How to build your own swimming pool

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How do I build my own swiimming pool?

-- Sheila Stambush (evansville1@hotmail.com), June 24, 2001

Answers

Response to How to build your owm swimming pool

I saw one in "Farm Show " magazine once that had been built from those curved and ribbed grain storage bin panels. With a liner and a filter, it looked like it made a swell pool. I was going to try it myself but was fortunate enough to be given a 21 ft. above ground for nothing by some senior citizens who gave up pool ownership.

-- Walt K. (kraterkrew@lcsys.net), June 24, 2001.

Response to How to build your owm swimming pool

You hire a guy to come out and dig you a huge hole with his heavy equipment.

Then you hire a crew of guys to come out and set up the cement forms and pour the cement. Not forgetting the plumbing you'll need, to drain, filter, and fill the pool. You'll either need a pool liner or you have to waterproof the interior somehow. You'll need a pump to empty it, don't know if that's seperate from the filter pump, probably is.

My uncles built my grandmother's pool, and that's pretty much what they did. They were their own crew.

It's an expensive proposition. I don't think just digging a hole and slapping in a pool liner would work. Liner's likely to tear and leak that way. Maybe someone else knows for sure. Basically you're digging a basement that you WANT to fill with water. How expensive it is depends largely on what kind of soil you have and how much back breaking labor you're willing to do (or if you know someone with a backhoe). That's why so many people buy the above ground kits - its a lot cheaper than an inground pool.

-- Sojourner (sojournr@missouri.org), June 24, 2001.


Response to How to build your owm swimming pool

get a LARGE stock water tank,, if you want, bury it some,, insint pool,, I remember that from an old movie

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), June 24, 2001.

Response to How to build your owm swimming pool

I don't think they make pools with cement anymore. Try www.WaterWarehouse.com They sell inground pool kits now, lots easier to build than they used to be! Hope this helps!!

-- cowgirlone (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), June 24, 2001.

Response to How to build your owm swimming pool

Sheila, have you investigated the time and expense involved with maintaining a pool? We bought a house with an inground pool and it's a royal pain. We've taken snakes, toads, frogs and turtles out of it even with the water very clear and clean. When we bought the place I told my husband that it was his project, that I would help but I wouldn't take sole responsibility for it. You can get fancy gizmos to clean it--I don't care for vacuuming the house, forget the pool-- but they aren't cheap either and right now, we can't get ours to work properly. I've told my husband that if he leaves me, the pool is going or I'll use it as an enormous fish pond. About the best thing I can say about it is that in case of fire, it would be an excellent source of water to fight the fire. The next best thing is after a day of hauling hay or otherwise sweating your brains out, it is refreshing!

I apologize for the negativity but just hoped you had considered the down side as well.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), June 24, 2001.



Response to How to build your owm swimming pool

My brother built his own swimming pool (above ground). He dug the ground out by hand (shovel & wheelbarrow), sifted the sand lining the pool area so there were no rocks or sticks to tear the liner, then had his brother in law come over and they put up the steel sides (trickiest part he said). I don't think there were any concrete footings. The pool liner went in then, and was fastened at the top of the steel sides, had a plastic bumper around the top. He built a pump house to enclose the pump and filter next to it, had plumbing running out from the house so that the water could be heated somewhat (he's worked as an electrician in past and with my cousin on plumbing).

I remember that he was using a clear plastic tube with water in it as a level to make sure that the ground where he erected the siding was level, and the parts were all a do-it-yourself kit that they got from a pool company. He'd fill it with the garden hose in the spring, and had to partly drain it (also with garden hose) in the fall, since it would freeze solid in the winter. His liner lasted very well, except that he had to patch it once when a tree limb fell into the pool during a storm, and another time when his neighbor shot a hole in it (shooting at rabbits).

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), June 25, 2001.


Make sure whoever you hire has workers compensation insurance and is bonded. Also take out a rider on your homeowners insurance policy in case anyone is hurt, so you won't loose your house in a lawsuit. Contact your city planning department. Typically they can be of great help insuring that each contractor does his job correctly. Don't pay the contractors till the city has signed off on there job. You'll save half what a pool company would charge.

-- codornices (codornices@aol.com), August 12, 2001.

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