has not been used and applied correctly. Pumps will fail if allowed to run dry too often, and filter media (sand filters) may get clogged up if not backwashed and rinsed often enough. D.E. filters are susceptible to needing expensive new grid elements quite often. Poor quality plastic underwater lights will go brittle and the plastic will crumble, and the plastic lenses go opaque.

When considering the purchase of salt water chlorinators in Thailand, opt for reputed branded equipment; they are more expensive but they come with long guarantees and excellent product support here in Thailand. The retail price of pool salt in Thailand varies quite considerably although it generally comes from the same manufacturer in Isan.

Generally aimed at swimming pool water analysis from wells, etc, send us a small sample of your water for a complete certified water analysis. For details please see the page on our website,

Based near Udon Thani - unfortunately still quite a long way from Chiang Mai for pool construction, but (we believe) we are the largest and most well equipped pool construction company north of Bangkok. According to the feedback we receive, CM appears to be poorly served with reliable pool firms - don't hesitate to contact us if you think we can help in any way.

We can supply and deliver all the fixture & fittings and technical equipment for swimming pools to Koh Lanta where we have several customers.

We can also deliver the special tile adhesive and grout for swimming pools. We also have a large range of tiles.

We would be pleased to discuss your requirements with you and help you draw up a list of what you would need.

We have a works depot (but no office) in Nua Klong, Krabi. Please see our website for contact details.

For a small pool, for example up to around 3x9 (e.g. about 27,000 litres), emptying it and refilling it could be an economical solution, particularly as your water is free and you won't be using the pool for more than 3 days. Any longer than three days then you will need to filter the water and sanitise it with chlorine. You should nevertheless do a full analysis of your well water to see if it is suitable for bathing without filtration and treatment for up to three days.

Much depends however on how long it takes to fill the pool and how much water your well will provide before it runs dry. . It could take up to around 24 hours to fill a small pool.

You can send us a sample of your water for a full laboratory test. See details at Total Water Analysis.

If you are going to be there at least twice a month and would find filling and emptying the pool each time to be inconvenient, again assuming it would be a fairly small pool, say up to about 4 x 10, a proper pool filtration system, and perhaps including a chlorine tablet dispenser, or even installing a salt water chlorination system, will not impact significantly on the total build cost of the pool.

If our company hadn't settled where it is 15 years ago (we have an extensive compound with a brand new showroom and large demo pool opening shortly) we would have probably chosen KK as the location for our head office. That said, we are still within a very reasonable drive from KK for anyone seriously considering having a pool built, and of course for your regular pool supplies, we deliver to your door in about 48 hours. We are also opening a small shop in Udon soon because as sanuk711 says, and as we mentioned above, the shopping and facilities for farangs are somewhat better there.

A farang customer of ours has his 3-bedroom bungalow for sale in a quiet, somewhat older mooban, very close to the city centre. The house was completely refurbished 2 years ago by our sister construction company with a hi-tech kitchen annexe added, and a 3x9 pool built by us. The only downside is the poor availability of good and/or reasonably priced service and supplies for swimming pools pools in Khon Kaen (we are located nearer Udon). Beware of people charging up to Baht 750.00 for a 25 Kg bag of pool salt and Baht 900.00 for a 5Kg bucket of pH Minus.

Overall, KK is a nice city, good shopping (although arguably better in Udon Thani which now boasts the country's largest Central mall and better selections and restaurants for Western gourmets), good schools, and a city centre grid-system that makes getting around it by car very easy. Bus terminals and railway station in or very near the city centre. Airport not as busy as Udon Thani airport (about 1 hour away). 6- or 4-lane lane highways (or under development) to all neighbouring provinces. KK now also has some metered taxis.

Excellent hospitals - some of the best in the country due to the high reputation of the faculty of medicine at the uni.

Easy reach of Nong Khai for border runs, or just to visit Vientiane.

Lacking in a truly performing local farang forum, but there is always ThaiVisa and UdonMap.

Rainy season from May - November, yes, but overall far less oppressively humid than seaboard locations. Cooler and very nice from November to February but still generally hotter than it ever gets in the UK. Some days may be a bit cool for bathing in your pool, but that wouldn't put the Brits off

For more details about the house, send us a PM.