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It is now possible to buy pre-fabricated swimming pools which you
can have installed or install yourself. They are not very cheap, however.
You can also dig out your own pool and build a perfectly adequate one
for yourself, provided that there is a cheap source of water. The number
of gallons required for even a minimum-sized pool is formidable, and
if you are on a water meter you may want to think twice before getting
carried away. Also there should be a good place to drain the pool, either
a sewer or some lower spot where it will run away quickly without
violating any local laws. Swimming-pool water should be changed
periodically, once every week or ten days, even if you use chlorine or
some other disinfectant recommended by health authorities to kill
bacteria in the water.
. . . where should they be placed?
This is a problem which deserves serious thought. Overhanging trees
will drop their leaves into the water, and may in time shade the pool and
make it too cool for comfort on days which are pleasant but not hot.
Leaves, grass, debris of all kinds may blow into the pool, too, or be
tracked in on the feet of the bathers unless you take measures to prevent
it. Leaves and debris can be seined out of the pool before they attract
algae and other organisms and begin to disintegrate and decay, and you
can always place your pool away from the trees so that they won't shed
leaves directly into it. You can pave the verges of the pool so that less
grass is tracked in by the bathers; but if you raise the masonry edge a
foot or so above the ground level and install a footbath beside the
entrance to the pool's platform for bathers to use on entering it, you
will immediately gain some advantages. First and most important,
there will be several cubic yards less of soil to be excavated. Then,
the coping will prevent surface debris from blowing into the pool; it
will serve as a seat wall around the pool; and it will also be a deterrent
to people's falling into it at night if they are unfamiliar with the
property.
Where the property slopes it is possible to take advantage of this fact
in building a swimming pool. The floor of the pool can slope with the
land and only enough excavation will be necessary to have proper
footings cast and to have enough earth left to fill in around the pool on
the sides. If you want to do it the really lazy way, don't fill all around it
at all.
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