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Swimming pools are a beautiful addition to any home, but they can bring many safety issues to any property owner. The risk of drowning, being injured or worse is something that can be avoided with proper planning and diligence.
I find the most frightening scenario being the risk of electrocution due to faulty wiring; specifically underwater pool lights. This is an ever present danger especially on pools that are not properly maintained. I run across far too often pools that need repair on their pool lights. More times than not the problem is that the sealed light fixture is no longer sealed and is in fact full of water. Electric and water don't mix well at all. Fortunately in most cases the bulb either blows out or the circuit breaker blows before it does harm to anyone that is in the pool.
Many counties are now requiring 12 volt pool lights because they can be safer in some circumstances. What I like to educate people on is the proper way to setup new pool lights that are as safe as possible.
Most new pool lights use LED technology, most older pools were setup for older incandescent fixtures. This means that a typical 12 volt pool system has a transformer capable of 600 watts or more power. In the unlikely event that a device failed, 600 watts could kill somebody.
Newer LED technology uses a fraction of that power, in most cases well under 30 watts per light. So when you upgrade your pool light, downgrade your transformer. The older 600 watt transformers simply are not necessary and are quite dangerous. Plan your transformer to be 125% of the peak load of your light.
In most cases that means a new, very small, very inexpensive and waterproof 36 watt transformer. That decision is a no brainer in my opinion.
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