what to do around the steps and baja shelf?

[Guest]

I am getting a great deal of info from this forum, which is great! Beautiful pools all around.

I am in the process of building a pool and have a few questions:
1) what do folks do for light around the steps and sunshelf
2) do I need to add some kind of flow on the sunshelf to keep debris off or will a cleaner(Polaris 460) do the job?


TIA

ron

 

[crabboy]

I have no special lighting for the steps or the shelf. There is a light across the pool that lights both up sufficiently. As for cleaning the shelf. Our polaris does nothing for it. I sweep it by hand. The closest jet is across the pool, next to the light, and it pushes a good bit of water over the shelf, but it does not clean it in the least bit. It actually makes it a bit more difficult to sweep since it wants to push water back onto the shelf.

 

[divnkd101]

Ron,

As for lightning, I have nothing on my tanning ledge (9' x 4'). I have a Polaris 280 but it cannot climb up onto the shelf to clean. Furthermore, it would not operate properly anyways... it is too shallow on the ledge. I do have 2 returns on my ledge. One (1) is a standard circulation return and the other one is considered a water feature (separately plumbed) on the tanning ledge floor. I refer to it as a bubbler. The bubbler is plumbed such that I can manually turn it on/off when necessary. This photo will give you an idea of where the returns are located. Good luck in your choices.

Here is another photo with my lighting. You can see the outline of the tanning ledge (top left of photo) but not the floor itself.

 

[Guest]

I like the bubbler on your shelf, keeping the water moving in that area should help with debris. I will have 3 lights (if strategically placed) so it should be able to light up the entire pool pretty well.

nice mosaics crabboy!

 

[Matchless1]

difnkd101, how deep is your tanning ledge and do you notice any issues with the water being to shallow for the return you have? Also, do you have any special type of nozzle on the return to help spread the flow of water over the width of the ledge? Does this return effectively eliminate the need for brushing the ledge?

I'm looking to do almost the exact same setup with the bubbler on my ledge as well. Can you throttle the bubbler with a valve to increase/decrease flow/height? How high will it go fully open? Also, any special nozzle on the bubbler or just a standard pool return eye?

 

[pooldv]

We have no lighting either. We have a return that blows toward the shelf and another smack in the middle of the shelf against the back wall that should continue the water flow on across the shelf. It does ok to keep floating stuff moving toward the skimmer but it does not much for keeping dust off the sun shelf. Have to give it brush occasionally.

When we are swimming it isn't much of a problem though because all the waves from giant cannonballs and people walking on the shelf keeps the dust off pretty well.