It’s posted at nearly every pool I visit, and it’s also the rule I see ignored most often: shower before entering the water.
I run a commercial pool service company in North Georgia and teach CPO certification courses, so I spend a lot of time at community pools. The pre-swim shower keeps coming up — first as a question I posted in the CAI Members Open Forum, then as a long discussion with other managers about what actually gets residents to do it. Here’s what came out of that conversation, plus what the code actually requires.
Why it matters more than people think
When swimmers get in without rinsing, the sweat, sunscreen, lotions, and everything else on their skin reacts with chlorine to form chloramines. That’s the strong “chlorine smell,” and it’s what irritates eyes, skin, and lungs, especially indoors. (More on chloramines in a separate post — they’re the real villain here.)
The CDC’s guidance is straightforward: even a quick rinse removes much of the body waste that forms chloramines, and a one-minute rinse removes most of it. Chlorine tied up in chloramines is also chlorine that isn’t available to kill germs, so a shower rule is genuinely a safety measure, not just etiquette.
It’s also a cost measure. Less organic load in the water means less chlorine consumed, fewer shock treatments to burn off combined chlorine, and less water and chemical churn over a season. For a community pool, that adds up to real money over a summer.
What the code actually requires
This is where the discussion got specific. Under the Model Aquatic Health Code (MAHC):
- A cleansing shower is required before entering the water. MAHC § 6.4.2.2.3 requires entrance signage to include “SHOWER before entering the water,” and § 6.4.2.2.4 requires the same message posted at the hygiene facility exit.
- A “cleansing shower” means warm water and soap. That’s the shower that removes sweat, skin cells, sunscreen, and verything else before you get in. A quick splash under a cold deck shower is better than nothing, but it’s not the same thing.
- Showering at home counts. The MAHC anticipates this for communities like yours: § 4.10.4.2.6 exempts residential settings — condos, apartments, and HOAs — from the cleansing-shower fixture requirement, because the intent is for bathers to shower at home.
- It’s each time. If a swimmer gets out to use the restroom, applies anything to their body, or sits out in the sun and sweats, they should take another shower before re-entering the water.
- “Demonstrated” is a low bar. It is sufficient for the user to appear wet before entering the water. Deck showers are a great way to increase awareness and give lifeguards the opportunity to enforce the rule. Nobody sends lifeguards or staff into locker rooms to verify that patrons are showering.
The exact requirement depends on your Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) and the local code — the MAHC is the minimum for safe operating practice, and your local code is what actually governs. But the principle is the same everywhere: the shower happens before the water, every time.
What actually works
The managers in the discussion shared what they’ve tried. The approaches that work best aren’t complicated:
- Signage at the gate — clear, at the entrance, where people actually look.
- Lifeguards or attendants reminding people — a friendly word at the door beats a sign nobody reads.
- Making the showers impossible to walk past — when the route to the pool runs through the showers, compliance goes up on its own.
- A line in the pool rules with some teeth behind it — a rule nobody enforces is a suggestion.
One point from the discussion I hadn’t considered before: the problem doesn’t stop at the pool deck. Once patrons leave the pool area, wet feet track water into hallways, and that’s a slip-and-fall problem of its own. We’ve seen a big increase in closed-cell foam membranes on pool decks and locker rooms — they provide slip and fall protection and are easier to clean. In a residential hallway setting, terrazzo or a similar stone finish is your best bet.
The bottom line
The shower rule is the cheapest water-quality measure a facility has, and it’s the one most often skipped. If your community struggles with it, start with the path to the pool: make the shower the easiest thing to do, not an extra stop. And if your signage, shower placement, or pool rules need a second look, that’s exactly the kind of thing we help with — reach out to Southern Aquatic Services, or come see us at a CPO course.
Matthew Selman is the owner of Southern Aquatic Services, a commercial pool service company in North Georgia, and a CPO instructor who has trained more than 1,000 pool operators.