One question we get asked frequently is "How would we set up our own Swimming Pool?" With all the information out there from the multitude of Swimming Pool sites, it can be a mind boggling experience to determine the "Best" way to do it.

First of all, a common sense design can help reduce maintainence and cost of operation. We're not going to address the building and installation costs because they will vary from site to site and from builder to builder depending on what the client wants. Take a look at the design page also. It will help you through some of the aspects of equipment selection.

However, what we want to address here are some ways to keep your maintenance time and costs to a minimum while insuring everything is being done correctly.

Lets do a fairly standard residential pool, say 18' x 36'. We want a rectangle swimming pool so that a cover, and we do want a cover, fits nicely, won't cost a fortune, is easy to remove and replace and will last a long time because the edges won't be dragging over the coping stones anywhere. The cover will easily pay for itself with the heat and chemicals it will save. If you have children, then safety is paramount and a good safety cover should be installed. For strength, durability and ease of repair we will build a concrete/gunite pool, plastered, and for looks we will have a tile border. Since we may want to install a diving board or slide at a later date, lets give it a good deep end, 12', and no more than 3' on the shallow end so the kids, non-swimmers or even the folks can enjoy the pool too. There are NSPI standards that should be followed for different types of pools and the numbers we use here are simply for explanation purposes. The pool will be outside and any overhanging branches etc. will be removed.

One of the best things we can do for the pool is good circulation. Skimmers are inexpensive and also invaluable, so lets install 2 on one side of the pool. Also inexpensive are frame and grate style main drains and they have several advantages over the standard pot style drains, so a 9"x 9" gets installed.. Instead of the standard 2 or 3 wall fittings used to get the water back into the pool, we will use 8 floor inlets. With 2 skimmers and a 9"x 9" frame and grate main drain, the suction side of our pool is not only safe, but at least 2" plumbing will create minimum head losses for our circulation system. The same is true of the floor inlets, and a major factor here is the very even redistribution of our heated, treated water. For optimum control, the main drain and skimmer lines will be run back separately to the equipment room, and the floor inlets will be evenly manifolded into a 3" line that runs back to the equipment room. Another option for skimming would be a gutter or vanishing edge type pool where the entire outer edge of the pool is skimming the surface water off.

The pool volume, calculated as length x width x average depth x 7.5 is approximately 36,000 U.S. gallons. Aiming for a 6 hour turnover gives us a 100 gpm flowrate. We will use a sand filter and Most important here is to not overdrive the filter, especially in backwash mode, which is far too often overlooked. Almost every sand filter made is designed for a 15 gpm per sq.ft. backwash flowrate and if that number is not reached it will not backwash properly which will create extra costs in wasted water and chemicals because of excessive backwash times or frequencies. If the filter never gets properly cleaned it will also raise the cost to operate the pump. Exceeding that flowrate can wash a great deal of sand down the sewer, stir the media so much that debris can get down under the sand and start plugging the laterals or even destroy the laterals. Slower filtration will usually work far better and so a good design would be to select a pump and filter that will never exceed 15 gpm sq.ft. on the filtration cycle, and 12 gpm sq.ft. is better. Slower filtration rates also help to prevent the debris being driven deep into the media which in turn will produce shorter backwash cycles to clean the filter. If we use Pac Fabs TR-140 we see it has a filter area of 7.06 sq.ft. which means our 100 gpm will pass through the filter at a rate of 14.16 gpm sq.ft. To absolutely and correctly select a pump takes a lot of math we don't have time or space for, but experience tells us we are going to have about a 60' head in this system. Looking at Pac Fabs 1.5hp Whisperflow pump, we see that at 60' of head we will get 100 gpm. Choosing the slightly more expensive energy efficient model will more than save us money in electrical costs. Having a well designed filtration system will also allow more liberal use of timers to save more expense for those pools that don't require 24 hr. filtration. Another option is the use of a 2-speed pump that can run on low speed during low or no use periods such as holidays or nights.

Heating a swimming pool in the most effective manner depends on where you live and how long the swimming season is. Where a solar system may work well in one area, another may require a gas or oil fired boiler. Many pools have dual heating systems where maybe a heat pump or solar panels are used part of the season and a boiler for the remainder. One thing to remember is that bigger is usually better. The big cost is the initial purchase and installation. The cost to upgrade to a bigger heat source is minor in most cases. The formula for calculating a boiler size is surface area x temperature rise x 15. Assuming the lowest outside temperature we will swim at is 60 degrees F and the pool will be heated to 80 degrees, this leaves us with about a 195,000 BTU boiler. On top of that we have to take into consideration shading, wind and elevation factors.We are going to use an electronic ignition, Ray Pak model C-R265-E, 264,000 BTU boiler. If space allowed, even better capacity was wanted, swimming at Christmas was considered or for any reason actually, we would have no problem using an even bigger boiler.

Ahh, the water treatment. You know, we don't believe there is enough room on the entire internet to handle all the raging debates and information on swimming pool water treatment. There are thousands of products with thousands of names and they all have a pound of literature explaining why they are the best. In short there are very few parameters for pool water, and only a few chemicals required, but they are required. What will give you excellent water with the least hassle and the least operating costs are what we are concerned with here, leaving you more time to enjoy the pool. Time not only in the immediate sense, but also in how many years the swimming pool will operate with very few problems. An important fact to remember here is that the less you put in the water to maintain the chemistry, the less you will throw the other chemicals out of balance, the less solids will be introduced into the water which means less work for the filtration system etc. Note all the lesses. They mean less work and less money.

Calcium Hardness:
One of the easiest levels to maintain is Calcium Hardness. 200 - 400 ppm, no more, no less. Water generally starts soft and gets harder. The amount of makeup water added will determine how much testing and adjustment will be required. Add Calcium to increase it, partially drain and refill with softer water to lower it. A low Calcium level and your pools walls and metal stuff will start disappearing. Too high and you will have the excess sticking to the walls and plugging up your plumbing. Real simple, nuff said, don't forget to read the instructions on the bucket. Of course buying bulk and properly storing it will save lots too.

Total Alkalinity:
This is basically a buffer to prevent wild pH swings, and it seems a lot of people have a hard time trying to maintain this level. Why? Because a lot of chemicals cause the pH to swing, which creates too many pH adjustments, which in turn cause the alkalinity to change. Too low and the pH goes crazy, too high and your pH will also tend to be high which will cause scaling problems among others. 80 - 120 ppm, possibly up to 150 for liner pools, no more, no less. Throw less other chemicals into the water and this level will be easy to maintain. Note: Pooling the required acid in an area will usually lower the Alk. without affecting pH too much. See also Cyanuric Acid.

pH Levels:
A real culprit in pool water is the pH level. Read above again and the same applies for lowering the amount of time and chemical required to adjust this level. 7.4 - 7.6 ppm. Heard about operating the pool at other pH levels? Fine, get out the calculator and grab that sheet with all the other balances that need to be changed. Also don't forget to get that professional test kit that measures everything, all your chemicals, a chair and the time required to do it all. Otherwise operate the pool at 7.4 - 7.6 ppm. Too low and the water is acidic and it will do to your pool what acid does to everything. Too high and scale forms and the water can be cloudy. Either way your eyes will not like you so make sure you have a jug of eye drops to put into them. This range is also where your chlorine will work the best. A small, automatically controlled acid feed pump, drawing from a small chemical tank will be installed to maintain the pH level. We also want to feed the solution weakly and slowly, so we will only put about 1 gallon of acid in every 15-20 gallons of water and set the pump to a medium feed rate. We can adjust this as needed. This will allow constant control, with no huge pH swings and no direct addition to the pool of acid which is a VERY good thing. As for economy? Which is better? Stop and go, uphill downhill driving, or a nice leisurely cruise on a straight highway? Note: A slow weak feed rate will keep the pH adjusted without affecting the Alk. too much.

Catching on to anything yet? Water wants to be balanced. What stuff is in the water to balance it is a given. Too much stuff and the water starts leaving excess stuff all over the place. (scale) Too little stuff and the water starts trying to grab stuff from where ever it can. (corrosion) Since it's a swimming pool, we don't have much problem having to add stuff to it, so again the real trick is figuring out how to have to add less stuff.

Cyanuric Acid:
This is added only to outdoor Swimming Pools using Chlorine as a sanitizer. Maintain it between 30 - 50 ppm. It will come as an additive in certain types of chlorine. Not enough CA and the chlorine will get eaten up by the suns UV rays. Too much and the Chlorine will become ineffective. You may have read where the CA reading can throw off the TA reading. This school of thought uses a calculation to subtract a bit of your TA reading to arrive at a true Akalinty level. This is based partly on CA, and partly on pH. On well balanced water, you would usually subtract about 5-15 ppm from your TA reading. ie: A TA reading of 120ppm, may in fact be only 105ppm.

So what we end up with is a pool that has great residual sanitation, complete with the most powerful oxidation you can get. We have the all important quick turnover provided by a filter system with a highly desirable filtration rate. The hard to maintain pH level is automated and because of the low amount of chemicals we are going to have to add, the chemical adjustments required will be minimal. Never forget that the water MUST be tested regularly, but the actual work involved in adjusting the various levels has been vastly reduced. All in all we end up with a pool that is clean, efficient and low maintainence, leaving you more time and money for all those little floaty things that are an absolute must for any pool.