Swimming Pools

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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

Sizing up the landscape

Sizing up your property on a plot plan that catalogs both assets and liabilities will help you find the best site for your pool. Your plan should include everything you know and can learn about your property, sun and wind patterns, codes and restrictions, contour and condition of the land, and location of utility lines, trees, and access.

Making a plot plan

You will find it easier to evaluate the placement of various sizes and shapes of pools in your home-garden environment if you work with a plan showing all the features of your property. Later on, you can use the plan to draw in decks and other structures, as well as landscaping and lighting.

Your scale drawing should be on graph paper with provision for overlay sheets of tracing paper. The tracing paper allows you to sketch ideas for swimming pools one after another without redrawing the base each time.

You’ll save hours of complicated measuring if you can obtain copies of a surveyor’s plot plan, architect’s drawings or house plans. And contour maps that illustrate vital statistics of lot and buildings.

Architect’s drawings usually show site plan, floor plan, elevations, and foundation details.
Contour maps show the slope of the land with a series of lines each separated from the next by a fixed difference in elevation – especially helpful if you are building a pool on a hillside lot. Ask for contour maps in the city of provincial engineer’s office or in the department of public works.

Drawing the plan

You’ll need graph paper, pencils, erasers, and a ruler. For your drawing, use the largest scale the graph paper will allow.

Your plot plan should show the following features:

- dimensions of your lot,
- location of your house on the lot, as well as doors and windows and the rooms from which they open,
- location of decks, patios.

Use a plan

Use a plan showing all features of your lot determine location, size, and shape of your swimming pool.

Walks, fences, walls, and other structures, points of the compass, north, east, south, and west. Also include location of easements or other right-of-way contained in your deed. Not forget utility lines, underground gas, water, sewer, electric, telephone and television lines and the depth of each; overhead electric, telephone, and television lines and the height of each (it’s dangerous to locate a swimming pool under wires carrying electricity); septic tanks, leaching fields, and propane gas tanks; exterior outlets for water and electricity; meter boxes and air conditioning units you may want to screen. Also include sun and wind patterns, potential problems beyond the lot lines that might affect sun, view, or privacy, tall trees or a neighbor’s second story windows, for example. Mark clear what is front side and backyard setback boundaries, contours of your lot, and natural features, such as rock outcrops, soil types, or wet spots.

Access for the contractor

Before excavation can begin, you must provide adequate access for heavy equipment. The minimum width for access to the pool site is about 2.5 meters wide, but because excavation will take longer, the cost will be higher. If equipment cannot be brought in, the pool must be hand dug at a prohibitive cost.

As an alternative, you may be able to bring in the equipment over a neighbor’s property, but you, not the pool builder, must make the arrangements.

You may have to remove fences and gates. If heavy equipment will cross a curb, sidewalk, patio, or lawn, take measures to prevent damage. These, too, will be your responsibilities.

Though you don’t want to build your pool over a gas or water main or under a power line, your poolside should have ready access to them. Some pool contracts require additional payment for runs to these utility lines over some minimum distance. A reliable and knowledgeable builder, however, should include these costs in the bid.

Trees and shrubs

Generally, it’s preferable not to build a swimming pool near trees and large shrubs. Leaves, blossoms, and fruit dropping near and in the pool will add to your cleaning chores. And a tall tree or shrub may shade your pool just at the time you’ll be using it.

If there are trees or shrubs that you want to keep, try to locate your pool so that the prevailing winds blow the debris away from the pool. In addition, plot the shadows thrown by the trees; then determine whether or not you would welcome that shade in and around your pool during the swimming season.

Assessing pool views

Pleasure, privacy, and safety are concerns when you choose a pool location. When seen from inside your home, the swimming pool should be an attractive part of the landscape. On the other hand, the view from a neighbor’s upstairs window may infringe on your privacy. And if there’s a beautiful view from your property, position the swimming pool so you can enjoy the view from poolside.

If children will use your pool, you either need a clear view of their activities from the house or, as in the case of small children; you will have to be at poolside when they’re swimming.

Mark the field of view on an overlay of your plot plan, If you’ve already decided on a potential site, use an enlarged plan of the proposed pool area to mark the fields; you will want a large plan when you come to consider landscaping.