DIY Indoor & inground pool near Vegas

[Narojobra]

I'm excited to be able to share the project that has essentially consumed my life for the last 6 months. I hope others might get some entertainment from it and better yet, get an idea or 2.

Last year I was lucky enough to purchase a home with the man cave of all man caves. The home sits on just over 2 acres and has a massive nearly 6,000 sq ft metal building. I learned that the previous owners intended to use the building as a gymnastics school. The building was equipped for that purpose and included a pretty large foam pit. Were talking a 5 foot deep hole poured into the foundation.

We went round and round for a while trying to figure out what to do with the hole. Some suggested an automotive service pit. Nope, don't need one because I have a car lift. Others suggested storage or even the start of some sort of post-apocalyptic bunker. No thanks. Others said just fill it in. Now that would be a tragedy. I spoke to the contractor that poured the foundation and he said that the pit was an additional $15,000 when the building was built. Next idea???? Well, I guess we know why I'm here now.

I have never owned a pool before. I was starting from scratch not only in construction but in knowledge as well. That's where TFP came in. I found it pretty early on and became a lurker in the forums for months. I was looking for answers to the big questions like "Do I need a main drain?" and "How do I do plumbing with the foundation already done?" And there were the simpler questions like pool chemistry that were quickly resolved in Pool School.

Even after I had answers to some of my questions, I still wondered if it was going to work. I made up my mind that if it didn't work, I'd crash and burn trying.

Stay tuned...

 

[Isaac-1]

Sounds like an interesting project you have, unfortunately the photos are not showing up

 

[Narojobra]

Bah!!! Ya, I'm working on that one. I guess they were too big.

 

[smforte]

Excited to follow this!

 

[Narojobra]

First order of business was to clean the pit out. That was gross. It was full of old sweaty gymnastics padding and carpet. I advertised the padding & carpet on the local yard sale page and people were on it like flies. So those were easy to get rid of. I also found several basket balls, kick balls, racket balls, hockey sticks....and the crown jewel.... The THIGHMASTER. Remember Suzanne Summers and her commercials? LOL! Look closely in the first picture at about the 12 o'clock position just up from center.

Unfortunately, I also had to arrange for the eradication of some scorpions and black widows. I should have taken pictures of that. Oh the joys of living in the desert southwest. Nothing a lighter and hairspray can't cure. I also needed to remove the padding that was ruthlessly liquid nailed to the concrete.

After a few hours of blood, sweat and tears, it was clean.

 

[kimkats]

Oh I so in for this one!!!!

Love your writing style as well as the project!

 

[Narojobra]

I did NOT want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a pool. I wanted this to be a fun and goofy project. “Just throw the garden hose in that hole and let’s go swimming.” I even wondered what would happen if I just threw down some visqueen and filled it up.

I could have had designers and builders involved, but I didn't want to spend the money and I'm a big time Do-It-Yourselfer. I wanted to do as much as I could myself. My goal became to complete the project as inexpensively as possible but have it still be safe and appealing.

I decided to do a vinyl pool. Way cheaper and less labor intensive than any other way of waterproofing the hole. I had a friend pour a concrete deck around the perimeter to give it a more finished look and provide support to the liner track.

 

[kimkats]

Nice friends to have!!

 

[tcrote5516]

Starting to look like a pool! But I'm struggling to wrap my head around what you have going on there. Could you post a picture with a wider angle of the building? Is this all enclosed/any windows planned? What's the theme for the rest of the 6k sqft? Plan to heat the pool/do you even need to heat it? What about plumbing?

 

[harleysilo]

Plumbing is what I'd like to hear about.

 

[twinkiesmommy2009]

Cool project! Also interested in the details! How will you filter and how will you control the humidity inside the building?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Narojobra]

Nice friends to have? Oh, don't let me mislead you. I paid through the nose for the concrete. He's a sheister. That's why I blocked out his face...to protect the guilty.

Anyhow, I ended up getting a pretty good price on a custom liner that was on a closeout through SPP. $650. It took about 2 weeks to get the liner and in the meantime I sourced a new 2 speed pool pump from a local liquidator. I also found a 175 sq ft Hayward cartridge filter on Craigslist.

I went round and round for weeks about what to do about plumbing. I considered hiring a coring contractor to come out and drill holes through the concrete walls for a drain, returns and lights. I had concerns about that. One, cost. I live an hour outside Vegas so any contractor is gonna charge me a premium to come out here for such a small job. Two, any hole that I make is another opportunity for a leak. Three, I'd have to excavate the outside of the building to access and route the plumbing. We're talking a whole bunch of work.

I went a different route. I decided to "try" running the plumbing right outta the pool along the wall to the pump & filter.

A salesperson at an online pool supply company suggested I look at the Aqua Genie by Hydropools. It's a skimmer & return all in one. Their sales pitch was persuasive so I decided to try it.


I built my own custom mount out of stainless steel to hold the skimmer over the edge of the pool since I wasn't embedding it into the concrete stem wall. I know I took pictures while building the mount but I can't find them. Here's a crappy picture of it cropped out from another picture.

There'll be more pictures of it as the pool neared completion.

 

[Narojobra]

There were various spots around the perimeter wall that were rough finished concrete. I was paranoid at what any abrasive edges might do to the liner so I used a 7-inch grinder and diamond cup to smooth it out as best I could. Have you ever ground concrete before? Holy smokes! What a mess! Every square inch of every item I had in my shop was covered in white powder. That was months ago and I'm still cleaning it up. I also bought a roll of 1/4" thick pool wall foam. I just wanted an extra layer of security.

And while I was at it, the liner showed up.

I got the liner installed and started filling. You'll also see how I ran the plumbing to the skimmer. Pretty simple really.

 

[Narojobra]

The kids couldn't wait for it to fill. I can't blame them. It was a 115 degree day outside.

I ran 2 garden hoses at full blast for about 8 hours. It was up to just over the ankle. That was going to take FOREVER!!!! And by golly, we didn't wanna wait that long. So I got creative and made a phone call.

 

[kimkats]

Skimmer and return in one???? How interesting. Can you control the angle of the water coming out of the return?

A custom liner on close out??? How did you do that?

I can't wait to see more about making the skimmer holder. I find it fun to see how things are made and crafted.

The grinding .....You will be finding the dust from it for a long while...are you still blowing it out of you nose?? Yuck!!

Is that a fire truck? More friends in the right places?

 

[Narojobra]

There will be some more pictures coming that will show a wider angle of the shop. It's actually 2 separate shops combined with a common wall. I like it that way because I will be able to keep the pool area separate from my work area. I'm a big car guy so I have a lot of cars, car parts and tools in the other half of the building.

I have been concerned about humidity from the very beginning. I didn't wanna rust everything out in my shop. As you know, we are dry dry dry here in southern Nevada. That works out in my favor. It was a gamble and so far it looks like I will be just fine. This is a picture I took just this afternoon of the thermometer inside right near the pool. I have a massive commercial swamp cooler on the building too. I haven't run it in a couple days so that's why the humidity is so low. When I kick the cooler on, it will bump the humidity up to 50%. Kinda funny cuz I thought that the pool would create a lot more humidity than the swamp cooler. I was way off on that one. At least so far.

"Skimmer and return in one???? How interesting. Can you control the angle of the water coming out of the return? You can't change the angle of the return flow but it is fixed at about a 45 degree angle toward the floor. It comes out in a sheet and moves a lot of water. With the pump on high the flow will about take your feet out from under you if you're standing right in front of it. It creates currents and swirls over the entire surface of the pool. Seems to be circulating really well to me.

A custom liner on close out??? How did you do that?
Bad word. Not closeout. Discontinued. It was a pattern that they were discontinuing.

Regarding heating the pool? I always planned on heating it. If not needed during the summer it would surely be needed in the winter. I want to be able to use this thing all year long. I will tell you that right now the water temp is right at 80 degrees with no heating. The pool has been open for about a month now. The water was probably 90 degrees for the first few days. It has held 80 steadily for about 2 weeks even as the temps have dropped about 10 degrees outside as summer is ending.

We get about 350 days of sunlight per year so I think it would be silly to not heat the pool by solar. I just bought 1,000 ft of poly tubing yesterday to try the ole home made solar pool heater. There are so many of these on google and youtube. I only read in one place where someone said they had problems with leaks and deterioration. So I'm going to give it a try. I'm planning on tapping in to the return line and using a couple of ball valves to control the flow. I have should have something on that in the next week or 2. If it works, I'll have a nice solar heater mounted on top of the building getting direct sunlight almost the entire day all year long.

This is what I have in mind for the heater.

Oh! And yes....It's a firetruck. Pool full in less than 40 minutes.

 

[Isaac-1]

Home built solar heat is not practical, you simply can not build anything at home that can compete with commercial panels on any basis (cost, operating efficiency, flow resistance, BTU per anything, reliability (leaks) ...)

This topic of DIY coils of black tubing comes up every couple of weeks and the answer is always the same, you are better off all around buying commercial solar pool heating panels

Also flow should almost always be as high as possible, it goes against common sense, but maximum heat transfer to the pool happens with minimum difference between incoming and outgoing water. In other words you get the most heat into the pool by heating a whole lot of water 1 degree than heating a little water 100 degrees. You also don't need to compare the return water with the intake water, just the pool water / intake water with the roof panel temperature.

The logic statement here should be, does the pool need to be warmer? If yes is the roof warmer than the pool, If yes, turn on pump / divert water to solar heating panels, repeat

Ike

p.s. this is coming from a been there done that on home built solar from nearly 30 years ago

 

[gwegan]

It's less expensive and much more efficient to use commercially produced solar panels. It's doubtful many of those YouTube systems actually have much effect.

You need to think seriously about electrically bonding that pool. With a metal building and a shop with who knows what in it there is a serious risk of shock from stray current. If I'm speaking Greek or sound crazy you should consult a pool electrician to better explain the issues.

 

[Narojobra]

Well DARN! That kinda shoots me in my frugal rear end. I'm glad this came up before I connected anything so I can still return the polypipe. I'm certain I will need heat. 80 degree water in an inside pool is right on the edge of comfortable. It's good for me but the kids say its too cold and this really is for them. I want to bring the temp up closer to 85. I'm noticing that the commercial solar panels are right around $800-1000. That's a serious outlay at one time. I need to rethink this.

Can I effectively connect a solar heater to my pool pump or should it run on it's own separate pump?

I only have a really elementary understanding of bonding. I did run a #8 wire from the bonding lug on the pool pump to the building. Is that enough?

 

[gwegan]

I'm at work so I can't really compose an answer re bonding right now. I will tonight.

You should be able to to get panels from much less than $1000.