Hi, just joined the forums - great site!
I'm spending the winter getting everything set up for an AGP and deck install spring 2011, having a hard time determining a final size (no large dealers in the area with pools set up to go look at).
We have a large yard but the preferred location off of our sun room maxes out with an 18' round, I spray painted the perimeter on the lawn but all initial reactions of it were: small (although I don't know how well a line on the grass visualizes the final product).
Now were contemplating a much larger expenditure in an oval pool.....much larger

Just wondering if any 18' round pool owners with pictures can direct me to them, unforunately the forums don't allow searching on "18", and there's ALOT of pics on this forum.
Any help is much appreaciated!

Welcome to TFP...I have a 24' ft and although it serves it's purpose, never a day goes by that when I'm in the pool, I do not say to myself...wish I went with the 27 or 30 ft

If you really want to get it in the tight space, the 18 will do, and the pro is less maint cost. Also, do check with local town ordinance to ensure if you decide to go with 18 you have enough setback from your property line.

If you can get a bigger pool I would. We did an 18ft Intex pool for a few years and it was too small for just dh and I. Figure 2 people on rafts floating, that takes at least 12 feet. Put a few pool floats in that circle and another ring for a kid or two and the space gets taken up fast. If you can go bigger into a 24 ft you won't regret it. It would be big enough to enjoy and not too big to manage even if you can't devote a lot of time to do it. A big deck around a little pool might be ok if your focus is the deck and not the pool. IMHO This is a great site and everyone will help you along your adventure. Good Luck and welcome to the group, Kimrst

I have a 12' round and it is excellent for my purposes, but probably not for everybody. For starters, it's deeper than many (52" instead of 48"), so no kids are allowed. Besides, if I wanted to swim in kid water, I'd go to the public pool. Usually we just use it for soaking, floating and splashing with a couple of friends. I bought one with an extra wide ledge so we have someplace to put our cocktails.

Our pump is strong enough that I can swim against the current it creates.

Thanks for the comments, I suppose in the back of my mind I've known what the answer will be: go large.
Kim, your right, with kids and rafts and play toys I guess the space will be eaten up quickly and I really don't want to have a nagging voice in the back of my head saying "you should have went bigger".

Laulea, thanks for the pic, nice little pool there, I do like the wide ledge.

We got our 28ft doughboy used and if it hadn't been such a great deal we would have passed it up. IMHO its too big for just dh and I and the occasional teen. It takes up more chemicals and its hard to find poles long and strong enough to go around and down into the deeper dug out center. Having said that I still love it. We will be adding a deck and steps in the spring. I love walking around the pool and vacing and doing my water testing. This group is great and they will help you in whatever you need. I tend to be lazy but my pool never turned green and my water was crystal clear all year. I just followed the BBB plan. Good luck Kimrst

I would have to agree that with a larger diameter it is more difficult to clean, get the covers on and off, and it takes more chemicals when you need to add to it but I wouldn't go smaller than I have. I would have actually preferred and oval, but we didn't have the space for it.. they are nice so you can swim laps, which is harder to do in a round.

Good luck in deciding... and have fun this summer if you get one installed!

We had an 18 at our prior house, and I wished we had the space to go bigger. I'm 6'5" tall, and it seemed like I would just push off one side when I was at the other. Plus we had 2 kids, so when 3 or 4 of us were in there, it got a little busy. Unfortunately, to go bigger would have meant major landscaping work in the area of the yard with the space, and the pool wouldn't have been in as nice a spot in the yard.

I'm curious what the OP ended up deciding to do.

Just wanted to update this, after a lot of thought and measuring I ended up going with a 20' round pool. We have plenty of space at the rear of the yard but we really wanted a pool/deck directly off our sun room, so we had some restrictions on space.

The 20' is nice, a larger pool would have been great but I found that 20' still gives us a very nice pool experience, were very happy with it.

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