About Splash & Skimmer
A new publication about above-ground pools, floats and upkeep - built around the one number this category will not publish.
What this site is for
Splash & Skimmer covers above-ground pools, floats and pool care for ordinary backyards. It exists because of a gap we found while reading the pages that currently rank for pool buying advice: the ones that help you choose a pool never price the season, and the ones that teach you to look after a pool never help you choose one.
Neither answers the question a family at a kitchen table is actually asking, which is not “which pool is best” but “what does this cost us, all in, over a year, and can we keep up with it?” So every buying decision on this site is priced for a full year of ownership, with the arithmetic printed so you can redo it with your own electricity rate, your own gallons and your own season length. That work lives in the annual cost-to-run guide.
Who it is for
A first-pool family sizing the yard, the budget and the maintenance truth before buying. That is a specific reader and it shapes everything here: we define jargon on first use, every time. We lead with the total rather than the sticker. We name what goes wrong — cloudy water in week three is the near-universal first-pool experience and saying so is more useful than any badge. And we assume the binding constraint is your yard and your level ground, not a product feature.
Who writes it
Sawyer V.. An enthusiast who's genuinely into this. I read the manuals, compile the published specs, and do the math. No lab coat, no test pool, and no pretending otherwise.
That framing is deliberate and it is the whole trust argument, so it is worth being explicit about what it means. This is a new publication. There is no test pool, no product samples, no premises, no tenure and no credential. The ranking field in this category leads with certified pool operators, thirty-year veterans and test labs with published product counts. We cannot honestly imitate any of that and we are not going to try.
What we do instead
We compete on method rather than credentials: published specifications compiled, manufacturer manuals cited, running costs computed from sourced national data, and every input shown so a reader with the same documents reaches the same numbers. That is verifiable, it needs no lab, and in this category it is the widest open gap — not one publisher ranking for pool buying advice publishes a consolidated annual cost figure.
The full process, including the formulas, is on the methodology page. It is the most important page on this site.
What we explicitly do not do
- We do not test products. Not one pool, float or pump on this site has been used by us, and no page will ever imply otherwise.
- We do not accept free products or sponsored placement.
- We do not publish reviews or star ratings from customers, because we have none. A page with no testimonials beats a page with invented ones.
- We do not write prices into articles. Prices render from a live data layer, stamped with the date checked. Where no live price exists the button says so.
- We do not invent figures. Where a number cannot be sourced we say what we could not verify and give you the worksheet instead.
How this is funded
Affiliate commission, disclosed on the disclosure page and above the first link on every page that carries one. We earn if you buy through a link, at no extra cost to you, and commission has never decided a ranking order here. Every roundup names at least one thing to skip, which is the practical test of that claim.
Corrections
We publish arithmetic, which means we can be checked, which means we will occasionally be wrong. If you find an error — a bad figure, a stale spec, a formula that does not hold — tell us at info@splashandskimmer.com and we will fix it and say that we did. The process is described in our editorial policy.