Courtyard Lap Pool (DFW)

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J

jamgolf

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Apr 23, 2013
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DFW, TX
Our excavation should be starting any day now. So I thought I'd start the build thread.

It will be a 54' lap pool 3.5'-5' depth (constant slope).
21' wide at the widest point with 12" deep 21'x7' tanning area with an arbor over it (not shown in the design illustrations).
A 21' long weeping wall at the back of tanning ledge.
Paramount PV3 IG system and ~1600 sq-ft of travertine paver decking. Coping will be travertine as well.
~21000 gallons. UV system.
Aquacal sq156 heat pump with chiller. Intellibrite LEDs.
We designed a courtyard style pool. The columns are 8' tall and the 4"x4" cedar beams will be stacked up to 5'5" then 12" cedar beams on top of columns will top it off.

A few design illustrations (a bit inaccurate):

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Nice, I do have a couple of suggestions though, We strongly feel around here that UV systems are a complete waste of money on residential outdoor pools, they add operating cost and increase chlorine use, you already have plenty of natural UV available from the sun in the DFW area. They do have their place with indoor pools, or potentially some high use outdoor situations, but those are the exception not the rule. The second thing I would suggest is to not do continuous slope, but provide a least a small (10 ft or so) flat shallow end if you ever plan to have smaller kids in the pool, as they don't tend to deal well with any real degree of slope, I would also be concerned about a continuous slope at the deep end creating a place where debris will accumulate, again it might be good to leave 3-5 feet flat at that end as well.

Ike
 
I was just going to post what Isaac did about the UV ... waste of money.

What pump and filter are you getting ... no one ever seems to care about the equipment even though that is the most important part to maintaining a clean pool.
 
Isaac-1 said:
Nice, I do have a couple of suggestions though, We strongly feel around here that UV systems are a complete waste of money on residential outdoor pools, they add operating cost and increase chlorine use, you already have plenty of natural UV available from the sun in the DFW area. They do have their place with indoor pools, or potentially some high use outdoor situations, but those are the exception not the rule. The second thing I would suggest is to not do continuous slope, but provide a least a small (10 ft or so) flat shallow end if you ever plan to have smaller kids in the pool, as they don't tend to deal well with any real degree of slope, I would also be concerned about a continuous slope at the deep end creating a place where debris will accumulate, again it might be good to leave 3-5 feet flat at that end as well.

Ike
Click to expand...

Thankyou so much for your suggestions.
I see what you mean regarding little kids. But do you think that a constant slope from 3'6" to 5' over 54 feet might still not be gentle enough?
I will centainly discuss with the superintendent and possibly have a flat area at the 3.5' end.

Regards
 
jblizzle said:
I was just going to post what Isaac did about the UV ... waste of money.

What pump and filter are you getting ... no one ever seems to care about the equipment even though that is the most important part to maintaining a clean pool.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments. Here are the equipment details:

Main Pump: Pentair IntelliFlo VS + SVRS
Pump #2: Pentair IntelliFlo VS + SVRS (Water feature and Infloor cleaning system)
Filter: Pentair Clean & Clear 420 Cartridge
Heater: AcquaCal SQ156 Heat Pump / Chiller
Cleaner: Paramount PV3 w/ MDX & Leaf Canister (23 heads)
ControlBox: Pentair EasyTouch P-8
Remotes: EasyTouch Wireless 8 Function
Sanitizers: In-Line Chlorinator w/ Trident UV S2
Pool Lights: (2) Pentair IntelliBrite Color LED 120v

Cheers!
 
Two Intelliflos? That certainly seems like overkill. What is the Main pump running? Just for filtration? If so you could get by with a much smaller 2-speed pump.

And we see a lot of problems with the SVRS pump when someone is trying to vacuum or run a suction cleaner ... although maybe that is not a concern for you.
 

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jblizzle said:
Two Intelliflos? That certainly seems like overkill. What is the Main pump running? Just for filtration? If so you could get by with a much smaller 2-speed pump.

And we see a lot of problems with the SVRS pump when someone is trying to vacuum or run a suction cleaner ... although maybe that is not a concern for you.
Click to expand...

Yes, thats 2 Intelliflos.
Yes, the main pump will run filtration for the pool which is 772 sq-ft area and 141 ft linear.
 
While the slope on my pool is much more steep, I can tell you from experience in mine, as well as in pools with a dual staged shallow end (3 ft transitions to 4 ft then slope to deeper end, that many smaller kids will tend to stay in the shallower part and avoid the transitional 3-4 ft slope and the 4 ft section even if they are tall enough to stand in the 4 ft section with their head out of the water. I am just concerned that in your situation with a somewhat deeper than average (3 ft) shallow end and continuous slope that smaller kids would tend to hug the wall if they would get in at all. Of course I may be wrong with such a gentle slope over such a length as at some point that slope will be hard to perceive.

The rest of your equipment looks good (maybe overkill on pumps depending on the water features), although you should be aware of the problems some people are having with the SVRS pumps related to the use of suction side vacuums and suction side automatic cleaners tripping the SVRS safety system. It has been reported here that Pentair has been surprised that pool builders are selling these to residential pool owners (as opposed the standard Intelliflo VS) and they did not have typical residential application where suction side cleaners are commonly connected to pool pumps in mind when they designed the SVRS safety system.

Ike

p.s. we also tend to discourage the use of inline puck feeder style chlorinators, but they are relatively cheap, so not a BIG issue
 
Well, maybe in 5+ years you will recoup the extra initial cost of the Intelliflo for the filter over a smaller 2-speed motor ... assuming you run the Intelliflo down around 1000 rpm all the time. That is unless you are getting a pretty good rebate on the VS pump.

Of course there are also now smaller VS pumps available from Hayward, but I am sure your builder is not interested in mixing brands even if it did not more sense from your financial perspective.
 
Isaac-1 said:
While the slope on my pool is much more steep, I can tell you from experience in mine, as well as in pools with a dual staged shallow end (3 ft transitions to 4 ft then slope to deeper end, that many smaller kids will tend to stay in the shallower part and avoid the transitional 3-4 ft slope and the 4 ft section even if they are tall enough to stand in the 4 ft section with their head out of the water. I am just concerned that in your situation with a somewhat deeper than average (3 ft) shallow end and continuous slope that smaller kids would tend to hug the wall if they would get in at all. Of course I may be wrong with such a gentle slope over such a length as at some point that slope will be hard to perceive.

The rest of your equipment looks good (maybe overkill on pumps depending on the water features), although you should be aware of the problems some people are having with the SVRS pumps related to the use of suction side vacuums and suction side automatic cleaners tripping the SVRS safety system. It has been reported here that Pentair has been surprised that pool builders are selling these to residential pool owners (as opposed the standard Intelliflo VS) and they did not have typical residential application where suction side cleaners are commonly connected to pool pumps in mind when they designed the SVRS safety system.

Ike

p.s. we also tend to discourage the use of inline puck feeder style chlorinators, but they are relatively cheap, so not a BIG issue
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the details regarding SVRS vs standard VS Intellifo.
I was not aware of these issues. I am hoping that with our PV3 that we might not encounter these problems.

Never having owned a pool before, I tried to educate my self quite a bit - but in the end I suppose its just not possible to cover all bases in a couple of months. My goal was just not to make major mistakes. I hope that in the end that would be the case.

Regards
 
The mistake I see made with most new pools on here is the plumbing at the pad, it seems most pool builders try to make the pad as compact as possible using the fewest fittings to save $40-50, the result is a pad where all the fittings must be cut out and redone the first time anything needs to be replaced, often involving jack hammering up concrete because they did not leave enough PVC exposed to insert a splice. It is far better to spread things out a little, put screw together PVC unions and screw together fittings between all equipment, and valves it may cost a little more now, but it WILL save you lots of money and head aches in the future. The sad thing here is many pool builders don't know it is an issue, since they never see the pools 5-10 years down the road, instead many are even proud of their super compact plumbing installations.
 
jblizzle said:
Well, maybe in 5+ years you will recoup the extra initial cost of the Intelliflo for the filter over a smaller 2-speed motor ... assuming you run the Intelliflo down around 1000 rpm all the time. That is unless you are getting a pretty good rebate on the VS pump.

Of course there are also now smaller VS pumps available from Hayward, but I am sure your builder is not interested in mixing brands even if it did not more sense from your financial perspective.
Click to expand...

You are correct. Builders pick a brand and stick with it. I suppose it makes sense for them financially.
It might take a long time to recoup the additional costs of the pumps, but I am satisfied with the choice.

Thanks again!
 
Make sure, sure, sure that they don't make your shallow end too shallow. I think 3'5" is the minimum depth for laps, you will certainly not be able to do flip turns in that depth but that should keep your hands from hitting bottom when freestyle swimming (unless you are very tall with long arms). That was my target depth in my shallow end as well and when gunite was done, it ended up shallower. I am not having any issues with mine but your shallow area is longer, just make sure you expect the depth to be at least 3' 6" when you talk to the pool builder.
 
bpricedo said:
Make sure, sure, sure that they don't make your shallow end too shallow. I think 3'5" is the minimum depth for laps, you will certainly not be able to do flip turns in that depth but that should keep your hands from hitting bottom when freestyle swimming (unless you are very tall with long arms). That was my target depth in my shallow end as well and when gunite was done, it ended up shallower. I am not having any issues with mine but your shallow area is longer, just make sure you expect the depth to be at least 3' 5" when you talk to the pool builder.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip.
I definitely want it to be a minimum of 3.5' in the shallow.
I wanted it to be 4' actually...
 

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