Deep or not to deep (;

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DMS2014

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Jun 22, 2014
807
Houston, Texas
so why go deep? If you have kids who want to jump in or have a diving board, I can see that. But why go 10 feet or 6 feet even? I'm just asking.

We are considering 4 feet-5.5 feet and a very, very small area of 6 feet. We want to play volleyball and pool games and you can't do that IMO if you are drowning everyone! I've 5'7 and with water at 5.5, that's pretty high up on my body. I guess what I'm wondering if we're making a mistake by doing that. I figure I can tread water in the 6-feet section for exercise....
 
Some people like shallow pools, some people like deep pools. I fall into the second group.

It's all preference. My pool isn't as deep as I wanted. (to be honest I'd have gotten 12ft+ if I could have afforded to do so).

I've noticed that the current trend in my area of Texas is to build a pool like you are describing...So you're not at all alone.
 
Basically personal preference, with no real wrong answer. Just go with your gut.. and get what you want. I didn't have kids when we decided to build a pool, but we always knew we wanted a deep pool for jumping in. Now we have a baby on the way and still stand behind our decision. Seems like every party we have, kids love jumping in the pool.. it was the same when i was a kid and figure it will be the same forever. When I jump in feet first anywhere besides the deep end, I always seem to slam my feet into the ground.
 
my pool is 5' 6" at the deepest. I works great for me as I have some family memebers that do not know how to swim, however this still lets them enjoy the pool with everyone else. It also a lot easier to enforce the no diving rule if they can easily see that the pool is not deep enough, however I have yet to have any teenagers over to test this theory.
 
Yeah. I figured it was mostly preference. We don't have a lot of pool to work with and I don't want to waste valuable space on a deep end. BUT I will reserve total judgment until I see just how much pool we can have in our yard.
 
we couldn't make up our mind on our first pool and the PB talked us into a play pool with 3.5 shallow and 5.5 in the middle...SOOO glad he did. when we had friends over, with their kids, and our friends in the pool, it is so much more functional. if we had a deep end everyone would have crowded over to the shallow side packed in like sardines. plus, we always jumped into the middle and did our silly cannonballs and stuff like that (maybe your not supposed to) but when the adult beverages start to flow, noone wants to tread water for hours on end.

but like everyone else, to each his own.
 
we have a 52 inch sport pool with 6'6" deep middle (PB said 7ft, but thats counting from the top rail, I count water depth) and 2ft shallow shelf down the sides. love it. my boys and I play football in it, volleyball, basketball, have swim races, and the kids can jump to their hearts content in the deep middle with no fear of hitting the bottom. best pool fit for our family.
 
We love our play pool. It is 3.5-5.5-4. The 3.5 is too shallow. The perfect depth for hanging out is 4 to 5. It makes the usable pool area much bigger. For hanging out with a cold one or playing games.
 
Again it is all a matter of trade off's and personal preference. Personally I think a 5 - 6 ft deep end pool is a pool where there is a lot of temptation for people to get in trouble by diving in, or letting kids dive in, cannon balls, etc. They justify it in their head as it is deep enough, where the same people would not consider diving in 3-4 ft deep water. 5.5 - 6 ft is also deep enough that few adults can stand it in it (remember your nose is about 6 inches below the top of your head), so it is a real transition range, too deep to stand in, but not deep enough to safely dive into.
 
Isaac-1 said:
Again it is all a matter of trade off's and personal preference. Personally I think a 5 - 6 ft deep end pool is a pool where there is a lot of temptation for people to get in trouble by diving in, or letting kids dive in, cannon balls, etc. They justify it in their head as it is deep enough, where the same people would not consider diving in 3-4 ft deep water. 5.5 - 6 ft is also deep enough that few adults can stand it in it (remember your nose is about 6 inches below the top of your head), so it is a real transition range, too deep to stand in, but not deep enough to safely dive into.
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yeah, I make sure everyone understands. NO DIVING. IMHO, you dont dive in anything less than 10ft. Doughboy actually says no jumping in the deep middle, that it is for underwater swimming only....

I think that is a little excessive, as I jump in our 6.6 middle and im 5'11", I barely touch the bottom when I do. I can understand why the manufacturer would want to cover their tail by saying no jumping though. we got a deep middle for jumping. I just make sure we have set rules on it so no one gets hurt.
 

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I love above ground pools for some reason, but I also love deep pools, I thought never the twain shall meet.......BUT I've found a guy on the net, Arthurs pools, who builds scuba diving pools..... Their liners are 3.5cm thick, but one pool is 92 INCHES DEEP..... That's 12 feet.... Above Ground....They cost around $14 000, and I can imagine how heavy the liner would be, but how awesome to have an above ground pool that deep?

I'd love to get one and bury it half way.... :) Throw a deck around it, and you've got yourself a huge pool....

http://www.arthurspools.com/products/deep-portable-pools.html
 
No right or wrong answer on this one. It's all a matter of personal preference. If you are planning on playing lots of volleyball, the "play pool" with a "V-depth" configuration of 4 - 5 - 4 (or similar) would work best. This configuration allows you to do everything you could in a deeper pool except diving. The other main intangible of a shallower pool vs. a deeper one is that the shallower pool will warm up faster than a deeper pool. So, if you live in a cooler climate with a shorter summer, the shallower pool may be the way to go whereas in a warmer climate, a deeper pool will help keep the water from getting too warm.
 
I enjoy having a deep end. I grew up with a pool with a deep end so when we put ours in a few weeks ago we went with an 8 foot deep end. But, we have a lagoon shaped pool so the shallow end is fairly large compared to the standard rectangular pool I grew up with. I am very happy with the larger shallow end as well as having the deep end option.
 
Maybe it has been said already but you should also consider re-sale. A shallow pool might be less universally desirable and could affect your value by a little. It's possible for a pool to be too shallow, but maybe not too deep.
 
Husband wanted a bit deeper but for anything over 6 ft they charged quite a bit more, PB told us to buy the guys lunch and they would go to 6 1/2. We went 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 with a bench in the middle and one close to the deep end. I imagine it would be fun for jumping in but since kids are grown we just couldn't justify the cost, son-in-law can still do his cannon balls and he's loving it. I mention the benches because a friend had a pool that was 8 or 9 ft deep - everyone hung out in the deep end and since I'm not a swimmer - I always felt a bit left out sitting on the side. I told the husband I'd always have benches if we had a pool plus it give the dogs a spot to go to if they fall in.
 
We went 3.5-6-3.5 and so far love it. We recently went to a friends pool that was 50' long and went to 12' deep the kids complained the entire time about how quickly it sloped since they wanted to play v-ball and only the first 10' or so they could stand. Just my 2cents


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My vote is for diving deep! I miss diving and 6 foot deep pools aren't dive safe.

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btolley said:
Maybe it has been said already but you should also consider re-sale. A shallow pool might be less universally desirable and could affect your value by a little. It's possible for a pool to be too shallow, but maybe not too deep.
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good point! If you're floating or swimming, it doesn't really matter how deep it is under you. But it sure does limit diving! If building from scratch ideally you have enough shallow *and* deep to allow for both things!
A poster from last year (Harlysilo) specifically wanted a sports pool but as the summer went on he did say the shallow water got pretty warm.
 
DMS2014 said:
so why go deep? If you have kids who want to jump in or have a diving board, I can see that.
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I have an adult that loves to jump in (me). For me, jumping into a pool and not going way under is frustrating.

We also have kids who LOVE the deep end but even if I didn't, I'd have it anyway. Our pool is 38' long and I can stand at almost the halfway point. It's 3 - 8 1/2'. If I had it to do over, I'd do 3 1/2 to 9'. If it was 5' longer, I'd do 10' for the extra margin for diving.
 

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