THE SWIMMING POOL

Swimming is a good exercise. If you don't want to go to the public pool or a resort every day or week. You should build a swimming pool. Think about if you are sure you want to build a swimming pool? If yes, this article is for you.

Though fairly common in Europe, natural swimming pools (like the one pictured above in an Austrian family's backyard), are in their infancy in the United States. Ask most American swimming-pool contractors to build a backyard pool and chances are they'll roll out a long list of goods, including rebar, gunite, fiberglass, chlorine and an energy-sapping filtration system. But in recent years, a few builders and a growing number of homeowners have learned how to build pools without relying on a mass of manufactured materials and chemical additives. They've found it's possible to construct pools that are more about building with nature and blending into the natural landscape. Natural swimming pools use gravel stone and clay in place of concrete or fiberglass, and aquatic plants instead of harmful chemicals and complicated mechanical filtering systems. The plants enrich the pool with oxygen, support beneficial bacteria that consume debris and potentially harmful organisms, and give habitat to frogs, dragonflies and other water life. The result is a beautiful, ecologically diverse system that is relatively inexpensive to construct. (A natural pool can he constructed for as little as $2,000 if you do it yourself, while conventional pools can cost tens of thousands of dollars.) Natural swimming pools require no harmful chemIcals, are fairly low-tech, and once established call for only a modicum of management. You won't have to drain the pool each autumn. Except for topping it off now and then, you'll fill the pool only once.

If you want to build your own pool you will need to research the subject as much as possible to ensure that you build a quality structure that will hold water and cosmetically enhance your property. The easiest and most economical DIY pool to build is a vinyl liner pool. You should research all swimming pool types - concrete, vinyl liner and fiberglass to determine which pool suits your needs, budget and skill level. The steps involved with building your own vinyl liner pool are:

- Permits, contact city hall in your location
- Dig, excavate pool and remove extra fill
- Walls, erect wall panels around pool perimeter
- Collar, concrete moat around outside pool perimeter
- Plumbing, suction and return lines for the circulation system
- Lights, underwater light for safety and cosmetic value
- Backfill, replace and lightly compact soil around pool
- Coping, install track that holds the liner
- Floor / slopes, trowel concrete, vermiculite or sand floor and slopes
- Mechanical room, install pump, filter and heater
- Liner prep, clean and wash interior surface and install gaskets
- Liner install, hang liner in place
- Fittings, gaskets and cutouts are installed throughout the filling process

Instructions

2 Place an outline down to delineate the edges of the pool. A series of connected garden hoses will serve as a cheap marker. Rope or spray paint is an alternative method of tracing out the perimeter of the pool.

3 Check with all blueprints and building plans to determine if cables, pipes or septic systems lie in the way of soil removal.

4 Begin removing sod and soil from the swimming pool area. A small excavator or earthmover is a great solution to digging out the dirt. Many of these pieces of machinery rent by the day at construction rentals facilities.

5 Purchase and install the necessary plumbing and pumps. These are available at any swimming pool supply store and install in less than a day. Follow specific manufacturer instructions regarding the proper amount of water each pump will move.

6 Tile around the swimming pool or build a deck around the area for a resort feel. Home improvement stores offer a variety of deck configurations and materials.

If you do become a do-it-yourselfer you'll need to do all the leg-work, which means a trip down to your county building department to pay for building permits and other possible related fees. Sacramento pool builders are lucky as the county provides the do-it-yourselfer with a packet of details covering the construction process. Yours may too. Most states have strict laws about pool fencing - which is another item you may need to fit into the construction budget.

The biggest problem for the homeower installing a pool is coming up with the structural drawings and specs needed to satisfy your county building department. Many landscape designers and or pool designers can provide this for you and there are on-line providers as well. These requirements vary from state to state.

Timing is the key. A pool started late in the season can save you lots of funds, as pool sub-contractors are scrambling to garner any end of the season business. This means bids come in low for each phase of the pool building process which includes: layout and excavation, rebar (steel bars tied into place which forms the structural strength of the pool ), plumbing and electrical, gunite, plaster or pebble- tek, tile and finally the concrete, flagstone, or other decking you choose.

The first thing to do is to concrete around the bottom of thee panels, then concrete the floor.

Before the cement mixer arrives we had to put plastic panels in grooves on the back of the concrete panels, to create perpendicular pockets behind the place where the panels met. This means that when each pocket is filled up you end up with a ring of concrete panels supported by concrete pillars.

Sounds great, but in reality the plastic panels made to enclose the concrete pillars were not nearly robust enough. and so several of them collapsed under the weight of the concrete when we tried to fill them up. We ended up by buying huge card board cylinders, cutting them in half and fixing them in place by whatever means we could to and filling them up with concrete.

Once the concrete is dry you can cut out and install the skimmers and it’s now time to attach all the pipes. Take great care that you mark the end of each pipe so that when you come to connect them to the pump you know what’ s what.

Now comes what turned out to be the worst job for us. As the hole that we had cut for the pool was too large we had to order tons of gravel to fill in the gap. (Whatever you do, don’t fill in the gap with earth , as this will make the walls of your pool very unstable). Unfortunately the lorry couldn’t get to the pool; so we had to hand shovel several tons of gravel into wheel barrows to get it there.

Take care to protect the pipes when you’re pouring the gravel in. If you dump tons of gravel on a pipe you could damage it. At this stage you’ll be relieved to find that the worst part of the work is over…though there is still more to be done than you think.

The cracks between the concrete panels, (on the inside of the pool) now have to be filled up with filler – sounds easy but the filler didn’t want to stick in the joints. You also have to make sure that the whole pool (walls and floor) are clean and smooth before applying the revêtement. (the special “paint” covering the walls and floor of the pool)

The revêtement takes a hole day in itself: you have to apply one coat, then cover it with something that looks like fabric, then repaint over the top of this. The result is a thick smooth surface. The really interesting part about this is that you can have whatever colour you want. And you can easily change it – just give it another coat. If you’re looking for a natural looking colour steer clear of the usual fake - looking “swimming pool blue”. Darker colours give the same effect as a real pool – leaving a wonderful reflection of everything around thee pool. An off-white - slightly sandy colour gives you a chrystal clear effect.

Once the revetment is on you should allow a week for it to dry before filling up the pool. But anyway you have at least a days work in the meantime on the setting up the pump, the filter and figuring out which pipe goes where. You will also need to set up the electricity box which comes with it and get an electrician to do the necessary wiring.

Landscape your pool