Indoor Pool Design

The pool walls need to structurally adequate, quick to build and allow the quick and easy installation of the through the wall equipment such as water inlets, vacuum points, skimmers and most importantly submerged LED lights. The pool hall walls need to be structurally stable, suitable for long lengths without expansion joints and not deteriorate in high humidity conditions.

The only method of construction that meets this criteria is Insulated Concrete Formwork (ICF): The old-fashioned use of concrete blocks laid on their sides and rendered involved a great deal of heavy lifting and takes a very long time because of the curing period that is required.

The entire pool hall area should be taken down to the pool floor level and covered with a reinforced concrete slab and the perimeter and pool walls installed with 2x courses of Polysteel ICF forms.

The space between these walls is then covered by a standard beam and block floor to provide permanent access to the pool ducting, pipework and cabling so that the floor never has to be dug up if the pipework is leaking. This 1.2m high space is known as an Undercroft.

Installing an undercroft does not increase the cost of construction and provides a pool of such superior quality that we consider it negligent to not include one - unfortunately many architects still don't.

The available space will dictate the pool's length and width and must include adequate space for the pool plant for both installation and access for maintenance. Counter current machines have now developed to the point where they are being used by triathletes for training and so pools can be much smaller and still provide very effective training facilities.

Modern vinyl liners can be provided in plain, simulated tile or rock texture finishes with a multitude of colour options. They also last virtually forever indoors and are provided with a 10 year guarantee.

Tiled pools can be provided in large, medium or mosaic formats. Mosaic tiles in sheets are very costly but can be laid relatively quickly. All tiled pools are risky to install because a number of things can cause disastrous failure and very few builders will provide guarantees.

Natural light is ideal, however skylights over the pool are impossible to clean and need warm dry air to be circulated across their face to stop condensation. Artificial lighting can create stunning effects when combined with submerged pool lights.

Modern Air Handling Units provide precise control over relative humidity, water and air temperature. They also incorporate air change systems which provide 6 complete air changes per hour with heat exchangers that extract the heat from the waste air and heat the incoming fresh air.

Deck Level pools with a perimeter overflow grating that acts as a skimmer around the whole pool perimeter provide far superior water quality to freeboard pools with 3 or 4 skimmers. However, they are costly to install due to the cost of the grill, gutter, gravity pipework and balance tank and more space is also required.

Increases in gas and electricity prices has made it essential to provide a motorised pool cover to stop evaporation and heat loss to keep pool running costs sustainable. The US designed systems which incorporate a light material that runs in sliders along the pool coping stones don't keep heating costs down and are not suitable for deck level pools.

The only answer is to install an automatic floating cover with a stainless steel axle and hollow PVC slats that float on the water surface and open and close automatically. These covers can be installed at one end of the pool under a “splash deck” with 400mm of water above or built directly into the pool wall. They are not classed as safety covers because water will cover them when someone walks across the pool but it is difficult to see how anyone but a very small child could get into difficulty when they are in situ.

Pool ladders are unusable for many people and so are inherently unsafe. Pool access should be provided by 1/4 circle steps in one corner as they have no narrow areas that people can slip on and no protruding corners that can hurt anyone that loses their footing.

Pool steps an now be provided in dense EPS and covered with a vinyl liner - providing a fast easy way to construct them

These are very costly but can turn an indoor space into a multi-function room that can increase the available floor space for entertainment by a useful area.

The best way to provide modern water disinfection is with a combined infra-red cell, automatic monitoring of pH and chlorine levels, injection of pH + or – and sodium hypochlorite to maintain a background chlorine level no higher than tap water. This will reduce the use of chlorine to an absolute minimum, but the system will still be safe if the pool is full of bathers.

It is great to have a swim and then slip into a spa with the water at 38°C and be pampered with hydrotherapy jets and bubblers. The drawback is that the spa will require a lot more space for both the unit itself and the number of extra pumps and blowers required.

A spa can be built using ICF to form a square or circle with all the pipework and jets etc buried within the concrete core of the ICF walls. This type of unit requires very skilled workers, so it is much easier to buy a tiled fibreglass shell supported by a galvanised steel frame. These might appear to be expensive but we know from experience that it is the better option for most projects.

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