sheer descent water feature on raised spa

[Suburbanjuls]

Hi all,

As we are interviewing pool builders trying to recreate our slice of paradise, I mentioned that we loved the 4' wide sheer descent we had on the front of our former raised 18" spa that made a lovely waterfall into our pool. It was directly under the spa coping and spilled into our pool. I just flipped a switch on the panel or selected it on the handheld unit to turn it on and we used it frequently during the 5 years we had that property.

Fast forward to now, I am asking about building the same thing and am being told(by 2 Pool Builders) that they don't like to build this way because the only way to have this sheer descent on the front of the raised spa is to have separate bodies of water. Apparently, that is not advisable to do nowadays. The present and future seems to be all broken copings with spillovers so the pool and spa can share the same body of water. I don't like spillovers because we love to do step offs from the front of the raised spa coping into the pool(feet first of course!). Unbroken coping all the way around the raised spa also gives more places to sit and dangle feet into the waterfall and be connected to those in the pool from the spa. We also loved to get behind the sheer descent and feel like it was another "place" within the pool(I've even brought a drink back there). All the spillovers I've seen don't seem to have the projection that we had where a full adult could easily get behind the waterfall. They just seem to dribble down or fall much closer to the raised side of the spa. I also don't like scuppers for this application because while they have projection themselves, the water coming off of them does not seem to. I would also worry about catching a foot on them when stepping off the spa since they stick out further than the spa coping.

Just when we thought were close to selecting our pool builder and then this has come up where I am not sure now if this is just something that they don't want to do or if there are legitimate reasons why we cannot have what in 2024 what we built in 2017. How bad of an idea is it to have a separate bodies of water for the pool and spa? Admittedly, I didn't know what I was doing when we had that pool built and I don't know much more now, but I am reading a lot and trying to absorb it all as we are embarking on our new pool build. I am pretty sure we had separate bodies of water at our last pool, but can't be 100% sure how it was plumbed. I see on our old paperwork that we had a Haywood VS Ecostar pump, but also see under the equipment section that next to sheer fall size, it states 3/4 hp pump. So maybe we had the VS for the pool/spa and another small one just for the water feature? I don't want to ask a pool builder to do something they aren't adept at as I have no interest in being someone's live action expensive experiment. I also don't want to build a pool that is instantly outdated or harder to maintain or deal with because it was build in a convoluted manner. I am planning to maintain the pool myself as I did at prior home but am not opposed to reaching out for professional help. At least the water chemistry aspect didn't daunt me. Pool plumbing, on the other hand...;0

The goal isn't actually if we have shared bodies of water or not, or separate pumps or not. We all just really loved our sheer descent and want the same thing again. I have told the pool builder this, and they will have to get with their build team to see how to design the plumbing. We just met with them yesterday, so they will not get back to us until sometime next week, but I wanted to see if there was a general consensus among the pool users of the internet on how to accomplish this.

Thanks!
Juls

 

[Jimrahbe]

Juls,

I am not sure I understand the whole issue...

If you can mount a sheer decent waterfall on a wall, then you should be able to do the same with your spa.. The sheer decent would not be using any spa water. A feature pump would suck up pool water and send it to the sheer decent mounted in the spa wall.

Maybe the problem is just a nomenclature issue.. Do you just want the standard spillover of the spa into the pool? If so, that is not called a 'sheer decent'. You can build spas that have a slot below the coping that is used as a spillover.

Do you expect your new spa to have a sheer decent and a standard spa spillover???

Do you have any pictures of your old pool/spa??

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[HermanTX]

It not exactly clear what you had before so any pictures would be great.
If you had 2 separate bodies of water, you would either need a complete separate pump, filter, heater for it, or your plumbing was set up to use a common filter and heater with valving to switch between the 2 bodies of flow.

Since you stated you just flipped a switch, it appears your decent was powered by a dedicated pump. And the decent was positioned where the spa adjacent with the pool. Since it flowed into the pool, suction must be from the pool. Now what we do not know is if the water flowed first into the spa and the spa water flowed through the decent back into the pool or if the return flow from the dedicated pump connected direct to the decent and not through the spa. I think it is the latter to create the throw out into the pool such that a person could be behind it.

Can you provide any additional info from your old files?

 

[ajw22]

Separate your two wants when talking to the builders. They are two different things with different solutions.

You do not want the traditional spillover and want unbroken coping around the spa. There are other design techniques using pipes in the spa wall that connect the spa water level to the pool and allow the spa and pool to be a single body of water. It probably takes an experienced builder who knows how to do this.

If you need more we can probably sketch something up for you.

Once you have that type of spa to pool connection the builder can install the sheer descent you want on the spa wall with a separate suction port in the pool connected to a dedicated pump.

 

[Suburbanjuls]

I couldn't find any photos of the water feature running except for what we took when we sold the house. My apologies, it is not very clear of a pic. I am also attaching a pic of the diagram of the spa detail and equipment set up from the paperwork I have. I didn't think what we had was that complicated, I just picked features from a list of things I liked and the pool builder just put it all together. If it was complex or out of the ordinary to do, they never breathed a word of that to me. I do distinctly remember the valve turning to spa mode when we wanted to heat the spa. The spa did have an overflow grate in it, not a skimmer-so that also makes me think it was two bodies of water. For reference, this pool was 16x32 with 3.5 shallow and 6.5 deep end and the spa was 6x8.

 

[ajw22]

The spa did have an overflow grate in it, not a skimmer-so that also makes me think it was two bodies of water.

That overflow grate created the internal spillover connection to the pool and made it a single body of water. That is what I was describing in post #4.

 

[Suburbanjuls]

Sorry, forgot to add that of course, I am sending this to the pool builder that we are likely going with. Would have been great if I had found it before our meeting with the pool builder on Friday, so we could have discussed it. Honestly, I didn't realize that what we had was either not recommended or at least not that common of a thing. In CA, the pool builder had several small pools built with loads of features which could be added on like a salad bar. When I was emailing one pool builder here, I thought that perhaps it was a communication issue, but after discussing details with the second pool builder here, then I realized that it seems to be an issue. I'm shocked I was even able to find the papers after our move!

 

[ajw22]

They can place two or three of these WaterWay rectangle version pipes in the spa wall at the level the spillover would be and pipe it down to outlets at the pool water level to create an internal spa spillover.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Juls,

As Allen points out.. You had a spa that 'spilled over' into your pool via a grate in the spa, and a pipe that sent the water back to the pool unseen.

You have a totally separate 4' sheer that was just built into the spa wall.. It was run by a pump that sucked water from the pool and returned all the water to the pool. It really has nothing to do with the spa, except it just happens to be installed in the spa wall next to the pool.

I don't think your prospective pool builders really understood what it was that you wanted.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[kimkats]

I am going to ping someone who might be able to help you communicate with your pool builders @AQUA~HOLICS can you help them out?

 

[AQUA~HOLICS]

Don’t know if I can say anything differently about what has already been said.
I haven’t seen a two water body system on a residential pool in a long time.
Typically a dedicated pump is used to obtain what you are looking for that pulls water from the pool and to the water feature.