Tips on Pool Design

After building many houses - we finally decided to add on a pool, spa and screened Lanai to our house in Florida.

WOW! What a learning experience. We won't give you all the details here on our pool design and construction, but if you'd like them please contact us.

After it was all done - we can truly say that we love it, it is beautiful to sit beside even when it is too cold to get into.

Don't be afraid to design your own. Look at as many different pools, styles and features as possible, and make a lot of drawings on paper. When you have your preferred design with dimensions show it to pool contractors, get at least three quotes, and review their contract wording carefully.

Ask yourself - what will you primarily use it for? Do you want to swim laps, play volleyball or water polo, or just float with a drink and get some sun? These questions will determine the shape & dimensions that you need. Of course, the bigger the pool the more it will cost - both to build initially and to operate.

We had always heard that it was very expensive and time consuming to maintain a pool. We chose to have a saltwater pool with a propane heater for the pool & spa.

Our electric bill did go up a little because the pump has to run at least 6 to 8 hours a day depending on the air temperature. The cost of chemicals has not been high and we have really not had to spend more than an hour or two a month doing maintenance and testing.

Our many Thanks go to the wonderful people at Pinch a Penny Pools for answering our never ending stream of questions.

Pinch a Penny Website - www.pinchapenny.com

Of course based on what we did and have learned about different aspects of pool design we would do it different next time -

It is very expensive (based on the cost of Propane) to heat the Pool and Spa.

Because our spa spills over into our pool it is a complete water loop system, and the spa cannot be isolated from the pool. You can just heat up the spa - and this works great! But, it makes it difficult to put a solar blanket on the pool to keep the heat in.

An electric heater is the most efficient and economical if you really want to be able to heat your pool and swing year round - it is better than propane or solar.

Plus, we can't really use the solar blanket because we have dogs - they think they can walk out on the top of the blanket and they might drown if we are not watching them.

We did a very unique pool, patio & outdoor design for our dogs that other's might want to consider using also. We always have had a doggie door allowing them to go outside from the Family Room when ever they wanted. We had an electric fence to keep them in the yard. But, when we built the pool with the completely screened in and enclosed Lanai we realized that they could not get out to the grass.

The solution to this was to add a strip of grass along the back of the pool for them to "use". You cannot see it from our patio sitting area because of the pool wall design at the back with the waterfalls in it. We tried to grow Bermuda grass in this area, but it did not hold up very well. We replaced it with artificial grass like they use at kennels and now we just pick up and hose it down weekly. The end result is that we never really have to let our dogs out and they are protected from other people and animals (like alligators’ - since they are in every golf course pond in Florida).

One benefit of this artificial grass area in our pool design is that it could be entirely removed and converted to a garden area because the base is sand and it has installed sprinklers.

Our pool interior shape is also specially designed so that the dogs have a wading area. One likes to swim and the other just likes to stand in the water like at the beach.

Adding the pool and lanai area to our home made it seem like our living area was twice as big! In the evening it is very stress relieving to sit and watch the colors change with the ripples in the shallow part of the pool. Almost like watching the fireplace in the winter!

Other things to consider about your pool design are the colors, the tile, surfaces – like including stone or brick, accent tiles and how you may incorporate your garden and planters with your pool and outdoor living area.