Building Your Own Home Swimming Pool or Spa

INTRODUCTION
A swimming pool is one of the classic signs of the easy life. From the
theme song of the Beverly Hillbillies to the closing scene of F. Scott
Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", swimming pools are associated with the
rich, the leisurely, and the easy-going in life.
Which is why it's terrible when we learn, after we've spent a great deal of
money and time selecting and installing a swimming pool, that that's no
easy way to get an easy life. Maintaining a swimming pool can be a
massive amount of work, one that makes even the best of us sometimes
throw up our hands and say "What was I even thinking, digging this hole
in my backyard and filling it up with expensive water?"
In this book, we'll talk about swimming pools. We'll talk about the
different kinds of swimming pools available and how each is installed.
We'll talk about the maintenance issues associated with each and what we
need to do about different pools in different climates. And we'll talk about
a few horror stories--not to frighten you so much as to make you aware
that when the worst happens, you still have options--even if they are
expensive.
As the modern poets say: the simple life is not so simple. The easy life
isn't always easy. But with a firm grasp on some of these principles of
year-round pool maintenance, you'll find it much easier than you
otherwise would--and you'll have that much more time to enjoy the fruits
of all your long efforts and labors.

                                     1
                    THE TYPES OF POOLS

In talking about the different types of pools, it's important to remember
three common-sense qualities that all pools have in common.
 All pools are gigantic holes in the ground.
 All pools are filled with water.
 The water in all pools needs to be filtered or purified in some way to
make it safe for personal use.
There are some exceptions to these rules, in particular the first--there are
temporary inflatable pools, for example, or above-ground "tank" style
pools--but these tend not to have the same maintenance issues as
classical swimming pools, nor are they as difficult to maintain, nor are
they usually as satisfying. We'll cover some specific issues about above-
ground pools at the end of this chapter, for those who opt for that often-
simpler solution.
But for the most part, there's one crucial distinction between the different
types of swimming pools available to the consumer: the type of lining
used.
All pools more complicated than an "ol' swimming hole" need to be lined.
To understand why, think about how much space in your home insurance
policy is devoted to the topic of "water damage." Water is an inherently
destructive force. It naturally erodes any container into which it's placed
and it weakens stone moldings and the bonds between differentconstruction elements. Generally speaking, it shortens the lifespan of any
construction project by at least half. Your pool is no exception.
The key to pool maintenance is to think of your pool as a sustained battle
between water and container. If you think of your pool in this way, you'll
naturally think of the container's attributes designed to defend against
water damage and to preserve its structure over time, and you'll
understand intuitively what you need to do in order to keep your pool
working safely and consistently over the years.
The fundamental choice that determines how easy or how difficult it'll be
to maintain your pool is the choice of lining material used to make up the
"container."
FIBERGLASS PO

                             FIBERGLASS POOLS

Fiberglass pools are simply molded housings set into a pool excavation,
otherwise known as "the giant hole in your backyard." Sand is applied to
the concrete housing in order to allow the fiberglass mold to settle and
shift while remaining fairly closely packed to the actual earth. Once
you've chosen a fiberglass mold style, there's no possibility of shifting or
revising it; you're stuck with what you've got.
Fiberglass is one of the most popular materials for a number of reasons.
For one, it's very easy to mold into a variety of shapes. There are
factories that do nothing but dream up different pool shapes and mold
fiberglass pools to fit them. On the "minus side", all of this factory design
work carries with it a certain overhead, and fiberglass pools can be more
difficult to install for this reason.
The difficulty of designing fiberglass pools also means that although you
have a great number of options for how your pool will be shapes and how
it will behave, you don't have any freedom to customize within those
options. If none of the factory standard fiberglass pools appeal to you,
you don't have any way to design and build a fiberglass pool that you dolike (without spending a great deal of money to retain a factory and a
dedicated team of pool engineers of your own, that is.)

Fiberglass also has the advantage of being flexible. That doesn't sound

like a huge advantage in pool design, but remember what we said about

our basic principle: pool maintenance is about managing the war between
the water and its container.
Fundamentally, all pools are holes in the ground--and the ground can and
will shift over time. The added flexibility of fiberglass pools means that
the pool body is more resistant to cracks and warping caused by changes
in the earth surrounding the pool. On the minus side, if your fiberglass
pool does crack, it can be very difficult to repair the crack in a way that
won't cause you additional headaches down the years.
There are other advantages to fiberglass pools, in particular safety
advantages. Fiberglass pool surfaces are smooth, making it more difficult
for kids or other swimmers to get scraped or injured by brushing against
rough concrete. It's also easy to install fiberglass pools, especially when
compared to the undertaking that is putting a concrete pool in your
backyard--a process that can involve weeks of waiting for concrete to dry
and a seriously low margin for error if anything goes awry during the
construction process.

                         CONCRETE POOLS      

Concrete pools are the most classic swimming pool option, but bring with
them a host of serious disadvantages.
Once you have your hole in the ground, the process of building a concrete
pool starts with the steel framework. Crossbars of rebar steel are inserted
into the ground to provide the pool with a "cage" of support that's
resistant to earth movements.
After this, gunite or other sprayable concrete mixtures are applied to the
steel framework, allowed to dry, and then recoated in order to smooth the
eventual pool as much as possible. Different finishes can then be applied
to the pool, depending on price. Tiles, paint, plaster, and pebbles are the
most popular finishes, but different options are also available once the
basic concrete is put in.
One major advantage of concrete pools is their customizability. As we've
said, the number of different fiberglass pools available to you is limited by
the pre-fabricated options on the market. The number of different
concrete pools available to you is limited by nothing other than your
budget, your imagination, and the technical competence of the contractors
you choose to install your pool--in other words, you have more choice in
how your pool will look and behave.
Another major advantage of concrete pools is their resistance to hot
temperatures. Fiberglass pools are good at stretching to resist changes in
the earth itself, but can be damaged by extreme, prolonged heat of the
type most often found in southern or equatorial regions--in other words,
the kind of climate where you'd most often want a swimming pool to
begin with. Concrete pools can expand to some extent in order to resist
the heat, giving your pool a longer lifetime in extreme temperatures.
However, you have a bit more to worry about when it comes to changes in
the soil itself. This is the major disadvantage of concrete pools: thedifficulty of doing anything if worst comes to worst and your pool does
crack or break under the strain of above-average movement in the earth.
Most of the time, concrete pools are a good, safe, flexible option. But in
some extreme situations they're not as good at holding up to natural
stresses as fiberglass.
As far as other disadvantages go, there's construction time to consider.
Concrete pools take substantially longer to install and longer still to
become usable--expect a minimum of about three weeks. This ultimately
leaves you with a more stable and customizable pool, but requires
substantially more planning in order to take advantage of a pool before a
hot summer begins, and also causes more damage to your yard and
landscaping while the pool is lying there half-finished. If you have small
children or pets, you'll also have to be very careful to keep them out of
the pool area while it's under construction. This can turn into a nuisance
very quickly.

                          VINYL POOLS

Vinyl pools are one of the cheapest and simplest options for in-ground

pool installation. Vinyl pools start like any other pool: a massive hole in
your backyard. The excavation is packed with sand and the walls of the
pool are created by placing pre-fabricated "panels" into the earth.
The vinyl liner is placed in on top of this and attached to the top of the
pool walls, sealing the places where the panels join (obvious weak points
in the war between water and container.) The contractor will cut holes to
allow for the placement of skimmers, drains, and other plumbing/drainage
features, and then the space between the vinyl lining and the pool walls is
stuffed with "backfill" in order to ensure that the lining won't shift too
much.
Vinyl have the distinct advantage of being very good for cold-weather
climates, since they make it very easy to winterize your pool by simply
draining the water. Concrete and fiberglass pools are designed to holdwater constantly, and they can suffer some major problems if allowed to
drain for too long. As we'll see in our chapter on winterizing, a lot of extra
work is needed to allow these pools to remain full over the cold months
without letting the water freeze and damage the plumbing. Vinyl pools
avoid these problems by simply letting you drain the whole thing easily for
the winter.
But despite their basic simplicity, vinyl pools bring with them a host of
maintenance issues. The vinyl covering is very sensitive to scratches,
holes, and other such damage, which requires you to place some extra
safety guidelines on kids or pets who use the pool, and eliminates certain
kinds of sharp metal toys from use in a vinyl pool altogether. The vinyl
covering will also need to be replaced from time to time due to age and
wear.
If you're lucky, this will happen only once or twice over a multi-decade
pool lifetime; if you're unlucky you can expect to shell this out every year
or two. The need to replace the vinyl lining of a pool adds an ongoing
construction expense (to the tune of a few thousand dollars) and some
measure of headache to the whole situation. A failure to do this leads to
serious leaks which can damage the underlying rock/soil behind the vinyl
lining. If the leaks are serious enough it can actually cause damage to
your entire house foundation.

                    ABOVE-GROUND POOLS

Above-ground pools carry with them a host of problems, but have one
overpowering advantage: you don't need to excavate your yard in order
to install one. Above-ground pools can usually be installed by using a
pre-fab kit, assembled in a backyard, and allowed to stand for several
months without significant maintenance issues. Above-ground pools are
also portable, which is in and of itself a reason to choose them if you don't
own your own home or don't have a stable career which allows you to
remain in one place for the foreseeable future.
Above-ground pools do require two significant pieces of maintenance. For
one, you need to have a level yard. In many suburban areas, this won't
be a problem since the land is already fairly level. If your yard geography
is a little bit more unorthodox, however, you're going to need to get your
yard leveled in order to install an above-ground pool, which can be a
considerable expense.
The other significant piece of maintenance is essentially the same as any
pool would require: weekly chemical treatments performed to ensure
water quality, appropriate cleaning and scrubbing, and careful vigilance.
Think of above-ground pools as "training pools": they'll get you in the
habit of caring for a pool on a regular basis without requiring you to make
costly land modifications or without requiring you to dive into the murky
waters of foundation maintenance and drainage optimization. Just build,
install, swim, and enjoy.

                         WHICH POOL IS RIGHT?

In general, here's a good rubric for making your decision:
 If safety is your primary concern, OR if you live in an area known
for weak soil or tectonic activity, go with fiberglass.
 If customizability is your primary concern, OR if you live in an area
known for extreme summertime heat, go with concrete.
 If cost is your primary concern, OR if you live in an area with
continually low/freezing temperatures, go with vinyl.
 If you've never owned a pool before, you're planning to move soon,
or you simply don't want to make a major financial commitment or
house modification, go with above-ground--but keep your options
open for the future.