What would you do differently

[kkendall]

Just curious

After having a pool built, what would you have done differently? -and- What were some of your best decisions?

For me:
Good decisions:
1) Having water features installed (water scuppers & shear descent waterfall). Adds a great atmosphere when entertaining outside. REALLY glad I didn't install the Wok Pots (a convenient place for birds to poop).
2) In pool table with bench seating around it. Nice place to sit with an umbrella shading the table.
3) In floor cleaning jets

Wish I would have done differently:
1) Added a little more decking in certain areas.

 

[doobs41378]

I should have put 2 lights in....

 

[jblizzle]

Previous house I had a pool/spa built, they had the spill over from the pool to the spa under the deck. I thought it would look nicer to open it up and see the water/tile of the spillover. Turned out all that did was all you to see the white build-up from evaporation and give the birds a place to stand to drink water ... and then to poo all over the deck

Current house came with a pool, has a giant VERY ugly waterfall that was poorly made with ugly rocks and mortar and leaks all over the deck if I run it. Pool is very long and the single light in the deep end does not reach the shallow end especially with a color LED. Wish it had a hot tub attached.

 

[sharper4]

I'm glad I spent money on the water features. I wish I had put an automation system in so I could control the pump / lights from a remote though. I too wish I had put just a hair more decking in and I wish I would have moved the location of the umbrella in my sundeck.

 

[cbink]

Mine's not finished yet but I think I may regret the locations of my umbrella holders in the deck... Time will tell!
It's interesting to me that a lot of people seem to mention that they wished they had more decking (I've seen this mentioned before many times). We will have 1,350 sqft of decking which I thought may have been overkill but now the concrete has been poured whilst we're definitely not lacking in decking it certainly doesn't feel as large as I was expecting it to (I almost thought we may have had too much decking).

 

[zephard]

Our coping doesn't seem to be holding up. We just built a month ago. We picked out preformed manufactured concrete so it would have that rounded edge. The Mrs was concerned about pouring concrete all the way to the pool and not having that joint for movement. All we saw was one shot from a catalog. In the catalog they looked perfect. Ours came pre chipped. Every piece is chipped somewhere, more than 80 percent of them in several places and they are cracking. I like the rounded edges they are nice. That is all I like about it.

 

[zimm]

My pool is probably 20+ years old, but here's my observations:

The love-seat/bench at the deep end is just a place for dirt to settle and the pool vac can't reach. Plus it's a fall in hazard while walking around the pool. One spa light at the end isn't enough- 2-4 light niches would be awesome.

I do love the lane stripe down the center of the pool.