jenniferm's diy pool build

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A bond beam could also be called a ring beam. Picture a continuos horizontal band of concrete around the entire perimeter at the top (or near the top) of the pool. I plan to accomplish this for my pool by removing 1/2 to 3/4 of the internal portion of the top course of block so I can lay 2 rebars side by side horizontally around the entire pool and then fill the inside of the block with concrete just as you are doing with the vertical cores of the rest of the block. The bottom of the wall is pinned to the floor with rebar giving it lateral or outward support. The top of the pool does not have anything to support lateral loads so you can accomplish this effect with the use of a "Bond Beam" inside the top course of block. Hope this makes sense.
 
Here it is so far. We changed from a traditional in ground liner to a "natural pool" look with a black liner. That is partially why I stopped posting here. I know pool people look down on this because it isnt as pretty. I totally understand but I have kids and 3 dogs who love water and I did not want to spend a ton of money on a fitted liner just to have the dogs destroy it. The black liner is crazy thick and I do not think they can hurt it. I spent a lot of time on pinterest looking at natural pools. Seemed intriguing... till I could not find much about the pumping/filtering systems without paying someone. The idea is the plants keep the water clean and you use a bio filter to clean debris out. Seemed like a good thing till I really started thinking about the health of my family and I cannot risk some weird flesh eating bacteria or crypto just because I am too much of a hippy at heart lol So it is going to be some what of a hybrid pool. It will have a SWG and UV/Ozone system long with the DE pump. It fits our needs so that is all I care about. We added the plant zone so it will be more of fountain/decoration area now and a place for the pups and youngest daughter. Might put some plants secured in raised pots to add to the natural look.
There will be wood decking over the left and back walls overlapping the pool wall by 8 inches to hide the black liner. The front of the pool will be a flagstone walk in entry. Then the right side of the wall will be flagstone coping. The wall between the two on the left is lower so water will flow across and the top of that wall will be flagstone to hide the liner. Then the wall dividing the two sides in the middle will be flagstone. We tried to get the decking done last weekend but realized the water had to go in before we could secure the liner and cover it because since it is not a perfect fit things have to be folded and sealed as the water pulls it into place. I also have 2 tons of big river rock to cover the gravel we temp put in the plant zone to hold the liner. I know that stone/gravel will make keeping it clean much harder but it is what it is. It will help protect the liner from the dogs constant wear and tear and cover the ugly black liner. I might eventually have it removed and stone put in.

I am embarrassed to post these pics on a pool forum. It does not really fit here and the people at the pond forums do not like swim ponds lol I am stuck in the middle!! There are no "natural pool" forums.

the beginning


Then we let the project sit for two years. I fell and dislocated and basically shredded my knee so I was on crutches for a while. We had to reshape the inside because erosion and plants.


Finally getting materials! This was very exciting to see after 2 years of waiting. Almost had a problem, fed ex only had a pallet jack to deliver a 12 ft long 1025 pound liner. Luckily the stone guy helped out or we would have never gotten it off the truck


Liner in. Looks easy right? It took 4 adults almost 2 days to get it in. It was over 100 degrees, and that black material made it feel so much hotter. Plus it was 1025 lbs! It was ridiculous.


pups are ready to go for a swim!


kids are pretty excited too. I let them swim over the weekend but if I cannot get the pump system hooked up soon the water is going to get funky real fast :(



 
I'm not going to lie, it's not my cup of tea visually. However, I find what you are doing very interesting, and would love to see how you finish it. Don't be embarrassed! A swimming hole is a swimming hole :)

So, what do you plan to do to the yard around it? Are you going to leave the liner just laying over the edges loose?
 
If I'm understanding correctly, it is a regular pool, just with a non-custom fit, really thick pond style liner. You plan to sanitize/chlorinate with a SWCG and use a filter designed for a pool so you shouldn't get any objections there. It's more just about going a little outside of the box on appearance. You'll have wrinkles in the liner which will collect dirt and inhibit circulation in those confined areas which could lead to some algae growth, but probably not too big of a deal. You may just need to to keep your FC higher on the FC/CYA ratio scale to account for that. Although from the postings on here, we don't hear much about dogs ripping vinyl liners, it certainly would seem like it could be an issue. Honestly, we were never going vinyl, but knowing that we had a dog that might want to swim (and now have two young doggy swimmers) that thought was in my mind. My dogs did recently "learn" how to swim and during those first days were a little frantic and left scratch marks on some of the plaster steps. So I'm on your side for wanting a doggie-proof solution.

Most likely the most controversial part of your build (appearance aside - which is subjective) is putting plants, even on raised platforms, within the boundary of the pool. Just from a contamination/chlorine usage perspective. But if you don't care to hear people's feedback on that piece (or anything else controversial) just say so and people will respect that (and if not there are ways for the Mods to make them respect that).

I'd suggest that you just be clear on this thread that you let people know what you are open to hearing opinions on and what you aren't. My comments above are hopefully somewhat helpful and not too off base. I think you've done a good job of letting people know this isn't a "standard" pool installation and to tread lightly on commentary contrary to that.

I look forward to watching and am glad that you've come back!
 
camueller said:
I'm not going to lie, it's not my cup of tea visually. However, I find what you are doing very interesting, and would love to see how you finish it. Don't be embarrassed! A swimming hole is a swimming hole :)

So, what do you plan to do to the yard around it? Are you going to leave the liner just laying over the edges loose?
Click to expand...

No exposed liner. We just cannot do the coping till the pool is full because the liner needs to stretch and settle. The only way you will see the liner is if you are looking straight down into it from the edge. The way it sits you cannot see the bottom from the patio. The left side and back will have a wood deck that overlaps the edge to hide the liner. Probably 6 ft wide but I might go wider so I can put more out there. Then the right side will have mortared flagstone coping. The beach entry will have a flagstone floor. The two internal walls (one between the beach entry and plant zone and one big one between the pool area and plant zone) will have mortared flagstone coping on the top. The back of the deck will have a rustic nautical rope for a rail like this
traditional-softwood-timber-decking-rope-rail.jpg
 
bmoreswim said:
If I'm understanding correctly, it is a regular pool, just with a non-custom fit, really thick pond style liner. You plan to sanitize/chlorinate with a SWCG and use a filter designed for a pool so you shouldn't get any objections there. It's more just about going a little outside of the box on appearance. You'll have wrinkles in the liner which will collect dirt and inhibit circulation in those confined areas which could lead to some algae growth, but probably not too big of a deal. You may just need to to keep your FC higher on the FC/CYA ratio scale to account for that. Although from the postings on here, we don't hear much about dogs ripping vinyl liners, it certainly would seem like it could be an issue. Honestly, we were never going vinyl, but knowing that we had a dog that might want to swim (and now have two young doggy swimmers) that thought was in my mind. My dogs did recently "learn" how to swim and during those first days were a little frantic and left scratch marks on some of the plaster steps. So I'm on your side for wanting a doggie-proof solution.

Most likely the most controversial part of your build (appearance aside - which is subjective) is putting plants, even on raised platforms, within the boundary of the pool. Just from a contamination/chlorine usage perspective. But if you don't care to hear people's feedback on that piece (or anything else controversial) just say so and people will respect that (and if not there are ways for the Mods to make them respect that).

I'd suggest that you just be clear on this thread that you let people know what you are open to hearing opinions on and what you aren't. My comments above are hopefully somewhat helpful and not too off base. I think you've done a good job of letting people know this isn't a "standard" pool installation and to tread lightly on commentary contrary to that.

I look forward to watching and am glad that you've come back!
Click to expand...


I am totally open to any suggestions. I knew the non fit liner would be more difficult and to be honest now that I know how much the stupid thing cost I would have just had someone shotcrete it lol Ok well it was a little cheaper than shotcrete but you know what I mean. There are a few wrinkles going into the deep end but the fact that it is black hides it. The corners were the most difficult. We had to "envelope" fold them and seal the edges to keep water out.

As far as plants, it is such a huge area (12x20ish) I am trying to find something to make it look less like a rock pit. We have several little deck jets and a fountain that was originally meant to keep the water flowing around the plant zone so there is that. I thought maybe a large urn fountain grouping to add color like this download.jpg The plant idea was maybe to create a concrete raised bed style box inside the area. So it would be separated by concrete and the soil level would be below the edge a good bit to avoid getting the water dirty. I just need some way to add color and texture to a big rocky area. I have been looking into price on acrylic to encase the rock to give it the look of rock but a smooth surface, like they do with tables. I am not sure how well resin would do with chlorine. I might just find a way to close off that section all together and leave it as a hardscape with rocks and maybe a pondless fountain.
 
jenniferm said:
No exposed liner. We just cannot do the coping till the pool is full because the liner needs to stretch and settle. The only way you will see the liner is if you are looking straight down into it from the edge. The way it sits you cannot see the bottom from the patio. The left side and back will have a wood deck that overlaps the edge to hide the liner. Probably 6 ft wide but I might go wider so I can put more out there. Then the right side will have mortared flagstone coping. The beach entry will have a flagstone floor. The two internal walls (one between the beach entry and plant zone and one big one between the pool area and plant zone) will have mortared flagstone coping on the top. The back of the deck will have a rustic nautical rope for a rail like this
Click to expand...

Well then, I can pretty confidently say you will have a pool you'll be proud to show off when you get all that done. Keep up the good work!
 
How did you seal the liner up in the corners? Bet that was less than fun!

Plants-think about rain......you don't want it raining and the run off pushing the dirt into the pool.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing huh? Keep us up on how things go!

:kim:
 
I think this is an incredible project, I can't wait to see more!
As for any haters (I don't think you'll get any here), just let em hate.
It's your yard and your pool, it should be how you want it.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626s using Tapatalk
 

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I think this is a very cool idea and wouldn't be embarrassed if I were you. If anyone should be embarrassed it's the person that shelled out $100k to do what your kids are doing in those pictures.

I'm all for DIY and thinking outside the box to save a buck and it's neat to see something other than another cookie cutter pool. Thanks for sharing and keep the pictures coming!
 
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