Swim A Lot

Install Your Own Inground Swimming Pool

BEFORE

AFTER

Last spring, I installed my first inground pool. No, this wasn't at my house, but for my boss. He bought an inground pool kit from a local pool company. We contracted out a few things that we either couldn't do ourselves, or weren't comfortable doing ourselves. We hired out the digging for the pool, the installation of the vermiculite pool bottom, and the installation of the liner.

The pool was custom ordered. It measures 26' x 60'. The deep end is 8' deep. The shallow end is a constant 3 1/2' deep (until it begins a steep slope to 8'). This gave him a 32' area, all the same depth, for volleyball, of couse!

I have many photos of the installation and will include some comments about how the installation went of this inground pool installation.

Ground was staked where we wanted the pool.	Contrator showed up with something bigger to dig with than we had.
Digging of the shallow end.	Shallow end nearly complete.
We had a couple of BobCats to move the dirt to another part of his property.	Starting on the deep end.
The deep end - gets deeper.	Nearly done.
The "dig" is complete for the pool. Our contractor used a transit and laser and the dig was within 1" of specs!	Another view of the completed deep end.

The dig was completed in around 3 hours. The person we hired is well know in the Columbus Ohio area for digging pools. They followed the dig plans provided by the pool company exactly and they dug the hole within 1" of level - an amazing feat! They also dug the poolhouse basement and foundation. He built a 12'x12' poolhouse with a full basement for the pumps and filters.

In this photo, you can see most of the pool parts.	Here you can see some of the galvanized steel pool walls. Those rounded parts are the corners.
The wall panels were in 6' and 8' lengths. Skimmers, returns, and lights were pre-cut in the panels.	We started by laying the panels around the pool near where they go.
The opening at the end is for the walk-in steps.	Once the panels were laid out, we began the tedious process of bolting them together.
There were lots of bolts and bracing to install.	I believe there was a toal of 9 bolts and nuts at each panel joint.
Cove is installed our the pool perimeter.	Pool walls all bolted together, leveled, and in their final positoin.

We used over 350' of pool hose for the plumbing. This pool had four skimmers, two bottom drains, six return jets, and an additional two returns in the steps in the shallow end, and in the swim-out/steps in the deep end. All the hoses are routed along the trench beside the pool to behind the deep end, where we had a about a 10' trench to the pool house basement.

Beginning the plumbing - installing the skimmers - this pool has four.	Skimmer with hose attached.
Both skimmers on each side were connected together with T's. Each T was centered between the skimmers to equalize suction.	All the hoses came together behind the deep end and ran together into the pool house basement.
View of the two bottom drains.	Two drains were used for safety.
The black pipe was used to bring all the hoses into the pool house basement.	A photo from standing in the deep end looking towards the shallow end.

The concrete arrives. We poured the pool house footer first.	Pushing the concrete around all the supports.
Most of the hoses are secured in the concrete.	The steps and supports are surrounded by concrete.

The vermiculite bottom was installed by local pool contractors. We had not done this before and didn't wan't to make any mistakes on this important part. I don't have any photos of the vermiculite installation, but they mixed it in a cement mixer, used wheelbarrows to bring it into the pool, and troweled it just like you would cement. They also installed the liner for us. They used two powerful vaccuums that drew suction and pulled the air from between the liner and the pool walls and bottom. The result was that the liner was smooth, with barely a wrinkle anywhere, all before any water was put in the pool.

The pool was filled from the pond behind the house. Once the filter was started, it only took a couple days to clear the water!

Some photos of the pump room. This is actually the basement in the pool house. We took all the pipes coming from the pool, labeled them, and basically laid them out on a board attached to the wall. Each line has a shut off valve, with the bottom drains having two in-line shut off valves. The pump room contains two 220V pumps, a 600lb sand filter, and two electronic chlorine generators.