Structure and apparatus for purifying and containing high clarity water used for direct contact recreational purposes

A structure for containing a water body that is suitable for direct contact recreational purposes, wherein the structure comprises:

• a reduced centralized filtration system that filters a volume of water of the water body, wherein:
• the reduced centralized filter system comprises a number of bottom inlets that is at least 30% less than the number of inlets of a conventional swimming pool with a total area per bottom inlet of 400 ft2;
• and
• the reduced centralized filtration system effectively filters at least 30% less volume within a 24-hour period than a conventional swimming pool filtration system which filters the complete water volume four times within a 24-hour period;
• a micro-renewal system which allows a micro-leakage of the water through a plurality of micro-leakage points located in an inner surface of the structure, wherein a total micro-leakage volume refers to the total volume of water removed from the structure through the micro-leakage points and is lower than the volume of water filtered by the reduced low-cost centralized filtration system;
• a dual-frequency skimmer system, comprising:
• a high-frequency reduced skimmer system (“HFSS”) that periodically removes surface water from the structure, and sends such removed water into the low-cost reduced centralized filtration system;
• a low-frequency skimmer system (“LFSS”) that removes surface water from the structure during a high-renewal event;
• wherein the HFSS and the LFSS are configured to direct removed surface water from the structure through one or more outlets, including a shared outlet;
• wherein the dual-frequency skimmer system has a Skimmer Operation Rate (SOR) of at least 10, wherein the SOR is defined as a ratio of operative hours of the HFSS to the operative hours of the LFSS within a 30-day period of time, as set forth in the following equation:
• Skimmer
• ⁢
• Operation
• ⁢
• Rate
• ⁢
• (
• SOR
• )
• =
• Hours
• ⁢
• of
• ⁢
• Operation
• ⁢
• of
• ⁢
• HFSS
• Hours
• ⁢
• of
• ⁢
• Operation
• ⁢
• of
• ⁢
• LFSS
• ≥
• 1
• ⁢
• 0
• a make-up water system that introduces a water flow into the water body that is higher than a volume of water lost through natural evaporation of the water body in addition to the water removed from the structure through the micro-renewal system, wherein the make-up water system is arranged and configured to provide a water flow given the following equation:
• Make
• -
• Up
• ⁢
• Flow
• ≥
• Evaporation
• ⁢
• Flow
• +
• Micro
• -
• Renewal
• ⁢
• Flow
• .