EVERYTHING you NEED to know for your first SWIMMING POOL

[mtsinternational]

thanks jazzman for the prompt feedback with info to consider. much appreciated.

[scudman]

Make sure that the rubber waterstop strip is embedded half in the floor and half in the wall above it. This will provide a perfect waterproof joint between the floor and the walls; reason being is that two separate casts of concrete will never have a waterproof joint.

How does the rubber seal maintain it's shape when cement is poured on top of it from 1.5 meters height when you pour the walls of the pool? I would think that it would get crushed and deformed thereby reducing it's effectiveness. Could you put a rigid backing behind it and attach the seal to the backing to help maintain an upright configuration?

[Roger Ramjet]

scudman,
As you can see when they poured the floor first, the rubber stop was between the two lots of rebar. It is thick rubber and not pliable all that much. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1864&start=750

[olavhome]

Not seen many discussions about mossies consernings swimmingpools. Isnt is a problem after all ?
Last week had a very small holiday in Florida.
Visited a friend who rented a house with a swinningpool. The whole earea had this kind of steel netting houses arount the terasses/pools.The frames vere aluminium. Not directly estetically nice, but guess surely effective. Not seen any (yet) like this in Thailand.
Did let the sun and wind come trough, but preventet insects.
Maybe also be a good idea for ordinairy terasses, being able to relax in the evening without thinking about yourself being dessert for the "winged kamikazes"

Taken from inside.

[jazzman]

How does the rubber seal maintain it's shape when cement is poured on top of it from 1.5 meters height when you pour the walls of the pool?

If you do the job properly and bind the top of the waterstop to the rebar, it certainly won't get crushed. Believe me.

[jazzman]

Golden rule: Go compare!

Search the Internet for prices of pool equipment and supplies, but forget all the spam results you get in Google from Alibaba. The trick is to include Thailand as one of the search words. Start by looking for pumps and filters and check out some of the brands I mentioned earlier.

A few companies now do online sales and some of them who practice reasonable prices actually publish them on their websites while others make up their prices according to the cut of the customer's cloth when you ask for a quotation.

Some will offer free construction plans with a complete order for all the technical bits and pieces for a pool and a help line for live construction tips. If the order is big enough, you'll most likely get a discount and you'll most probably get free delivery to Phuket too from BKK or wherever their firm is located.

[English Tim]

Hi jazzman , i too tie wire the top of the rubber waterstop to the re-bar and have never had any problems, but, i am always there at the pour and make sure that the initial concrete where possible be gently placed in the formwork, if the walls are a decent width a piece of galvanised iron can be slid down forming a chute , cheers Tim

[jazzman]

I am always there at the pour

Sounds as if you have built several pools - you must have a big garden

[jazzman]

I constantly get asked for recommendations for pool companies but I let people do their own searching and make their own minds up. The best info is that any pool products you see on sale in the boutiques in the large shopping malls are always overpriced, while local pool shops/constructors in the traditional areas of farang residency such as Phuket, Krabi, Pattaya, Cha Am, Hua Hin, etc, are often a blatant rip-off, but also prices in Khon Kaen (only two pool companies AFAIK) and Udon Thani (several shops, all within a few hundred metres of each other in the same road) are now getting ridiculously high - in fact in one pool store in Udon, the same fixtures and fittings are exactly double the prices of the large builders' merchant/DIY store just 400m away, and that's probably where they are buying the stuff.

Another favourite trick practiced by the pool 'professionals' is to inflate the price of tiles. There is no such thing as special pool tiles and the tiles your pool pro recommended can also be bought for much less in the hardware store across the road.

Looking to have an in-ground concrete pool built? Pretend to be building your own and ask in a pool shop (even some of the franchise chains) for advice on waterstop, HD adhesive for PVC pipes, and special tile adhesive and grout; if they don't give you the right answer, you know what to do.

Finally, if you want to know if the price of something is reasonable, even if it's just a 5 Kg bucket of pH minus, a vacuum port, or a refill for your test kit, just us here at CoolThaiHouse.

[scudman]

Been doing massive amounts of reading the last few days on pools. I am still mulling around in my mind whether to go salt water or the liquid chlorine route. Salt seems to be more maintenance friendly and more cost effective in the long run, however I read a few disturbing papers today regarding salt pools. In California, the city of Santa Clarita banned all new salt pools that were hooked into the city sewers. Several other cities have followed suit. The claim is that the corrosive nature of the salt water is destroying city water recycling equipment. I also read that over time salt pools wreak havoc on stone work, tile grout and tiles at the water line level in the pool. So my question is: have you CTH members that have had your salt pool running now for a few years, experienced a premature degradation of pool decking, equipment, pool ladders, light fixtures, water fall features or other pool accessories?

[jazzman]

I am still mulling around in my mind whether to go salt water or the liquid chlorine route.

Well,first off, we don't use liquid chlorine. TCCA (chlorine speiically manufactured for pools) is sold in powder, granular or tablet form and contains essential Cyanuric Acid. The powder and granules are fast-reacting and are generally used for shock treatment, while the tablets are 'slow-release' for maintaining a regular chlorine level.

There are obviously some minor downsides to saltwater chlorination but they are greatly outweighed by the benefits. For the medium and long term saving in the costs of chlorine and the reduced maintenance, accurate dosing, and built-in pump management, the additional price of a chlorine generator won't impact significantly on the cost of a new pool. Problems with grout and tile adhesion are generally due to acid/alkalinity imbalance. Salt water is corrosive to ferrous metals and some cheap ladders and other stainless steel fittings may not stand the test of time. Otherwise, if a pool has been correctly constructed using materials specifically designed for, or recommended for use in swimming pools, salt water itself should not create any additional problems. There is, or was, a range of expensive Hayward underwater LED lights that were not suitable for saltwater. Nobody knew until they had bought the lights, unpacked them, and seen the small print on the tiny sticker on the back of the light unit, so most people - including professional constructors - simply went ahead and installed them anyway. The lights usually failed after two or three years and had to be replaced.

The moral of the story is: if you want your pool to last with low running costs and minimum maintenance, use salt water systems by all means, but don't skimp on the quality of the grout, fixtures and fittings, and maintain your pH at the perfect level at all times.

[scudman]

Well,first off, we don't use liquid chlorine. TCCA (chlorine speiically manufactured for pools) is sold in powder, granular or tablet form and contains essential Cyanuric Acid. The powder and granules are fast-reacting and are generally used for shock treatment, while the tablets are 'slow-release' for maintaining a regular chlorine level.

Thanks jazzman. The last pool I owned was in 1976. It had a spin filter that used diatomaceous earth and we bought chlorine and acid in 1/2 gallon bottles. I am not up to speed yet on technology advancements in pool design and maintenance but reading as much as I can to get there.

[scudman]

Scudman has more questions:
I worked on my pool design a bit today. 4x8 meter rectangle with surge gutters all the way around and a surge tank of 4x4x1meter deep.
Depth from 1.21 meter to 2.13 meter for an average depth of 1.69 meters
That works out to 53,440 liters in the pool and 16,000 liters in the surge tank.
Plumbing:
2 main drains in the deep end about 2 meters apart connected together at the midpoint with a T. Pipe runs to Pump
Surge gutter with 1 (or more?) pipes gravity fed to surge tank.

Now here is where I am confused: I figure the surge tank needs to be connected to the water mains and probably has a float valve to maintain a certain level. But how does the surge tank water play into the 4 to 6 hour turn of the pool water by the filtration system? The pump must be connected to the surge tank as well as the main drains. And how is the correct water level maintained in the pool to take care of evaporation and water not captured by the gutters?

I have more questions but let's start here if we could.

[jazzman]

It's often a good idea to build the balance tank under the floor of the pump house so that the pump has the shortest draught to prime itself from the foot valve in the tank. The water in the overflow gutters is simply gravity fed to the tank . The pump is fed from a manifold with three incoming pipes, each with its ball valve: the main drain, the balance tank, and the vacuum port. The vac valve should be closed when not vacuuming, while an optimal balance should be found. and maintained between the draught from the balance tank and the main drain. The water level in the maindrain tops itself up from a float valve connected to the domestic water supply.

[scudman]

while an optimal balance should be found. and maintained between the draught from the balance tank and the main drain. The water level in the maindrain tops itself up from a float valve connected to the domestic water supply.

Clearer now, except for this last part. Is the optimal balance part achieved by adjusting the ball valves to change the liters per minute flow rate from the floor drains and the balance tank? Maybe I don't understand how main drains work. I thought main drains were just holes in the bottom of the pool with a grate over them connected to the pump with pipe. Do you mean a float valve in something like a skimmer box at the surface of the pool for maintaining water level?