Fiberglass Pools, Just What Are You Getting?

[AllanB]

A couple of years ago a friend of mine was contemplating a pool and was trying to decide whether to go concrete or fiberglass and opted for the latter.

He wanted 8m x 4m pool and paid 600k for JDPools Harvest model, the concrete 8x4 version being a similar price, my pool is a rectangular 8m x 4m concrete pool, so in theory our pools should be quite similar.

Okay the Harvest is actual described as being 7.33 m x 3.89 m, but what's a few inches between friends? Well quite a lot when you look at the two pools, mine looks double, if not tremble the size. First of all his pool has very rounded corners, narrows in the middle and the dimensions are the maximums, so on the surface about 1/3 of the usable area is lost. Then the sides are sloping, losing over about 1.5 metres on both length and width, for the swimmer. So if your want to swim, two strokes and you are done, basically it is a plunge pool.

We have had races between 3 swimmers without any contact and more than 20 people in playing in reasonable comfort and my gripe is this. The two pools are not at all comparable and without a sample pool to to look at it is quite difficult to realise that.

I would strongly advise anyone contemplating a fibreglass pool, to look at one that has been installed and even take a dip, you WILL be disappointing. As he is, paying B600k for a big bath.

I would also advise building the longest concrete pool you have space for, even if it means sacrificing width to save costs. Next time I would go 10m x 4m.

[SantiSuk]

Those that do comment on my pool having used it tend to say how clever to have a long thin pool. Not clever, but lucky. I changed the design at the last minute from 11m x 6m to 15m x 4.5m having used a pool at a hotel that was long and thin. It's quite difficult to break away from 'golden rule' dimensions but I'm very pleased I did.

[AllanB]

I could have just fitted a 10m pool in my garden and I am sure that would have been big enough, but then again........

We plan on moving within the next year, probably do a self build on a bigger plot, yes, 15m sounds like a good idea.

Depth I am still undecided, my current pool is 1.2m, very easy to clean, diving a problem, that's all.

[SantiSuk]

I would tweak my height dimensions if I were to start again. Currently it starts at 0.8m and steepens evenly down to 1.7m. I'm very happy with the shallow end height for the kids who use the pool (mostly younger teenagers) and the deep end is fine for diving (off the side - we don't have a board) and underwater play. 0.8m is just about ok for doing turns when I'm swimming lengths. I'm a 6 footer - I guess if I did not expect the pool to be the local village kids' pool and expected it to be an adults' pool (including non-swimmer adults) I would plump for a 0.9m shallow end; real lanky owners who want to use a pool for excercise lengths might want to add 10cm more). 0.8m is certainly ok for swimming lengths in - of any stroke - once you've turned.

So ideally I would have had two even height shelves, a 7m shallow end shelf, a 5m deep end shelf and a 3m connecting decline in the middle (maybe 6+3+6). Would have saved a bit of chemicals and pumping time.

Everyone will have their own preferences and intended users. I guess the pool pros will have some rules of thumb as well, though the Bangkok pool designer my regional builder* used was happy to take instructions, rather than give advice.

*I use that phrase to describe an amphur-wide builder with reasonable commercial experience, not the local village guys.

[xen]

The place where i am staying has a 22 x 15 m pool 1.2 in depth all over. Means the kids can swim and we can play badmiton, vollyball etc because of the even depth. If i was building a pool i would have 1/3 the area but 1.2 depth. I have a injury from a work accident and i walk forwards and backwards and do other exercises and this is possible because of the same depth all over. Long and thin is the way to go and much more space efficient than abstract shaped pools .

[Chaichara]

On a typical 4 x 10 or 4 x 12 pool, a general rule of thum - to keep construction costs down - would be a single slope from 0.80 to 1.40 which seems to please most domestic owners. Naturally, most pool firms will try to sell the widest, longest, deepest pool.

AFAIK, the fibreglass pool firms are a frachise. They are relatively over-priced, perhaps to recuperate the cost of the franchise. The pool shells may even be imported, I don't know.