Did you know that you can build your own affordable DIY natural swimming pool? In addition to being 100% chemical-free, they provide clean, clear water with flexible design options as well as the ability to heat your pool. Here are a few tips on how to build a natural swimming pool step by step.
How to Build a Natural Swimming Pool Step by Step
Although there are several types of pool water available, this post provides several top tips for building your own affordable DIY natural pool.
Stick to a Simple Design
Keep the design features of your pool to a minimum.
Try to keep the pool’s design as simple as possible. Whilst water features, natural stone walls and swallows look great, they only make it more difficult and expensive to construct a DIY natural pool. You may also want to consider installing an automatic pool cleaner to prevent the pool from getting dirty quickly.
Go with a Flat Bottom
Flat bottomed natural pools translate to a one-level foundation for your walls and a simple dig, which makes things a lot easier. Flat bottomed pools are also easier to clean.
Box Shapes Are Best
There are many pool shapes you can consider for your natural pool. Box-shaped pools are quite popular because they’re cheaper to build. Liner manufacturers can box weld a liner for you, or you could simply tank it. However, it’s important to ensure the tanking product doesn’t contain phosphates that will feed algae in the future.
Don’t Go Too Deep
Natural pools can be as deep or shallow as you like. However, consider sticking to a depth of 1.8m or less as walls that are two meters and over need a lot of reinforcement. If you’re not keen on diving, then 1.5m should be a comfortable depth, requires a reasonable level of reinforcement and is easy to clean.
If you’re in doubt, have a structural engineer check the structural integrity of the walls.
Move Away from Prefabricated Walls or Concrete
Hopper the bottom of your pool to create depth in the middle while bringing the base up to a shallower depth at the sides, here you would form walls with sandbags or stone. You need to have a good eye though to make it look good, sloppy use of sandbags and a flat liner can give a poor finish. This will also give you more leverage on what you can plant around the pool.
Use A Borehole or Well If You Have One
If you’re lucky enough to have a borehole, get some advice on using it for your pool as it will make top-up and long-term fill more affordable.
Bottom Line
Those simple tips summarize how to build a natural swimming pool step by step. Also, use black liners because they produce high passive heat gain, making heating cheaper or even unnecessary. Don’t forget to use professionals for your water treatment and maintenance. It’s also important to draw a drainage plan as most natural pools fail due to poor drainage.
