Home-made pool Slide

[launboy]

This is the pool slide I made one day... These are the kinds of things I do when I'm bored... Digging down the pool and doing the solar and PVC piping were other things spurred by my boredom. How many of your 15 y.o. sons do things like this?

Total cost of this build was... $0.00 My dad found the slide when someone was throwing it out a month ago and brought it home, thinking it would make a good ramp for our Newfie(dog) to get out of the pool. The 2x4's were just laying around... I think for a shelfing unit that was never built. It was easy to do and took about 1 1/2 hours to build.

Despite how short it is, it's acutally pretty fun to go down, some of it is due to the fact that it's 1 1/2 ft. above the water.

Here's a pic from one side of the slide... The hose connects to a piece we have that screws onto the Intex fitting, it came with the Skimmer. The only problem is that water runs down the front of the slide and then to the lowest point, which is not over the pool, so water runs out of the pool. Does anyone know how I can stop this? I had a garbage bag Duct Taped to the bottom of the slide and over the edge of the pool, and it kept the water all going in the pool, but it won't stay taped.

And a picture from the other side of the slide. I would like to have it on the other side of the pool, but the return is on that side and the slide needs water from the return to be a Water Slide.

This picture shows what it looks like from the top of the slide and the hose where the water comes out.

We also have a long slide(7 feet high) from our old fort that we tore down. The thing is, it's made of steel(probably galvanized) and I don't know how well it would stand up to the pool water, especially if we switch to a saltwater system. It had stood up to 20+ years of outdoor weather though, and it's still smooth and slippery with NO rust AT ALL.

Also, this is has nothing to do with the slide, but we might be getting an 18' round 52" pool for $100.00 for next year... And it has no rust because the guy painted it with epoxy paint at some point. I hope he e-mails me back. There are a lot of good pools on Craigslist for great prices if you don't mind putting them up yourself, and possibly taking it down first.

As you can probably tell, I'm all about making things on the cheap or free. I am a strong believer in DIY!!!!! Well, that and I'm just a kid who doesn't want to spend his own money. :lol:

Thanks for looking,
Adam

 

[AnnaK]

Very clever!

Do you have an Elizabethan collar somewhere? Those are the cone collars the vet puts on after a dog has had surgery, they look like the dog is wearing a lampshade and are made of bendy plastic. I think you might be able to fasten one of those to the bottom sides of your slide and create a half funnel of sorts to direct the water into the pool.

 

[Rockcrawler]

Talk about redneck slide, man I love it, you say your 15, well I am 43 and I am all about that!! and still do stuff like that.

Thanks for the pics

Good job


Anna had a pretty good Idea, but if you came up with making the slide I am sure you can come up with the water issue.

 

[launboy]

I think in another thread, someone was having trouble with this problem(water running down the bottom of the slide) with a normal, store bought slide and they ended up using stick-on rubber stripping that you would put on the bottom of a house door so it seals better. I might try that or something similar. I thought about using the side of an old plastic was jug, but it's not wide enough. I'll figure something out soon though.

Rockcrawler, my problem is that I finish a project(like the pool stuff) and then I'm bored until I can either convince my parents to buy something more(right now that's an Intex SWG) so I have another project. :lol: I have a couple of lawn mowers and two edgers that I need to get running so I can sell, so that'll keep me busy for a week I guess. :-D

Adam

 

[mpatrick14]

That is so cool. You could try a heavy duty garbage bag or plastic tarp, fold it over a few times on one end or even use the duck tape too to make it less likely to rip

Then you nail it to the boards UNDER the slide bottom and hang it into the pool. It wont be touching the slide at all, and the part that is holding it in place wont even get wet.

 

[launboy]

Nail it! I can't believe I didn't think of that. Fold and nail, that's the key. I had a normal white trash bag duct taped to the wood, but the tape didn't hold on the plastic(like I had expected). I'll try that, as soon as I tape part of the hose that has begun to split open. :x Oh well, what do you expect for using hoses, that happened to be replaced because of splitting.

Thanks,
Adam

 

[cramar]

Wow, just came across this via Google, that's the worst most unsafe thing I've ever seen, shouldn't even be on the boards, someone breaks their neck and then tries to sue this forum for making the knowledge available.