bubblers vs aerators, baja size, width of pool

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outdoorsgal

LifeTime Supporter
Jan 24, 2015
943
Phoenix, AZ
in Phoenix backyards aren't terribly large. we have a decent sized yard for AZ where with a 40 x 10 foot pool placed 7 feet from the back wall of our house, 13 feet and 16.5 feet from the sides, our kids (6, 7, 10) can still ride their bikes in the backyard and we have a little room left over for chickens. i want to be able to swim laps and i know 40 feet isn't a lap pool, but it's longer than any pools i've seen in AZ. we want to play volleyball, basketball, exercise, lots of exercise/swimming and some play on the baja shelf. I just signed the contract on saturday so have less than a week to decide about layout. most pools out here seem to be 12 or 13 feet wide on the narrow end. will 10 be enough for our crazy boys to not be cracking their heads on the side of the pool and for us to feel like we have enough space to move around? i'd hate to regret going too small. the only factors with going "too" wide are i'm thinking pool may not look as stunning and unique, each foot is an extra $735, and i'm taking up more yard space the wider i go. i was excited to save my grass.

thx!
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

did that and it's still hard to tell. PB said that it always looks smaller when painted/roped onto the ground and feels bigger when it's a body of water, which makes sense, too. i tried to stand with my friend side by side in a 10 x wide room to feel what it was like to have that space and it seemed doable but still hard to tell. how much space is recommended for volleyball? thx
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

It's personal preference, but I think you'll want wider. Your PB was absolutely correct about it laid out on the ground. Like house foundations, pools look deceptively tiny in that stage. I would suggest 12' wide which will still give you the look, and a little extra room.
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

Ten feet would be great for a lap pool and would be narrow for any type of play pool. The wider you decide to go the better it will be for the play activities, keep in mind that you will adjust to whatever size you do make it and will have plenty of fun.
 

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Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

My pool, that we did not build, is 10X30 with about 10 feet of that as baja shelf. That was the maximum width they could make our pool due to easement and proximity to the house. I would have liked our pool at least 12' wide, skipped the Baja shelf and made it a little longer for laps. It is great to lounge around in, super easy to take care of, super easy to heat but not very practical if you have kids wanting to play in it. However the trade off for us was that we have an awesome view of the golf course.
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

A few quick thoughts

10x40 might look oddly shaped, like a hot dog

For my 2 cents, 10 feet is too narrow. To put it into perspective, a lane in an Olympic swimming pool is 8.2 feet wide. So if your pool is only 10 feet wide, I think it will be hard to actually ever swim without being in someones way. No way you could swim and have someone floating on a raft in the pool.

While the idea of your kids riding their bikes in your back yard right now is nice, I fear that it is too short sided. Your kids will soon be too big to be able to ride in that space, while you will have the pool for a lot longer time, and then you will wish it was wider.
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

+1 on 12' is quite a bit better than 10'. But, also +100 that build it as big as you can. Let the kids ride bikes in the front and move the chickens next door and build a big pool! :-D
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

Yev said:
A few quick thoughts

10x40 might look oddly shaped, like a hot dog

For my 2 cents, 10 feet is too narrow. To put it into perspective, a lane in an Olympic swimming pool is 8.2 feet wide. So if your pool is only 10 feet wide, I think it will be hard to actually ever swim without being in someones way. No way you could swim and have someone floating on a raft in the pool.

While the idea of your kids riding their bikes in your back yard right now is nice, I fear that it is too short sided. Your kids will soon be too big to be able to ride in that space, while you will have the pool for a lot longer time, and then you will wish it was wider.
Click to expand...

This is the best information that I have seen in a while. I swam laps for years, knowing that a lane is just over eight feet wide is the best perspective anyone could give. Those lanes are narrow and become almost claustrophobic after a while. Don't know when I will use this information but I'm filling it away because the day is coming. Thanks!!!
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

Absolutely go as big as you can get away with. My pool is 20x40, and I wouldn't want it an inch smaller. Its long enough to swim laps in, and wide enough that I can swim while the kids are playing, though sometimes I have to go under them when they wander into my space. 10 ft would seem too narrow. Try to bump it out to 12-14 if at all possible. I doubt you'll regret it.
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

A couple of things that you may want to watch out and it varies with city codes. Typically, the city requires 1:1 ratio of the distance from the house to the depth of the water, which means if you want 6 feet deep pool, then the edge of the pool has to be 6 feet away from the house foundation. So, the deepest part of the pool will determine how close that you are going to be allowed to the foundation of the house. One other thing is that based on some universal building code (you may want to check with the city yourself), any window within the 5 feet of the water has to be tempered glass for the safety concerns if anyone accidentally falls into the windows.
My yard is very narrow and long, 90 feet by 20 feet wide the most. So we built a very narrow and long pool. It is 10 feet wide. We do OK with this width. Kids have a great time with any pool anyway. When they grow up, all they want to do is to have a place to lounge.....so we got the widest pool that we could have out of our yard. If I have more room, of course I like to have a wilder pool for sure. We did not know of the requirement for tempered glass, and a part of our pool and come as close to the foundation as 3 feet.....our PB claimed they did not know of this rule so they claimed no responsibility in me spending 15K additional to replace all windows and patio doors with temper glass.

So, if you only have room for 10 feet wide pool, you will still be happy with a 10 feet wide pool. However, if you have room for a wider pool, then I agree with others that it is better to have a wider pool.

BTW, a narrow pool can be made in a way still very stunning. You probably will want to go with a geometric pool not a free form pool to maximize the space. You can always Jazz up the pool with pretty waterline glass tiles, pretty water features, and you will love your pool regardless. You can look at my build tread to see my long and narrow pool.
 
Re: will 10 feet wide be too narrow?

thanks so much everyone for the feedback. i will need to decide in a couple of days but i'm likely going to do the 40 x 12 like all of you suggested. someone told me it's more water which can be $ in Phx and i guess evaporates a couple inches a week in the summer but i don't want to have regrets. one person told me their water bill is $180/mth in the summer. yikes. ours is around $50, so that will be a big difference if it ends up being the case for us.

as for some of your questions: the pool was to be 7 feet from the back block wall (fence). sorry for any confusion. it'll be, i'd say, about 30 feet from the back house porch. the width of the yard is about 70 feet wide i believe. the pool will be 13 feet from the block fence on the narrow part of the pool, where we will have a small sitting area. i was thinking about possibly pushing the pool closer to the block wall (6 feet) to save more open space in the yard. we have kids ages 6 to 10 and although they all know how to swim they would surely push each other in when playing outside and do unsafe things so i want a pool fence as a barrier. that changes the feel of the backyard. we'll probably have the fence for many years and i'm taking the plunge and probably paying double for a custom framed oxidized rebar fence that i fell in love with when i saw it.

something that also helped me decide that it looks like i'm going to 12 feet instead of 10 is that i'll be doing races with the kids and a baja step was already going to take up half of the pool, being 5 feet by 7 feet. i was trying to at least leave a five foot lap lane. i think i'm deciding to make the baja more narrow and longer (4 feet by 9 feet including 3 feet of stairs). the long part would follow the long part of the pool which leave 8 feet for a lap lane. 4 of us would start off tight until we got past the baja step.

the pool is a rectangle, not natural formed.

cchopkins, beautiful pool u have . it is stunning!!

now i just have to firm up the baja step-wondering if i go 10 feet x 4 feet, hugging the length of the pool, 3 feet of that being steps, will the 30 feet left in length be plenty for volleyball and basketball? also, the PB said aerators will look ugly with a travertine tile pool and that a bubbler on the baja step will suffice for cooling the pool down. they say studies show that aerators really don't cool the pool down but people swear by it. another $600, but i don't want to regret not having them when it's 120 degrees out and the pool's too warm. i'll post this in a new thread, but if anyone knows about this topic, (will a bubbler suffice to cool the pool down or should we get aerators and if we get aerators, r they ugly on a travertine coping pool) that would be great to know. thx!
 
baja step size

building a 12 feet x 40 feet rectangle pool. i was thinking about going 9 or 10 feet wide hugging the length of the pool by 4 feet on the baja step, leaving us 8 feet for a lap lane/play pool. 3 feet of that 9 to 10 feet being steps.
will the 30 feet left in length be plenty for volleyball and basketball?

we r a family of 5, 3 kids ages 6 (girl) to 10 (2 boys). i'm not much of a sitter but one day i'll get old and want to relax. :) i want to make sure i don't skimp on the size but i don't make it too big since our main purpose for the pool is exercise. also, the PB recommended 12 inches. i initially wanted it on the first step (6 inches) but i figured we can always lift ourselves up by sitting on something, we can't sit further down if we regretted first step.

any recommendations or thought would be appreciated. thx!
 
aerators and travertine or is a bubbler enough

i live in phoenix where it can get 120 degrees in the summer. i like the heat overall and although in the 90s already i wouldn't swim yet if i had my pool. it's in the 50s at night so the water would be cold, still. so, i don't think i'll complain of a warm pool but we are getting a play pool, 3'1/2", 5, 4'. 40 feet by 12'. i've heard folks regret not having aerators and people saying the pool gets too hot. i've ever really felt anyone's pool was too hot, so i probably shouldn't worry, although i don't want to have regrets. the pb said that people who get travertine coping don't typically put aerators on their pools because they have to stick out farther than the travertine so it looks ugly. i think i could picture what he is saying but wanted to bring that up here and see if anyone has a solution or if anyone feels what he says is true that the bubbler on the baja step will cool down the pool just as well. i don't mind not spending another $600 if the bubbler is fine. the pb said, also, that aerators don't cool the pool water down, they make people feel cooler by getting wet by water blowing in the air.

thx much
 
Re: aerators and travertine or is a bubbler enough

BTW, i was just looking at the CAD and the correct term for the "bubbler" is "parascoping fountain." I've seen that "baja steps" are also called something different, but i can't think of the name right this second. thx
 

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