Swimming Pools

Home

Choosing

Restrictions, codes and other regulations

Health and safety codes

Climate, weather and your swimming pool

Consider the wind

Sizing up the landscape

Slope, soil and drainage

Rules-of-thumb for choosing the site

Lots with a challenge

Rules-of-thumb for choosing the site

Even if you think of your lot as the size of a postage stamp, you may have more than one possible site for your pool – behind the house, in the side yard or even in the front yard.

Evaluate various swimming pool sites

To help you evaluate various pool sites and select the best one for your needs, here’s a check list of desirable features in a pool site:

sun on the pool area all day long, unless you live like me, live in a tropical country, and need some shade in the middle of the day,
shelter from all but the gentlest of breezes, except for tropical locations, where some wind is welcome because of its cooling effect,
easy access for the heavy equipment used by the pool contractor,
convenience to utility lines – water and electricity,
trees and shrubs located so as not to dirty the pool but to make the best use of the sun,
easily and pleasantly viewed from the house,
shielded from the view of neighbors, your girl in a bikini can quickly become a no good girl,
roomy enough for poolside activities, diving, sunning, and entertaining,
convenient for swimmers but located so they don’t leave wet footprints on the living room carpet when they go into change.

Because you’re not likely to find a site that meets all these requirements, you’ll have to compromise to find the best combination for your needs.

You might have to sacrifice a site that’s perfectly framed in the living room window for a location that makes the pool visible from the kitchen window – a desirable feature if you have children. By moving the pool closer to some trees you might trade off more pool cleaning work for increased privacy from your neighbors.

In a windy area where compromise is not possible, shielding the pool with shrubs, trees, or a windscreen can be a solution.

As you evaluate pool sites, you’ll want to consider different sizes, shapes, and types of pools. Though you won’t want to landscape until your pool is built, giving some though now to at least the major landscape elements – decks, fences, trees, and shrubs – will help assure that your swimming pool fits in with the overall landscape.

For many lots, deciding where to place the pool is obvious. For others, because of size, shape, terrain, or number of other factors, the choice is much more difficult. The section “Lots with a challenge” illustrates some typical and some not-so-typical pool and lot combinations.