Leep, thanks. I have "chatted" with the member/poster who wished pool was longer. I'll probably err on the side of caution, and forego the 7 ft depth. Appreciate your input.

I think its all a trade off. If you could start at 4' in the shallow end or be happy with only 6' in the deep end it wouldn't be so steep. I think my bigger complaint is that 3' seems way too shallow in the shallow end. I would still go with 7' in the deep but I would go deeper in the shallow end. And if longer was an option - that would've helped too.

The pool I built at my last house was a vinyl liner that was 16 x 32. It went from 3 ft to 8 ft. There was a steep area in the middle of the pool, but I never thought anything about it at the time. The 8 ft. allowed my growing children the diving board. But, looking back now, I realize that the middle of the pool was not utilized much unless we were floating on something, or swimming from one end to the other.

Now that my children are grown, the pool I am currently building is more user friendly for me I think, and it goes from 3.6 ft to 6 ft. Although I have a feeling I will be constantly reminding my 18 year old baby not to let his friends dive into the pool.....

This has me curious. On my future pool, I want to make a transition from 4.5' to 8' deep. I would prefer the transition to be as fast as possible, as 5/8 of the pool will be 4.5' deep, and I want as much of the remaining 3/8th of the pool to be 8'as possible.

What is the steepest angle acceptable, and why? For example, 3.5' drop over 3.5' run is 45 degree. What problems would this cause structurally, for plaster, for gunite, etc?

When diving in a pool, are you diving straight down? Not usually. YOu are diving out. There is forward momentum. The slope is pitched to protect someone from slamming into it if they dive deeper.

A more gradual slope is needed to give the diver more distance to rise closer to the surface without risking a serious accident.

Given the main use of your planned project, deeper for longer is better. Your pool plan as I remember is long but somewhat narrow. The added length of deep water will help dampen waves.

Scott

I understand what you are saying re: not hitting your head on the bottom of the pool. (I actually split my forehead open at a swim meet in High School doing exactly that (4'deep shallow start pool in Killeen, TX)).

But if I understand you correctly, there's no structural reason that you couldn't just make even a vertical transition from 4.5' to 8', correct?

Just common sense ones.

Scott

I have a 2 year old IG pool (18x32 pool, curved "8" type of shape with and outward bulge on one side in the middle). It is ~4 feet in the shallow and ~8-9 feet in the deep end. The transition starts about 6-8 feet from the shallow end and drops probably close to about 1 foot in every 2 feet of length.

So I guess itÂs a pretty steep slope but we are happy with the result. Since a very high percentage of pool accidents are diving board related we purposely did NOT have one installed. We were strongly considering a equal depth, shallow level, for the entire pool in order to have a kids "play friendly" pool. I am glad we did not.

I donÂt have a problem with the transition.

KC

KC, just wondering why you are glad you did the deep end most? What ages are your kids and what are the advantages you've seen so far with the deep end? Appreciate your input, thanks!

"But if I understand you correctly, there's no structural reason that you couldn't just make even a vertical transition from 4.5' to 8', correct? "

No the structural considerations will be dealt with by the engineers, but aren't that complicated.

When building a vertical wall though, you mush still have an area that is the same size of the APSP-ASNI dimesions for diving bowls.

The dimension you need are here http://www.srsmith.com/_posted_resources/Frontier-II-Jumpstand.pdf

Goto page 4.

I am building a lap pool (50 x 12) and the designer wants to go 3.9 ft on each end with a 4.17 in the middle. I think that's too shallow in the middle (he originally did 3.5 at one end, 4.6 in the middle and 4 on the other end). I'll really only be using it to swim laps. No kids. What do you all think. Email bell@arizona.edu with any advice. Need to decide by this weekend. HELP!!!!!

Go deep if you can and don't worry about the slope. If teens are around they will be diving and finding things to jump off. If I ever did another pool I would go to at least 7 foot even if it meant adding a foot or two to the overall length.

Hey swimclub
Be sure your pool builder AND you know what you mean by a 3.5' depth. Do you want the walls to be 3.5' high or the water level to be 3.5' deep? If your walls are 3.5 (or even 3.9) you are really only getting about 3' of water. If you are going to be doing flip turns, you may end up scraping your head or backside along the bottom. Our pool walls are 4.6' high and our water is 4' in the shallow end. When we were 1st meeting w/ our PB I had to explain what I wanted as far as water level as he was under the assumption that I was asking for 4' high walls...
Best of luck!
Joanne

I grew up with a 40x38' L shaped gunite pool in the yard. The short leg of the pool was/is 3' deep. Nobody ever spent any time there. My brother now owns the house and pool and the trend continues - nobody uses that area.

Lonely little L. :-(

Start with a 3'6 or even 4'. It'll make the transistion less. If you're concerned about little kids, remember that they are bigger for longer than they are little and even the little ones end up on rafts/boats or on the steps or shelf if you provide one.