O/B question about design drawings

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I

Ifly

0
Jan 12, 2016
21
Keller/Texas
Hi everyone,

This is my first post! I love this forum. I am considering a owner build. I have sketched out my pool on paper. My question is how do I get that sketch to a buildable drawing? The city I will be building in doesn't require engineering, however if you build closer than ten feet from your fence they require a drainage plan that has to be done by an engineer. I will be closer than ten feet. I saw a company online that does the drawings but I wanted to get input from the knowledgeable people here.


Thanks
Tico
 
The online companies I saw are kind of pricey (like $400). If you're somewhat tech savvy, pool studio is not that hard to learn. I downloaded the demo (can't save so I had to keep the program running, or you could use a virtual machine), and learned it in a few hours.

If you're starting with a drawing it's not hard to trace it on the computer screen. Then you can provide a background image of the plot plan, scale the size, and print a drawing for the permit that will also work for construction drawings.

If you're doing a freeform pool, its pretty easy to draw the measurements in pool studio between the radius center points that make up your drawing. Then whoever does your layout simply transcribes those measurements to the ground when they paint.

It sounds overwhelming at first but most contractors don't need anything fancy for the specs as long as you're involved. Also you will inevitably tweak things throughout the process as they're putting it together.

if you do pool studio, let me know if you have any questions. One suggestion right off the bat is to change the grid lines to 1 inch or off as the snap to grid on 1 ft gets in the way of drawing the curves that you want.
 
Thanks And,

I could probably figure it out eventually. The problem is the time that would take, I am owner building a house and wanted to submit the pool plans with the house plans to the bank. So I've got a lot of preliminary stuff I'm working on. Also I'm going to need an engineer to stamp the drainage plan as well. After reading some threads on TFP my thoughts were that I can also get an apples to apples comparison on pool builder quotes.
 
Ifly said:
Hey And,
How did you determine your pump size and what size filter and PVC?
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On the pump, I went with the most popular one. The cost difference between various pumps is not very much, so I just went all in with the Intellflo VS pump. It's 3HP, which is way more than I'll ever need but it was a quality VS pump that was like $850 or so. The superflo would prbably have worked too.

i don't remember all how I chose the filter size, but I found resources online and then just got bigger than necessary. Again, the cost difference wasn't big, and you generally want to oversize your filter so you don't need to backwash it a lot.

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Ifly said:
Thanks And,

I could probably figure it out eventually. The problem is the time that would take, I am owner building a house and wanted to submit the pool plans with the house plans to the bank. So I've got a lot of preliminary stuff I'm working on. Also I'm going to need an engineer to stamp the drainage plan as well. After reading some threads on TFP my thoughts were that I can also get an apples to apples comparison on pool builder quotes.
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sounds good. I think it's a good idea for any owner builder to meet with several builders beforehand to get ideas even if you won't use them. This gives you a chance to ask questions and get ideas.
 
waltons08 said:
We are also just starting the process for an owner build and had no idea how to design it. We used a guy we found online and so far everything is going great. If you pm me, I can give you the info.
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Ok, perfect I'll pm you

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Marlahoutex said:
Who designed your house? Perhaps that person could draw up plans for you.
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Marla,
Interesting you mentioned that, I left him a message today asking that same question!

Thanks
 
I need engineering plans and the company that will be doing mine suggested that I draw my own design plans by hand. They sent me instructions on how to do it. I'm not done yet....but this is what I did so far. It just needs to be done one 1/8" graph paper. 1/8" = 1 foot.
IMG_20160121_131611.jpg
 

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woodyp said:
$400 bucks for a STAMPED engineering drawing is very reasonable btw.
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The one I saw is 499.00 for drafting add 250.00 for stamped engineering and add another 100.00 for a water feature. I have no idea if that's a good price but it's hard to pay that when the city doesn't require it. I'm still trying to figure out if someone is using a pool studio type of design service like the pool builders use for a more reasonable price. I'm so new to this. I have so much to learn.
 
Sheree,
That is really neat! I'm on my iPad right now so I can't quite read the instructions, maybe I will be able to on my laptop.
from what I can make out it looks like it's pretty straight forward. Do you have slope? That seems a little challenging to figure out the amount of slope.
 
Ifly said:
Brain,
Are you saying you submit that to an engineering firm so they can do engineering based off of it?
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That is a drawing made by the engineering firm to show what they need on the plans in order to engineer the pool properly. It is purely hypothetical. Whoever designs your pool would send your plans to the engineer for the structural details. Once complete, they would be delivered to you to submit for a permit (or in your case begin building).

Although that is sufficient for the engineer, there isn't enough detail to build the pool. Elevations of the pool, electrical and plumbing runs as well as special features would be required.

I can post some examples tomorrow
 
Sheree :

You are posting information from Pool Engineering in Anaheim CA. They are licensed in Georgia so they should be able to take your drawings and produce suitable plans for submission in Georgia.

They won't be detailed. Most pool plans are not. They should have an elevation on them but many do not. They may or may not show drainage. They will probably show where the service entrance is to the house and where the equipment pad will be located. They generally show the electrical and plumbing runs in general locations if they show them at all. They will have an engineering supplment attached that will show different structural conditions and how those should be handled. If you have something unusual that would be covered in a small drawing with instructions.

They will probably look something close to the drawing above. They will have an standard engineering attachment of one or two pages showing engineering details for common conditions.

They probably won't specify equipment or finishes. They won't talk about the hydraulics of the plumbing. No pipe sizes or specifications. Most Cities and Counties don't care. It may or may not have the basic electrical info on it. Location and size of new subpanel and the service entrance.

Warning: some cities and counties (especially in California) require more. Most do not. But they have produced drawings for thousands of pools (including mine).

Most of their customers are Pool Building contractors.

One final thing. Pool Engineering are engineers --- not pool designers. They are not in general going to design the pool -- where things are, equipment, plumbing specs, finishes, etc. You have to do that. There are pool designers out there that will do that but they cost more. They can also include engineering (if desired or required) in their price.
 
Sheree,

I am concerned about your downslope in your back yard. The reason is I personally have a very sloped yard and I had a neighbor at my old house that had a large drop and then their pool. They had nightmares from water during large storms pushing mud into their pool. Since you live in GA and I know you can get large water events (thunderstorms and hurricanes) I would make sure you protect your pool from mud from that slope as much as possible. The best way to do that is either have a large wall on the backside that forces the drainage around the pool during a storm OR build up your pool a bit higher and slope the yard down away from the pool before the upslope in the back.

A small drain etc... will work for most rains but when you get the large storms that produce anywhere from 2 to 4" in an hour you can have too much water for a drain like that to deal with. Just something to think about after seeing your drawing....
 

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