Week 0Decide what the pool is for
Before a spade touches the lawn, one decision sets every other: what the pool is for. Cooling off, real swimming, or a heated soak twelve months a year? Ours is a family pool — an 8 × 4 m rounded rectangle with room to swim and a shallow end to stand in — and its outline is sprayed on the grass.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Plunge poolA small, usually uniformly deep pool (up to ~13 m²) built for immersion rather than swimming — cooling off, soaking, cold plunges.Leggi la voce completa →
- Lap poolA long, narrow pool built for exercise swimming — typically 12–25 m long, 2.5–4 m wide, uniformly ~1.35 m deep.Leggi la voce completa →
- Swim spaA compact heated basin (4–6 m) with a powerful counter-current for swimming in place, often doubling as a hot tub.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 1Set out and dig
The digger arrives and the lawn becomes a hole with a slope in it — deeper at one end than the other. That slope is the first design decision you can see: 1.2 m where children will stand, 1.8 m where adults will swim. If the ground is wet, a valve in the floor stops groundwater from floating the finished pool.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- ExcavationDigging the hole the pool sits in — the shell's shape plus working room around it, and the slope from the shallow end down to the deep end already in the ground.Leggi la voce completa →
- Shallow endThe standing-depth zone of the pool, typically 1.0–1.2 m — where children play, adults wade and steps arrive.Leggi la voce completa →
- Deep endThe deepest zone of the pool, typically 1.8–2.0 m in family pools — deep enough for free swimming and treading water.Leggi la voce completa →
- Hydrostatic valveA one-way valve in the pool floor that lets groundwater into the empty basin instead of letting it lift the shell out of the ground.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 2–3The shell
Steel goes in, concrete is sprayed over it, and the hole becomes a basin. Everything built into the pool is formed now, while the walls are bare: the steps, the tanning ledge, the drain at the deep point and the inlets that will push clean water back. What you decide this week is cast in concrete — literally.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Pool shellThe structural basin of the pool — reinforced concrete, sprayed gunite, factory fiberglass or panel construction — that carries water and ground pressure.Leggi la voce completa →
- Gunite / shotcreteConcrete sprayed at high velocity onto a rebar cage, forming a monolithic shell of any shape — the technique behind most custom concrete pools.Leggi la voce completa →
- Fiberglass poolA one-piece factory-molded basin craned into a prepared excavation — the fastest route from order to swimming.Leggi la voce completa →
- Pool linerA waterproof PVC membrane fitted over the pool structure — the budget-friendly waterproofing and finish in one layer.Leggi la voce completa →
- Main drainA suction point at the pool's deepest point that pulls water from the bottom into the filter circuit and makes full draining possible.Leggi la voce completa →
- Anti-vortex coverA domed or channeled drain cover that breaks suction vortices, preventing hair or limbs from being trapped at the main drain.Leggi la voce completa →
- Return inletThe nozzle that pushes filtered water back into the pool, angled to set up a slow rotation that carries debris toward the skimmers.Leggi la voce completa →
- Tanning ledgeA large flat shelf 10–40 cm below the surface — usually 15 cm — sized for in-water loungers, toddlers and lounging.Leggi la voce completa →
- Roman stepsSemicircular steps flowing out of the pool wall in concentric arcs — the classical entry borrowed from Roman baths.Leggi la voce completa →
- Beach entryA gently sloping, zero-depth entry that starts at deck level and descends like a natural shore — no steps at all.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 4The edge
How the pool meets the deck is the most architectural choice of the build. Ours is a skimmer pool: a ring of travertine coping caps the wall, the water will sit a hand's width below it, and two wall skimmers will sip the surface clean. A deck-level pool would instead spill over its rim into a hidden channel.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- CopingThe ring of finished stone or masonry that caps the pool wall at the waterline — the edge your hand grabs and your eye reads as the pool's outline.Leggi la voce completa →
- FreeboardThe vertical distance between the water surface and the top of the pool edge — typically ~15 cm in skimmer pools, near zero in deck-level overflow pools.Leggi la voce completa →
- SkimmerA wall-mounted unit that draws the top few centimetres of pool water into the filtration circuit, harvesting floating debris, dust and oils before they sink.Leggi la voce completa →
- Deck-level overflowAn edge system where the water stands flush with the surrounding deck and continuously spills into a hidden perimeter channel, from which it is filtered and returned.Leggi la voce completa →
- Infinity edgeA vanishing-edge wall lowered to a precise weir so water sheets over it into a catch basin below, visually merging the pool surface with the landscape behind.Leggi la voce completa →
- Overflow gutterThe perimeter channel of a deck-level pool that catches the continuously overflowing water — finished as a grate or a narrow slot.Leggi la voce completa →
- Balance tankA buffer reservoir that overflow and infinity pools need: it receives the water spilling over the edge and feeds the pump, absorbing the level swings caused by swimmers.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 5The surfaces
Now the basin gets its skin, and the colour of the water gets decided — not by the water, which is nearly clear, but by the finish under it. Ours is white plaster, which reads as bright turquoise once it is wet, with a band of porcelain tile at the waterline where scale and sunscreen collect.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Pool plasterA seamless cementitious interior finish (marcite, quartz or polished aggregate) troweled over the shell.Leggi la voce completa →
- Porcelain pool tileFully vitrified ceramic tile with near-zero water absorption — frost-proof, colorfast and chemically inert, the most durable pool interior.Leggi la voce completa →
- Mosaic tileSmall-format tile (2–5 cm) mounted on mesh sheets — the format that wraps curves, radii and Roman steps without cutting.Leggi la voce completa →
- Pool groutThe joint filler between pool tiles — in pools always a water-resistant epoxy or high-grade cementitious grout that survives permanent immersion and chemicals.Leggi la voce completa →
- Waterline tileThe band of tile at the water's surface where scale, sunscreen and grime concentrate — tiled even in otherwise plastered pools because tile scrubs clean.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 6The deck
The pool is only half the picture; the deck is the room it lives in. Pavers go down around the coping, the lounging side gets its two metres, everything drains away from the water, and at one end a pit is formed where the cover's roller will hide.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Pool deckThe paved area surrounding the pool — the room the pool lives in. Slip resistance, barefoot-friendly surface temperature and drainage away from the pool are its three duties.Leggi la voce completa →
- PaverA modular deck element — porcelain, concrete or natural stone — laid on a bed or pedestals around the pool.Leggi la voce completa →
- TravertineA porous natural limestone in warm cream-to-walnut tones — the classic Mediterranean coping and deck stone.Leggi la voce completa →
- Cover pitA recess at one end of the pool — under a bench, behind a wall or below the deck — housing the roller of an automatic slatted cover.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 7Water in
Thirty-two hours of garden tap, and the plant room wakes up: pump, filter, heater. From now on the water lives in a loop — out through the skimmers and drain, through the filter, back through the inlets — and keeping it clear is a five-minute weekly ritual, not a chore.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Turnover rateThe time the circulation system needs to pass the pool's entire volume through the filter once — typically 4–6 hours for private pools.Leggi la voce completa →
- Sand filterThe classic pool filter: water passes through a bed of sand (or glass media) that traps particles, cleaned by backwashing.Leggi la voce completa →
- Cartridge filterA filter using pleated cartridges instead of sand: finer filtration, no backwash water waste, but cartridges need periodic rinsing and replacement.Leggi la voce completa →
- ChlorineThe standard pool sanitizer: it oxidizes organic matter and keeps bacteria and algae from growing.Leggi la voce completa →
- pHThe acidity measure of pool water; the target band is 7.2–7.4, where sanitizers work best and eyes and skin stay comfortable.Leggi la voce completa →
- Salt water systemAn electrolysis cell that generates chlorine on site from mildly salty water (~0.4% — a tenth of seawater).Leggi la voce completa →
- Shock treatmentA deliberate short-term overdose of sanitizer that oxidizes contaminants after heavy use, storms or the first signs of algae.Leggi la voce completa →
- Pool heat pumpAn air-source machine that moves heat from outdoor air into pool water at 4–6× the efficiency of direct electric heating.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 8Fit-out
The fittings people actually touch. Warm lights in the wall so the pool is still there at nine in the evening, a ladder at the deep end so swimmers get out without crossing the shallow zone, and — if length is short — a current to swim against.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Pool lightsSealed LED fixtures set into the pool wall about 50 cm below the waterline, wired through conduits cast into the shell.Leggi la voce completa →
- Pool ladderA stainless-steel entry that takes no swim space: two rails over the coping and rungs down into the water, usually at the deep end.Leggi la voce completa →
- Counter-current unitA powerful jet that produces an adjustable current to swim against — endless swimming in place, even in a 5-metre pool.Leggi la voce completa →
Week 9Cover and care
The last delivery is the one that pays for itself: a cover that goes on every night and halves the heating bill. Then the robot takes over the floor, and the pool asks for twenty minutes a week — until autumn, when it gets tucked in for winter.
Parole che sentirai questa settimana
- Solar coverA floating bubble-foil blanket that warms the water a few degrees and, more importantly, stops evaporation — the pool's biggest heat loss.Leggi la voce completa →
- Slatted coverAn automatic cover of rigid PVC or polycarbonate slats that rolls out over the water at the push of a button, from a pit or bench.Leggi la voce completa →
- Pool robotAn autonomous electric cleaner that drives the floor (and walls, on better models), scrubbing and filtering into its own canister.Leggi la voce completa →
- WinterizingPreparing a pool for freezing weather: lowering the water below the skimmers, blowing out pipes, adding winter chemicals and covering.Leggi la voce completa →
Ora sai dare un nome a ogni parte. Progetta la tua — bastano pochi minuti.
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