Pool depth dilemma *eyes rolling*

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Swampwoman's pool is my ideal! Love a deep pool and wish mine were deeper. As she pointed out, a pool noodle will hold up a person happily for hours floating.... who wants to just "stand there" in shallow water when they can do so much more if they had diving space??

Maddie :flower:
 
My pool is 14x28 and goes from 3.5ft down to 6ft. We have a classic rectangle with a deep end. We had the pool gradually slope from 3.5-4.5 ft before a very steep drop (max allowed) to 6ft. I'm very pleased with out result as we have fairly deep pool that has a good sized shallow end and very little slope. We even have a 4ft sun shelf in the shallow end.

At 32' you could easily get to 7ft or possibly more. If you are looking to dive you'd want to go a bit deeper to 8ft+. I just recommend adding a long bench in the deep end so you can rest, use it for egress, or sit in the deep end without treading water. Best of both worlds. My wife and I put a bench down one side of the deep end and a ladder down the other.
 
Again thank you all for your input, every single one of your comments has been super helpful in making a decision!

I woke up this morning thinking about what you've all been saying from the beginning... Who is going to use the pool and how will you spend ur time there? So , I realized a couple of things and will greatly appreciate your comments.

I realized my wife and I will be living there, so 80% of the time it'll be for us , on weekends we might get a visitor or two, we have brothers who will most likely want to horse around, play and jump in, we have two elderly who might be too scared to get into the pool for fear of falling even if we make it shallow. No children. And so far I've been trying to accommodate everyone. Am I crazy to eliminate the needs and wants of everyone else except the two of us? I feel like I've been planning on being able to play basketball and volleyball with my brothers when in reality they will probably play a total of 2 minutes before getting tired , they are all fat and lazy.

Here is what the wife and I want:

1.- I want to be able to jump into the pool without breaking my royal butt. No diving , I'm too afraid to break my neck.

2.- I want to be able to fully submerge in water . I'm 6'4''

3.- Wife wants to lounge and a spa. (*Sigh*)

4.- Wife wants to be able to swim but also be able to stand with ease if she gets tired. (She's 5'4'')

5.- She wants a darn sunshelf (I'm against it, takes away from swimming space and I consider it unnecessary)

What do you recommend for our situation? I figure the elderly will love the spa and spend their time there. I figure a 4 people spa will be plenty. NO SUNSHELF. Now can you guys give me some feedback? It's helped me a lot to have ideas bounce back and forth. Thanks!
 
Here's a picture of my pool that is 14x28. The part with the sun shelf is cut off but you can clearly see the break in depth as it drops off into the deep end. Since we wouldn't be diving, our strategy was to make most of the pool usable for standing with a small deep section that includes places for sitting and easy egress.


My wife wife and I had the same argument about building a sun shelf as it eats up a lot of space. We comprised on size and it worked well. You can always build the sun shelf perpendicular to the pool (off to the side) to minimize the impact on the swimming areas.

We we are able to play volleyball in our pool, we just can't have "back field " players on the deep side. Works well enough for a friendly game with the wife or couple friends.View attachment 66050
 
Can you push the sun shelf outside of the main pool area so it doesn't eat up that space? The main part of our pool is 15x28, so smaller than what you are building, but we pushed the sunshelf, stairs, and spa outside of that main part of the pool. We wanted as much pool as possible to play in, but still wanted the sunshelf for my mom (though it turns out our kids spend a lot of time there, doing cartwheels and handstands into the pool). The spa and sunshelf are both 6x8, and centered on either side of the pool.

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raypinciotti said:
What are the opinions on L shaped pools? Our other idea is to make basically break it in two and make 2 smaller pools, one deep and one shallow but we fear again it will become useless.
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In-laws' pool is a lazy L shape - with a very gradually sloped shallow end on the long end of the L and the deep end on the short end. We used it a lot when the kids were small. It was awesome for both playing and swimming. Beautiful design. If we had room I would have done something similar.
 
Based on the wife's priorities, I don't think it wise to say no sunshelf. I have a small 7x7 one that, along with the spa (also 7x7) protrudes from the main part of the 16x36 body of the pool. So, no affect on the swim area. You can also see the bench I added all along the side.



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You end up with a slightly bigger footprint, but wife gets her lounge area, you get your swim area (and a happy wife).

BTW: the 7x7 was sized to fit the two pool lounge chairs in the picture, side by side.
 
My builder wanted us to go 3' to 6' on a 17' x 33' pool. I didn't want much slope. We went with 3.5' to 5.5'. I question the inability to jump into shallow water (within reason). I can easily jump into the 5.5 end. Frankly, I can jump into the middle of the pool as well. Diving (real, straight-down diving) is a no-go. But, I can shallow dive into 5.5, or less, with no issue.*

*Disclaimer: I recommend you don't dive into any pool. I recommend that you don't jump into any pool. I recommend that you don't swim. I don't recommend taking any foolish chances on anything. Now, if you get hurt doing anything in life, it isn't because of my advice!
 
Our pool is 16x40 with an attached 10x10 spa with spillover. It goes from 3.5 to 5.5. We are 5'9" and 6'1". No kids. If I did it again, I would go 4.5 to 6.0-6.5. 3.5 feet is really shallow for adults, and too deep for little kids in the sense that if they can't comfortably stand with their head above water, then they might as well be in the deep end.

So far we have found that kids play on our full length bench, and in the spa - even though it's the same temperature as the pool. Adults tend to stand, sit on the bench or float, and for floating depth is much less relevant.

The one nice thing for us about being on the shallower side is that our pool water warms up quickly in the sun.

Also, it was much cheaper since we hit ledge when they were digging the deep end :)
 
Such beautiful pools! Thank you for posting pictures, this forum is so helpful!!! Thank you much, you really don't know how much I appreciate it, I feel we are almost ready to make a decision to start the design.

Wife says we are putting a sunshelf so that's the end of the discussion, we are putting a sunshelf. I suppose I can live with it although I don't see a lot of use for it other than being used as a platform to jump into the pool and maybe birds can use it to drink water. and the cat could have an accidental bath... I hope our elderly will like it, although again, i see them using the spa a lot more, but like Chiefwej says , wife will be happy....

Thanks again guys
 

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My sunshelf is deeper than most at 18" it comes up level with the seats on those loungers. Kids love to play there. I don't understand ones that only have a few inches of water over it.

Ironically I have a shallow pool with a deep sunshelf.
 
Yep, that's why the bench is at the same depth. Sit on the bench and set you beverage on the deck. The height or should say depth works perfectly.

If you look carefully at the picture, you can see there is a step at a 45 on to the shelf (and also one into the spa). The shelf is the second step down into the pool. Then there is one more step built into the shelf before the bottom of the shallow 3.5' end. The shelf serves as the steps into the pool.

I have the original construction drawing and other pictures, if you are interested.
 
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