BUILD A CONCRETE BLOCK POOL HOW TO

One of the main reasons traditional swimming pools are constructed with a steel framework is to ensure the walls stay vertical and perpendicular to the bottom surface of the pool. “It’s not a bathtub effect, but more like a soup bowl,” says Tom Zingaro, partner with Denver-based Blue Lotus Designs, a pool-and pond-architecture company. The ratio should be a 1-foot vertical drop for every 3 horizontal feet. You can make your pool as shallow or as deep as you want, but the key is to make sure the sides slope: Otherwise the soil will cave in. The cheapest and most ecologically sound way to build a swimming pool is simply to hollow a hole in the ground. Dig It: Creating a Natural Swimming Pool by Hand Except for topping it off now and then, you’ll fill the pool only once. You won’t have to drain the pool each autumn. (A natural pool can be constructed for as little as $2,000 if you do it yourself, while conventional pools can cost tens of thousands of dollars.) Natural swimming pools require no harmful chemicals, are fairly low-tech, and once established call for only a modicum of management. The result is a beautiful, ecologically diverse system that is relatively inexpensive to construct. The plants enrich the pool with oxygen, support beneficial bacteria that consume debris and potentially harmful organisms, and give habitat to frogs, dragonflies, and other water life.

Natural swimming pools use gravel stone and clay in place of concrete or fiberglass, and aquatic plants instead of harmful chemicals and complicated mechanical filtering systems. They’ve found it’s possible to construct pools that are more about building with nature and blending into the natural landscape.

BUILD A CONCRETE BLOCK POOL HOW TO

But in recent years, a few builders and a growing number of homeowners have learned how to build pools without relying on a mass of manufactured materials and chemical additives. Ask most American swimming-pool contractors to build a backyard pool and chances are they’ll roll out a long list of goods, including rebar, gunite, fiberglass, chlorine, and an energy-sapping filtration system. Though fairly common in Europe, natural swimming pools (like the one pictured above in an Austrian family’s backyard), are in their infancy in the United States. With a minimum of materials and without an arsenal of chemicals, you can build an idyllic water oasis right in your own backyard and thwart summertime’s sultry dog days. Whether you like to practice your dolphin dives or lounge away the day on a raft, swimming is one of summer’s perfect pleasures. Home Organization News, Blog, & Articles.Energy Efficiency News, Blog, & Articles.

Build a concrete block pool