New public resources focus on helping pool owners understand water-test results as a connected system rather than a collection of isolated numbers.

AvenBlu, a digital pool-care platform for homeowners and pool professionals, has expanded its free public resource library with a new Pool Chemistry Guide and a companion Pool Calculator designed to turn confusing test results into clearer next-step decisions.

For many homeowners, the hardest part of pool care begins after the test strip. They have numbers, but not context. AvenBlu’s latest launch is built around that gap, helping users understand how readings influence one another and what should be addressed first instead of simply handing them another chart of “good” numbers.

“A chlorine reading by itself doesn’t tell the entire story. We wanted to build something that helps people understand the context before they start adding products.” TY — AVENBLU

Moving Beyond Individual Test Numbers

The Pool Chemistry Guide explains the measurements homeowners encounter most often when testing residential water: free chlorine, combined chlorine, pH, total alkalinity, cyanuric acid, calcium hardness, salt, and water temperature.

Its core premise is simple: these readings are not independent pass-or-fail grades. They are connected signals. A pool may have chlorine that looks acceptable on paper while still underperforming because pH, stabilizer, temperature, recent swimmer load, or general water condition are pulling the system in another direction.

The guide also clarifies a distinction that often gets blurred in consumer-facing pool content: the difference between public-health baselines, commonly used industry operating methods, and AvenBlu’s own conservative planning recommendations.

Instead of encouraging users to chase every number at once, AvenBlu frames pool care as a deliberate sequence: test, interpret, correct, circulate, and retest.

• Explains why free chlorine needs CYA and pH context.
• Shows how alkalinity affects pH stability.
• Connects calcium, temperature, and balance to scale or aggressive water.
• Clarifies that saltwater pools still require complete chlorine and water-balance management.

For homeowners overwhelmed by conflicting online advice, that framing can reduce guesswork. For service providers, it can mean conversations start with better information and more realistic expectations.

From Education to Practical Pool Decisions

The chemistry hub connects directly with AvenBlu’s free Pool Calculator, which lets homeowners enter pool volume and current test results to better understand what those numbers mean and estimate conservative starting adjustments. The calculator is intentionally designed around a test-correct-circulate-retest workflow rather than encouraging several overlapping corrections at once.

1. Test: Start with a current sample and a clear set of readings.
2. Interpret: Read chlorine, pH, stabilizer, and balance together.
3. Correct: Make one deliberate adjustment rather than several guesses.
4. Circulate: Let water mix fully before treating old numbers like current reality.
5. Retest: Use the new reading to choose the next move.

That same philosophy carries into issue diagnosis. For green water, cloudy water, strong chlorine odor, staining, scaling, rapidly disappearing chlorine, or unstable pH, AvenBlu presents symptoms as investigative clues rather than definitive diagnoses.

“The goal isn’t to make every number move at once. It’s to understand the relationships and make the next deliberate move.”

It also draws clear safety lines, advising homeowners to stop and seek appropriate help when facing fumes, spills, burns, major overdoses, uncertain chemical combinations, severe contamination, or circulation failures.

A Growing Pool-Care Knowledge Library

The Pool Chemistry Guide is part of a broader expansion of AvenBlu’s public educational resources. The goal is not to publish disconnected articles, but to create a connected user journey that mirrors the way real homeowners think about their pools.

Someone researching a strong chlorine odor can move from an issue-specific guide into broader chemistry education, then use a calculator or retesting workflow to evaluate their own pool. A homeowner dealing with scale can move from identifying the symptom to understanding how calcium, pH, alkalinity, temperature, and overall balance may contribute.

Pool Calculator
Helps homeowners enter pool volume and test results, understand what the numbers mean, and estimate conservative starting adjustments.

Pool Chemistry Guide
Explains chlorine, pH, alkalinity, stabilizer, calcium, salt, testing, water-balance interactions, and correction order in plain language.

Pool Care Guides
Issue-specific resources covering cloudy and green water, saltwater care, stain and scale clues, seasonal maintenance, retesting, and safety.

About AvenBlu
AvenBlu is a digital pool-care platform built to help homeowners better understand, manage, and maintain their pools while also giving pool professionals tools for business visibility, customer management, documentation, and ongoing service operations.

Its platform combines pool-care education, water-test interpretation, maintenance planning, troubleshooting resources, and professional-service connections in one system.

New ALKORPLAN ONE app lets pool professionals design, customize, and present pool projects in a client’s own backyard — in real time

RENOLIT, a leading manufacturer of reinforced PVC membranes for swimming pools and decks, announced the launch of RENOLIT ALKORPLAN ONE, a new augmented reality (AR) app that lets pool professionals design and present pool projects on-site — directly in the client’s space.

With the ONE app, professionals can sketch a pool in a client’s backyard, customize it on the spot, and show the finished result in augmented reality before a single shovel hits the ground. Proposals that once took days of back-and-forth can now happen in a single visit.

With the ONE app, pool professionals can:

• Design pools directly on-site using augmented reality
• Turn ideas into realistic, visual projects in seconds
• Customize every detail — shape, size, depth, and finishes
• Present designs in the client’s own space for a more immersive, convincing experience
• Generate technical sheets and visuals instantly
• Save, reuse, and manage projects with ease

The result is a faster path from idea to signed project. Because clients can see a customized design rendered in their own space, they gain the confidence to make decisions sooner — and professionals spend less time preparing presentations and more time closing them. “RENOLIT pool builders world-wide have already begun using the ONE app and we are thrilled to bring it to builders in North America,” says Tony Jordan, Business Development Manager for RENOLIT North America.

The ONE app is available now. Pool professionals can learn more and get started at https://renolit-alkorplan.com/professional-area/app-one.

https://renolit-alkorplan.com/
https://www.instagram.com/renolit_alkorplan_pools_usa/

LaPorte, Indiana
Email: [email protected]

Six years into the Million Dollar Pool Design Challenge, the competition has become one of the pool industry’s more interesting experiments in design education. On the surface, it is exactly what its name suggests: designers are handed an ambitious fictional project and asked to create an extraordinary pool and outdoor living environment.

But according to co-founder Mike Farley, winning the competition was never really the entire point.

Farley and fellow designer Reid Schindler created the challenge around a problem they had both seen throughout their careers. Designers often say they could produce incredible work if only they were given the right client, property, and budget. The Million Dollar Pool Design Challenge effectively removes that excuse.

“When you start your career, the most common comment everybody makes is, ‘I don’t get the opportunity to work on that project, and if I had the opportunity, I could get the job,’” Farley said. “Basically, we created an opportunity where everybody has that opportunity to try to get the job.”

Every competitor receives the same client, property, site conditions and design problem. What happens next is entirely up to them.

That concept was partially inspired by Farley and Schindler’s experiences studying landscape architecture. Students would receive the same assignment, develop completely different solutions and then learn by comparing their work with everyone else’s.

The tools have changed considerably since then.

Farley remembers his student work being drawn by hand, colored with markers and hung in hallways for classmates to study. Schindler came along later, when computers were already becoming part of the process. Yet the principle remains the same: designers improve when they can see how other designers solve the exact same problem.

That makes the competition particularly valuable for developing designers, and it also addresses one of the biggest misnomers surrounding the event.

You Don’t Have to Be an Elite Designer to Enter

There is a perception that the Million Dollar Pool Design Challenge is primarily for established designers already producing award-winning work. Farley would actually like to see more inexperienced designers use it as a training exercise.

“Really, your goal as a new or entry‑level designer in this type of situation is to learn, not to win,” he said.

A developing designer can attempt the project, attend the finalists’ presentations and compare their own decisions against five entirely different solutions. Where did they place the pool? How did they handle circulation? What did they prioritize? What did they leave out? How did the finalists present their ideas?

Even someone without enough time to prepare a polished competition entry can benefit.

“Just take the site and just do a bubble diagram,” Farley said. “Here’s where I would’ve put different things, and here’s how I would’ve solved the problem.”

Then go watch the finalists and listen to the judges critique the work.

Farley considers that educational component one area where the competition still hasn’t reached its full potential. He would like to see more entry-level designers approach the challenge as a practical design exercise rather than assuming they have no business competing against more experienced professionals.

The other common misconception is right there in the name.

“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, we’re supposed to design a pool that’s a million dollars.’ No, we want you to spend at least a million dollars,” Farley explained.

When the competition began, a million-dollar pool represented a far more unusual project. Today, Farley noted, seven-figure pools are considerably more common at the upper end of the market. The challenge has consequently continued pushing designers beyond ordinary project parameters.

There is still an important catch: the design has to be buildable.

Competitors aren’t being asked to create fantasy artwork unconstrained by engineering, safety or construction realities. Entries are judged on aesthetics and differentiation, but also functionality and buildability. Competitors must demonstrate that the design works at scale, responds to the client’s needs and could realistically be engineered and constructed.

That balance has produced something Farley wasn’t sure they would see when the competition began: radically different answers to the same problem.

“We’ve never had any two that were close to each other,” he said. “The dramatic diversity of the design solutions has been really cool to see.”

This Year’s Design Brief

For 2026, the competition moves to Louisiana in conjunction with the International Pool | Spa | Patio Expo in New Orleans. After previous scenarios set in places including Arizona, Tennessee, Chicago, California and Florida, Farley and Schindler wanted this year’s project to feel unmistakably Southern.

The fictional clients, James and Eleanor Caldwell, have purchased Siltstone Estate, a historic property in the Southern Delta. James comes from a Gulf Coast resort family and has a strong interest in craftsmanship, architecture and historic preservation. Eleanor is an interior designer. Together, they favor antiques, gardens, French wine, bourbon and traditional Southern hospitality over anything overtly trendy.

Those details aren’t window dressing. Understanding the fictional homeowners is part of solving the assignment.

“There are people that have not made the finals before, and there are people that did not win before because they did not look to what the client wanted,” Farley said. “This is not a design competition of creating what you think is best. You have to create what you think is going to be best for this client.”

The architecture adds another layer. A traditional Southern estate naturally creates strong axes and a more formal design language, but the Caldwells aren’t asking competitors to simply drop a rectangular pool behind the house. The brief specifically calls for a traditional-but-interesting recreational pool that respects the architecture without becoming predictable.

Modern amenities can still fit within that vocabulary.

“You can have modern features that don’t necessarily have to have modern architecture,” Farley said.

That distinction could prove crucial because the Caldwells’ wish list is enormous.

The program includes a covered back porch, outdoor kitchen and bar, gazebo and parterre garden, greenhouse, vegetable garden and orchard, guest cottage and pool house, driveway fountain, fishing pond and dock, courtyard wellness suite, event lawn, dual-purpose pickleball and basketball court, outdoor movie screen, fire pit, catering area and multiple secluded gathering spaces. The property must routinely accommodate around 25 guests while being capable of supporting events exceeding 100.

Then there is the water.

Competitors must incorporate either a BlueOrbit hydrotherapy system or a Riverflow lazy river, adding another design problem beyond the primary recreational pool and large family spa.

Farley sees current-driven aquatic environments as another opportunity to expose designers to possibilities they may not have considered before.

“What we’re trying to do is make people aware of things that they may not have been aware of and create another level of creativity,” he said.

With so many requested elements, the hardest part of the 2026 challenge may ultimately be deciding what not to do.

“Fitting it all in,” Farley said when asked about this year’s biggest challenge. “You’re going to be balancing, ‘Do I get it all in? If I get it all in, is there too much in this? What do I take away?’”

In other words, exactly the problem designers encounter with actual clients.

“Sometimes the right thing to say is no,” he added.

Presenting the Work Matters

A spectacular rendering alone isn’t enough to win.

Competitors must submit a scaled 2D plan, up to eight supporting graphics and a written design narrative explaining their process. Flythrough videos and physical models can supplement the submission, but judges place significant emphasis on how clearly designers communicate the thinking behind their solution.

“We want to understand your thought process in coming up with the solution, and you have to be able to document that,” Farley said. “It’s not just about the 3D image.”

That requirement becomes increasingly relevant as visualization technology advances. Yet changing technology is nothing new to the challenge.

Farley remembers when Pool Studio dominated early submissions before a student arrived using Lumion, software that relatively few pool designers had encountered at the time.

“Hardly anybody in the pool industry had ever seen Lumion,” he recalled.

The following year another winner used it. Soon competitors were learning Lumion themselves, incorporating it into their presentations and raising the overall visual standard of the competition. More recently, Pool Studio has again been behind several winning presentations.

The lesson isn’t that one program is superior. It is how quickly designers learn by watching one another.

“It has caused people to extend their horizons on what’s possible,” Farley said. “What tools am I going to use in this? Everybody’s being exposed to different things, and they learn more and more.”

Farley admits he does the same thing.

He recalled advice from one of his college professors: “The greatest designer is the greatest thief.”

The point wasn’t to copy someone else’s work, but to study good ideas, understand why they work and add those lessons to your own design vocabulary.

“There are definitely things that I’ve seen that are like, ‘Wow, I never thought about that,’” Farley said. “There’s almost every design that’s entered; there’s something to be learned from.”

Sometimes the lesson can be surprisingly simple. Farley once noticed that finalists regularly included people in their renderings while his own presentations historically did not. Seeing people using a space helped communicate scale, purpose and lifestyle. It was a small presentation technique he could immediately incorporate into his own work.

That exchange of ideas may be the Challenge’s most enduring contribution.

Farley has watched competitors return year after year without ever reaching the finals, yet their work continually improves. Others have used the exposure to create career opportunities. Past winner Brad Holley was recruited by FoxTerra after his win before later joining Claffey Pools, while other finalists and winners have gone on to work with companies that previously had their own designers represented in the competition.

“There are people in the industry that look at this for design talent, no doubt,” said Farley. “Every single year they do better and better. They come back, and their designs get better, their presentation skills get better.”

“You win by what you learn,” explained Farley. “If you learn things in this competition that help you with a client later on, which I guarantee will happen, then you win. You win by increasing your knowledge base.”

Five finalists will ultimately take their designs to New Orleans, where they’ll present their solutions live during the International Pool | Spa | Patio Expo. The judges determine who makes that final five, but the audience in the room ultimately decides who wins the $10,000 first-place prize.

For Farley, seeing those five interpretations side by side remains one of the most interesting parts of the Challenge. After six years, no two designers have ever approached the same property, client, and set of requirements quite the same way.

That may also be the best reason to follow the competition, whether you’re entering or simply sitting in the audience. The Challenge doesn’t provide a blueprint for how a million-dollar outdoor living environment should be designed. It provides five very different answers to the same question—and an opportunity for everyone in the room to walk away seeing design a little differently.

Ready to take a deeper dive?

Listen to our entire conversation with Mike Farley and learn more about this year’s Million Dollar Pool Design Challenge on the Pool Magazine Podcast.

Enter The Million Dollar Pool Design Challenge

Think you have what it takes to win this year’s competition?