Building a kit swimming pool

Written on 05:35 by Dad

This is a guide to building / installing a kit swimming pool.

The pool in the picture above we installed in my back garden. We bought the pool kit online. The first thing to do is choose the type & shape of pool you require. We choose a standard rectangle with an inverse pyramid base. You will see in the following photos what this type of base is.

The first step after choosing your pool is to mark out on the ground where it is going to go & dig the hole at least 1 metre bigger than the size of the pool.

Make sure the you dig the base as close to the profile of the base of the pool you require. You only need to be about 30cm lower than the finished base level. Any more than this & you will be putting back in what you have already dug out to try and get it close to what you require.

The next step is to erect the walls.

The kit we choose had galvanised walls that bolted together with braces at the rear to hold them upright. This part is critical. All the wall panels have to be level & upright, & all the corners must be perfectly square. You must have a perfect rectangle before you proceed any further. Make sure that the top of the panels are at the correct height. Remember your pool surround tiles will finish on top of the panel.

Once you are happy with your levels you can cement in the braces at the rear of the panels to keep them in place.

The first part of the base to be cemented in is the very bottom part, where the bottom sump grille is going to be fitted. Measure from the top face of the grille to the top of the wall panel, this will be the depth of your pool.

Make sure the base is nice & level & the exact size you want according to the size & shape of your base layout. The blue pipe you see in the picture, comes from the sump grill back to the pump house. Make sure that is well down from the finished floor level of the pool so that you can cement over it. Although the pipes are flexible they still tend to have a life of their own when trying to lay them flat.

When the base that you cemented has gone hard, you can start cementing the rest of the base.

Once again make sure that they are flat. You can see the wooden guides that we put in to ensure that the angle from the corner of the pool to the corner of the base pad remains the same. The picture on the right shows the same after the cement has gone hard & the wood has been removed.

Once the cement has gone off & you have removed the wooden guides. You can then start installing the skimmers, injectors & light (if you have one). You can see in the pictures above, the skimmers & light have been bolted to the wall panel. We cemented concrete blocks under the skimmers to stop any stress on the plastic.

The picture on the left you can see the 3 injectors. These are fitted in the same way as the skimmers. With our type of kit, at this point when all the cement had gone off we had to measure the pool for the liner to be constructed. Measure the length, width, depth, shape of base, everything. Double & triple check all your measurements before ordering.

Installing the pipe work is going to be the next step. The kit comes with the all the pipe for installing the pool. Each skimmer, injector & sump grille came with a screw in type connector. Use the PTF tape supplied to tape up the thread & then screw the fitting into the skimmer etc. Run the flexible pipe around the outside of the pool from each fitting back to the point where you are going to have your pump house.

You will notice the large trench we had dug out for the pipe work to run back to the pump house. It’s the same depth as the pool. The trench only needs to 50 to 60cm deep as it’s only for the pipes. As you can see we had quite a bit of back filling to do. We had 8 pipes 2 skimmers, 3 injectors, 1 sump grille, 1 vacuum & 1 for the cable to the light.

Once you’ve finished making all the connections to the pool you’re ready to start back filling the trench around the pool. Make sure it’s all well packed down or better still back fill it with concrete. Only back fill to about 2-3cm below the top of the wall panels.

The picture above is when the back filling was half done. The picture on the right, the back filling is almost finished. This is a good time to fit the liner hanger all around the pool on top of the wall panels. Our was fitted to the panel by self tapping screws.

When you’re ready to install the liner, the first thing to do is vacuum the floor of the pool. Make sure all the corners are free of stones & dust, it must all be spotless. If not with the weight of water on the liner you will feel every lump & bump. Next lay the felt on the base & the joints on the wall panels.(make sure you remove the cover to the sump grille) Actually it’s better to cover all the walls. Once again check nothing has fallen in.

Get your shoes off & work in just your socks in the pool from now on. Put the still folded up liner in the middle of the pool & unfold. When it is all unfolded find the corner of the shallow end of the liner & start hanging it from there.

This may well take 2 people as it can be difficult to hold the liner up & push it into the hanger at the same time.

When you come to the last part of the liner to be fitted leave a gap big enough to pass a vacuum hose between the liner & the wall. It only needs to go down around half to two thirds of the way down the wall.

The white tube is our vacuum tube. After you have turned your vacuum on you will need to get into the pool in your socks & push out all the wrinkles on the floor & the walls until it is all flat.

When you’re happy with the fitting of the liner start filling it via your hose pipe. Keep the vacuum running the whole time you are filling the pool. Taking the bag out will give you more suction.

When the water in the deep end gets to about 10-15cm, fit the sump grille cover. With ours it was fitted with 8 stainless steel screws. then very very carefully cut the liner out of the middle of it.

Depending on the pressure of your water supply it can take sometime to fill the pool. As ours is quite low we decided to fit the edging tiles & finish off the pool house.