Advice on in ground pool ladder needed

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eco3163

Member
Jul 3, 2023
20
NY
Hello all- I am new here but looking for advice. We just had new concrete poured around an old pool that was here when we bought the house. When the concrete was laid- the holes for our only ladder were covered up. We cant find anyone to fix this for us and its the only ladder we have. Right now we have no way into or out of the pool and its so frustrating that we cant use it. We had a metal ladder in the shallow end before we had the construction done.

Any advice anyone?
 
eco3163 said:
Hello all- I am new here but looking for advice. We just had new concrete poured around an old pool that was here when we bought the house. When the concrete was laid- the holes for our only ladder were covered up. We cant find anyone to fix this for us and its the only ladder we have. Right now we have no way into or out of the pool and its so frustrating that we cant use it. We had a metal ladder in the shallow end before we had the construction done.

Any advice anyone?
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You’d have to drill holes for the ladder in the new decking and then run a bonding wire under the concrete from the ladder to the pool bonding grid wires. I’d imagine that would require cutting and replacing some of the new concrete decking. The wiring should have been installed before pouring concrete.

If the above isn’t feasible maybe there’s an alternate material ladder or removable thing you can add. Other option is no ladder at all. I grew up in a pool with no ladder and we just got used to hopping up the side. But we also had steps at one end of it.
 
eco3163 said:
Hello all- I am new here but looking for advice. We just had new concrete poured around an old pool that was here when we bought the house. When the concrete was laid- the holes for our only ladder were covered up. We cant find anyone to fix this for us and its the only ladder we have. Right now we have no way into or out of the pool and its so frustrating that we cant use it. We had a metal ladder in the shallow end before we had the construction done.

Any advice anyone?
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Saftron ladder (no bonding required) with matching surface mounts (SB3-3). They are available on Amazon. Can be installed fairly easily.
 
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Thanks so much for your feedback. We are so disappointed that we paid all this money for new concrete ($6000 plus)and we have no way to get in or out of pool. We have no steps on this pool either- its an older one. I agree the wiring and everything should have been set up when the concrete was poured ,but the guy who poured the concrete disagrees, said the pool company needs to do this. He told us initiallly that we need new anchors for the winter cover but never mentioned the ladder intil after the work was done and we realized we could not put the ladder back in.
I am checking into having ladder reinstalled and it may cost upwards of $1000 (NY) as they have to mount the anchors, ground the wires and all of that you mentioned. Its so upsetting that we didnt think to ask these question ahead of time but we never did this before.
 
eco3163 said:
Can I ask what bonding means? I know grounding involves breaking up the concrete and adding wires which we dont want to do if we dont have to. Thanks
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Bonding essentially means all metal components around the pool, the decking, and the pool water need to be linked together with a conductor. That’s so they they’re all at “equal” potential, so there’s no risk of different voltage from one to the other. That prevents you from getting shocked when touching two things at the same time - I.e. water and ladder, deck and water, deck and pump, etc. Since they’re all connected you don’t have to worry about yourself becoming the “bridge” between them and receiving stray voltage.

Grounding is different and means what it says, connected to ground. A bonded system may or may not be connected to ground, depending upon application.
 
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magiteck said:
Bonding essentially means all metal components around the pool, the decking, and the pool water need to be linked together with a conductor. That’s so they they’re all at “equal” potential, so there’s no risk of different voltage from one to the other. That prevents you from getting shocked when touching two things at the same time - I.e. water and ladder, deck and water, deck and pump, etc. Since they’re all connected you don’t have to worry about yourself becoming the “bridge” between them and receiving stray voltage.

Grounding is different and means what it says, connected to ground. A bonded system may or may not be connected to ground, depending upon application.
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ok thank you -this is all very interesting and very new to me.
 
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Quick question for all of you experienced pool people (unlike me)- we had new concrete poured while at work a few weeks ago. I am now being asked by a pool contractor who may fix our ladder situation ( we were left without any holes for the only ladder we had)- if the concrete company grounded the entire pool patio, steel rebar and mesh? Also if ground bonding wires were reattached after new concrete was poured. How can we tell if this was done or not? I know I can ask the concrete company but they are the same people who left us with no ladder and skimmer cover that no longer fits in place. Not sure how to know if this was done safely and up to our town codes or not. I sure hope so- otherwise I hear the pool could be dangerous to be in, especially with all of the thunderstorms and lightening we see here in NY state.

Any advice on this? I am a little worried now as we have 2 teens that want to use the pool whenever they can. Thanks for all of your help. So glad I found this website to ask advice,
 
eco3163 said:
We dont know if the pool is bonded or grounded anymore. Maybe it never was as its an old in-ground pool. How do we find this out?
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That just means don’t swim in a lightning storm as it’s dangerous no matter what.

The bonding issue isn’t related to lightning per se, but is related to natural and man made electrical voltages in the soil that can occur. There should be a copper wire buried underground and can run to the pool equipment area and connected to some of the equipment.
 
eco3163 said:
Not sure how to know if this was done safely and up to our town codes or not
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I do not believe we have said codes here. I put in a poured slab under pavers and my seasoned patio guy said they never bond patios but agreed it was a good idea and agreed to do so because I asked.

Thinking it through after the fact, the electrical inspector for the pool made me jump though several bonding hoops, but handed me a certificate with no patio yet, and I was free to do whatever I wanted with it with no further inspections. So that backs up what the patio guy said about bonding the patio not being an official thing here. Otherwise the inspector would have wanted to see that too.
 
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Hi all- We are desperately looking for some ladder advice. We have a 16 x 32 in-ground rectangle pool. Its an older one that needs stairs. There are no stairs and no ladder(after our concrete guy poured concrete and left no holes for the only ladder we had :( . We did not know this ahead of time but now we cant get in or out of our pool and its so darn hot in NY state right now.

We either have to drill holes and break up concrete to add the only ladder we have or we heard about adding "drop in steps". We dont want anything complicated or anything that required a lot of work to put together.

Those of you with pool experience- can you please let us know if wedding cake or drop in steps could work in a pool like this? Rather than paying another $1500.00 to have holes drilled, anchors place and new ladder to go back in, we were wondering if drop in steps would make better sense? If so, can someone tells us which ones to buy?

Any help would be really appreciated!! thanks so much!!
 

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