Pool size - what is considered "a large pool"?

[Isaac-1]

Maybe this will give you some idea of scale and placement regarding floats, here is a picture showing my indoor 20x40 (well most of it, the skimmer is and the mid point on length) along with 6 fairly large floats hanging or propped up by the diving board. Sorry I don't have any images with floats in the water

Ike

 

[Fireproof]

Thanks for all the help folks. Very helpful pics and comments.

I'm meeting again with the builder tomorrow and may stretch the width a bit. But don't have the room to make it longer. I love the current shape and design so don't want to mess with it too much. Mainly just wanted to get a feel for how it compares. Everyone's pool pics always look plenty big, but then I see the painted outline, and it just messes with my mind.

 

[Casey]

I wish I had a smaller pool...

Said No One EVER!

If you're going to go bigger, do it now!

 

[bobby1017]

Mine is 20' x 40' x 8' at the deep end, this is big enough for nearly all cases, but bigger cant hurt. I started thinking 18' x 36' but decided to go bigger, glad I did, but 22' x 44' would have given more shallow end and I could have gone to 9' deep. It's hard to spend the extra money but later your glad you did.

 

[laceygirl]

Check out this blokes pool.... Its 82 feet long.....

http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/73128-Lautner-Edge-Pool-Australia?p=626157#post626157

 

[Readyforapool]

I don't know if all PB's do it the way mine did but they have a scale of prices based on size - we really wanted to go bigger but 36 ft would have thrown us into the next price point (another 10k) and deeper than 6 ft would have also put us in that category. We did get them to go another 6 inches deeper off the books but he was out there with his tape measure to ensure it wasn't anything more!

 

[Patrick_B]

I had my pre-site meeting with the PB yesterday and he spray-painted it in the yard. That's why I'm asking. It "seemed" small. (And he said that's a common reaction when you just see it painted and not dug). But dimension-wise - it suggests being a fairly nice-sized / large pool. Looking for validation. 40-ft x 20-ft seems like it should be plenty big for us. Sure seems small painted on the ground though, LOL.

Let me promise you that when it's dug, it will look plenty, plenty big enough. The illusion of how small they look when laid out with markers is very deceiving.

A 20X40 is a good sized pool, and by today's standards is on the large end. Have you decided how you will chlorinate? If not, you may think about materials that are more suitable to having a salt chlorine pool. That size pool will take a lot of liquid Chlorine for sure. Not trying to sound discouraging at all, please don't misunderstand.... If I could have, I would have built a huge pool with a lazy river to boot. One you could go SCUBA diving in and get lost.

 

[steveg_nh]

Large is when your wife says "Are you serious!?" when she sees the outlined painted.

That's what she said to me when they painted out our 24x40' 25k gallon pool. LOL. It's a great balance of size, shape, and volume. Easy to maintain (so far), but PLENTY of space and nice design for a non square yard.

 

[scriptorum]

I've had this question as well, notably after reading this Pool School article on Automatic Pool Cleaners. This article mentions different types of cleaners and what classes of pool (small/medium/large) they would be appropriate for. What is a large pool is obviously subjective, but if the Pool School is going to reference these classes, it would be very helpful to know what volumes the author(s) had in mind.

 

[AimeeH]

When we first talked to our PB about size of pool, I wanted 20x40 with an 8 ft deep end and my husband thought I was nuts. Even the PB said "Mam, that's a BIG pool." He introduced me to the "L" shape we finally decided on (as that had never occurred to me). I really like the larger shallow end. We are a family of four and have entertained another family of 6 (that's 8 children playing in pool) and haven't felt "uncomfortable."........although we weren't all on floats. 8 children for a 7 year olds birthday party was just fine as well but with all adults just hanging out on the deck.

 

[Omnipotent]

I would say if in doubt go bigger.....I know I wish I had. Ours is 20x40 and is being built. When it was painted I said it needed to be bigger and PB assured me when depth was added it would be plenty big. Now that it's dug and gunite poured its a nice size, but not as big as I'd hoped for. We have a family of 5 and will entertain almost every week to the tune of 9-12 folks.....the pool will be crammed if everyone is in it at the same time.

I wanted to go 30x50 and wish I would have stuck to my guns.....just a thought, can't undo it once it's dug. Go as big as you can afford, especially if you envision a lot of people in the pool at once.

 

[andyoi630]

Mine is about 25 x 42 freeform, and it looks small to me now that it has gunite. If my yard was bigger, I wouldn't go less than 50 feet. The costs are certainly high to finish all of the parts though, bigger size means more gunite, coping, tile, decking, cover etc.

 

[chem geek]

[EDIT] I corrected the pool numbers [END-EDIT]
There are about 5,000,000 above-ground pools in the U.S. with an average size of around 10,000 gallons while there are about 5,000,000 in-ground pools with an average size of around 19,000 gallons. So the overall average size is between 14,000 and 15,000 gallons.

 

[jblizzle]

I have to think you are missing some zeros there or I misunderstand

 

[laceygirl]

Yes, I was thinking the same thing... Only 5000 above and 5000 in ground pools? Your population is like 350 million yes?

 

[chem geek]

Sorry, I meant 5 million each for above-ground and in-ground. I've corrected my post.

 

[Ga mike]

I told the wife go big or go home. 20x45 and 32x18 L shape.

 

[Andrew69]

Check out this blokes pool.... Its 82 feet long.....

http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/73128-Lautner-Edge-Pool-Australia?p=626157#post626157

And if I had the room you can guarantee as sure as night follows day, it would have been double that length!

 

[jlsl95]

We are in the process of our build. We went with a 25' x 50' with a 4ft shallow to a 9ft deep end. It looks huge so I think we'll have plenty of room to entertain and host the kids' friends and teams.