poolnerd

If you’re thinking of tackling the job of building your own pool and/or spa, you need as much good, accurate info as you can get: if you know what you’re doing, you can save a lot of money, but if you don’t it can cost you big time later. I’ll cover a few of the highlights of pool design, and, hopefully you’ll uncover some valuable ideas along the way.

The design basics I’ll lay out here will come with some explanation. I’ll try not to just assert my own views as fact. For example, I’ll tell you not to locate your pool light in the shallow end of the pool, and I’ll follow that with an explanation of why it’s not a good idea. Hopefully, you’ll see the sense in what I’m saying. My views usually come from years of experience: I’ve put a light or two in the shallow end, so you can gain from my mistakes.

Size Does Matter

One of the first things you’ll need to figure out is how big your pool should be. This will depend upon how the pool will be used, and how the backyard space will look once everything is done. And, of course, your budget might be a consideration: bigger costs more.

• Do you planning on swimming laps? If so, 30 or 32 feet would be the minimum length I’d recommend. Longer is better. If you’re a serious swimmer, you might want to base your pool’s length on a divisor of a competition pool: either 25 yards, or 25 meters (called “short-course” by those in the know– “long course” is 50 yards or meters). Also, when you’re laying out the location of steps and benches, keep them out of lap lanes.
• Do you do a lot of entertaining? Plan on having friends and family over a lot? Or maybe you’re hoping your pool will be the cool gathering spot for your teenage kids? If so, you’ll need a lot of pool area, plus ample decking for tables, chairs and lounges. Teenagers are more active, so you may want to consider fun stuff like diving boards, jump rocks, or slides. If you’re going to do that, though, make sure the pool will meet the manufacturers’ and the ANSI/NSPI-5 standards for residential pools. Check the websites of companies like SR Smith or Paragon Aquatics for more info on boards, slides and other deck equipment.
• Is your pool planned as mainly a landscape element? If so, maybe small is sufficient.
• The pool/deck area needs to fit in its environment. A huge area calls for a bigger pool and wider walkways, for example. Proportion and scale are the important concepts here.

The Shape of Your Dreams

Inground gunite/shotcrete pools can be built in pretty much any shape you want. And, at least here in Southern California, the price is based chiefly on the size of the pool — the surface area and the perimeter. Obviously, bigger is more expensive. Some subcontractors charge by perimeter, some by area; for others, like plumbers and electricians, only distance of run and size of pipe/conduit/wire matter. Anyway, a pool with a 90 foot perimeter costs pretty much the same whether you go with a simple rectangle, a curvy lagoon-style, or a sleek contemporary pool.

The main consideration here is the look that you want in the yard when everything is done. Keep in mind the pool is just one element of the yard. Sure, it’s the dominant one, but a simple pool that’s well-landscaped, always looks better than a showcase pool that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the site. Unfortunately, aspects of design like context, scale, line and color usually come from study and experience. Sometimes it’s wise to pay an experienced designer for a good pool/plot plan. A few hundred bucks now can mean a backyard that’s a whole lot more enjoyable later.

Depth

There are two basic choices here. Either the regular shallow-to-deep pool (e.g., three feet to six feet depth); or a sport/play pool, which is shallow at each end, and a little deeper in the middle (maybe something like three to five to three feet in depth). The regular shallow-to-deep pool might be better for larger, more active kids. Good for jumping, diving, Marco Polo, stuff like that. A sport pool might be better for younger kids. Volleyball, basketball, Sharks & Minnows. Cost-wise, there may be a little bit of difference, maybe a couple of hundred dollars, but usability should be the main consideration.Also, resist the temptation to go too deep. For example, on a 30 foot long pool, I wouldn’t suggest deeper than six feet in the deep end. And for every foot deeper you go, you’re losing about four feet of shallow. And most folks would rather have a larger shallow end–who wants to tread water all the time?

Equipment Location

Where do you want to put the pool equipment– the pump and filter and stuff? You need to call the local Building or Planning Department to find out the limitations regarding the placement of the pool and equipment: how far back you need to keep them from the property lines and structures. Also, perhaps you should keep it away from entertaining areas in your yard (it is sometimes rather, um, audible). Also keep in mind distance of pipe runs to pool/spa/waterfall, and distance to gas and electric services. Longer is more expensive, of course. I like to put the stuff in the side yard if possible, then maybe build a cross-fence from the house to the property-line fencing. That’s good for hiding all the ugly, noisy stuff, and for storage or dog run, too. Or, sometimes we locate it in the rear corner of the yard, and build a fence around it to hide it (maybe with a trumpet vine or jasmine climbing the fence to soften it).

Skimmers: the Right Location Keeps the Pool Much Cleaner

For those of you new to this pool thing, the skimmer is the thing with the basket in it that catches all the leaves and bugs and stuff before it gets to the pump. Since it’s where the pump draws in water (along with the drains and pool cleaner), it can make a big difference to how clean your pool will be. Here are a few placement guidelines for skimmers:

• It should always be located where the prevailing winds will push the floating surface debris. That way, when the pump comes on, the skimmer starts collecting accumulated gunk. It makes it easier to keep the pool clean.
• Don’t put the skimmer in a raised area–an area where you’d have to reach further down to access the basket and float valve.
• Try to locate it where you’re not looking into the throat of the skimmer from your entertaining areas. Skimmers aren’t usually that big a deal to most people, but sometimes the little details help pull a job together.
• If your pool is very big, or water flow requirements dictate, use two skimmers. On my projects, if the pool has over about 700 square feet of surface area, I’ll use two skimmers. Or, for instance, for a smaller pool that may collect a lot of debris would warrant an extra skimmer.

Lighting Up the Place

There are many aspects to consider when we get to lighting the pool:

• How many lights? Figure one to two watts, minimum, for each square foot of area; more if the pool finish is dark.
• Will the light(s) be placed so as to sufficiently illuminate the entry steps at night? This is very subjective, though. Some people would rather that the pool be brightly lit, so even Grandpa can see them. Others prefer softer lighting.
• If at all possible, keep lights out of the shallow end. Since they’re located about two feet below the surface (the National Electric Code specifies that the top of the light be a minimum of 18 inches below the surface), and the standard shallow end depth is three-and-a-half feet, the light is shining obliquely across the surface of the shallow end. This will show up every trowel mark and imperfection in the plaster. I made this mistake long ago. I found out that even something as thin as a penny can cast a two- or three-inch long shadow.
• Try to locate pool lights where you won’t be looking directly into them from entertaining areas. A 500 watt light is very bright.
• Regular incandescent or color changing? Or perhaps fiber optic. It’s all about the look you want and how much money you want to spend. If you’re thinking of a finish like colored plaster or Pebble Tec, the colors of those color-changing lights are more washed out, not as vivid as on white plaster.

Another whole topic, (perhaps a future post?) is the lighting around the pool. Low-voltage landscape lighting, especially.

But Wait– There’s More!

That’s a lot of information, huh? Didn’t know there was so much involved in pool design, I bet. And these are just some of the considerations. We didn’t even talk about spas and water features at all. Or the configuration of entry steps, choosing the pump/filter/heater/controls, traffic patterns, laying out deck areas, elevations and drainage, or even basic structural considerations (you don’t want your pool to develop a structural crack–believe me!). That stuff is fairly straightforward. Stuff like lines of sight, framing, form/space/order, proportion and color are more than can be covered in a short piece like this.

And we didn’t even scratch the surface of two immensely important topics: structure and hydraulics. I’ve seen many beautiful pools that just didn’t work right (like a $100,000 job where the spa jets didn’t have bubbles from day one: it was plumbed wrong, three different ways–got to take out deck and gunite to fix it), or they just simply failed, like developing a structural crack (which can be very, very expensive to fix). In pool construction, many professionals can craft a beautiful pool, but many more cannot build a sound, well-built pool. Want to know one of the secrets? Don’t cut corners. Spend a little bit extra to get the best subcontractors and craftsmen, maybe use a heavier steel schedule or bigger circulation lines. All that stuff might only cost a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars, more than if you did it the cheap way, but when you’re spending this much money, DO IT RIGHT! Just think of it this way: by building the pool yourself, you’re saving a bunch of money; shake loose of some of it to do it the right way.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 4th, 2006 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Design, For Contractors, For Homeowners, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.