Planning Stages: Swimex, Concrete Block, or Fiberglass?

[ppierce2nm]

Hello all!

I am new to the forum. A little background: for the past 14 years I have gone to a local private pool to do aquajogging. I wear the aquajogger belt and run for about 30 minutes suspended in the water without my feet touching the bottom and do some other exercises. I'm 5'6" tall. Well, the local private pool closed and now I have limited options-and our community pool's hours arent good. So husband and I have decided to build our own pool. We are in the research and planning phase.

We need something the size of a swim spa, but small deep fiberglass pools are hard to find. I like the water to be above my shoulders when I'm jogging. We looked at the Hydrozone pools by Viking but the deepest is 5'. I don't know if anyone has one or something of a similar size that is at least 5'6" deep. We got a quote from a builder who would build us a 10x20x 5/12-6' cement block coated with fiberglass pool, do the electical gas & decking, & it came out just shy of $60,000. And we are looking at a Swimex Triton swimspa custom depth of 66". Which would be about $40,000. I'd like to get a heat pump for heating and install solar to help offset the cost of the electrical associated with the pool no matter what we do. I saw that Pentair has a heat pump/gas heater hybrid heater that is expensive but would likely be worth it. I'd like to keep the pool temperature around 90 degrees for exercise. We are planning to enclose the pool or swimspa as well, either with a steel building or building an poolhouse. I want it to be indoors so I can use it year round.

What are thoughts about pool versus swim spa? Experience with concrete block coated with fiberglass?


PPierce2nm

Location: Southern New Mexico

 

[sktn77a]

I'd steer clear of cement block/fiberglass (ever seen cracks along the block seams in a house foundation?). At that price you can get a really nice custom gunite pool with a nice plaster/pebble finish. I'd also keep looking for a fiberglass pool in the dimensions you require; I'm sure there's one out there.

 

[Backyard_Lap_Pool]

If you are doing swimex system, I’d probably go with their prefab solution and drop it into a prepared pit/deck. They probably have the slickest stationary treadpool solution on the market. Pricey but cool.

 

[Kletust]

If you can afford it, I would go Swimex. I’ve swim tested Traditional Swimex, Endless pools (traditional and Spa), Phelps, and ATV. By the way... that is the order of quality of swim current as well. I did not get to try the Triton, but based on design and talking to owners it should be as good or better than endless pools but below the traditional swimex.

Swimex is the best and most expensive of the bunch. They are well made, and the swim current is extremely smooth. When you look at the swimex price, make sure you are including installation as well. We were quoted $10k for installation. Sadly, I don’t remember all that was included in that installation price.

If I could afford it I would go Swimex. The current and construction is hands down the best. In the end I found that I enjoyed tether swimming as much as swimming against the current of the other pools that were in the 35k range, so I saved myself about 15-16k over the endless pools and bought a 17’ ATV swim spa that just has jets and less parts to break.
It isn’t as deep as what you are looking for though (53”).

Good luck! Finding good information on swim spas is nearly impossible.