What can we learn from the holiday pool?

Even on vacation, there is always something to learn about the swimming pool. There is always something that we can “take away” with us in terms of the design, layout, plumbing etc etc.

Contents show

In this week’s blog post, I will take a look at my rental villa’s “holiday pool” and explain some of the things that I have found as “take aways”. And yes, even on vacation I am finding time to put out content on my website and YouTube Channel that I hope you find useful.

The Design

The design of this particular pool just happens to be almost identical to the plunge pool designs that I have in my online store. You can find these here

There are steps at one end, a shallow end that moves very quickly into a deep end which is around 8’ deep.

One of the initial take aways from this pool is that I don’t like the fact that there is not much of a shallow end. Lounging around having a drink or playing with the kids and the inflatables pretty much always takes place in the shallow end.

I think one of the design flaws in this design is that there is not enough of a shallow end and after about 3m it gets very deep very quickly. Too deep for little old 5’ 8.5” tall me.

If it were me designing this pool, I would have the shallow end at least 5m long just so there was enough room to “play”.

The Build Quality

I love everything about Spain. The food, the weather, the beaches. However, the build quality of buildings and pools is certainly not something that I am a fan of. This is the same with the pool.

It is beautiful looking yet when you get a little bit closer you can see there are elements that have been “rushed” or just not done correctly.

Firstly, the tiling. Looks lovely until you find that there are sharp and rough edges on the steps. So much so that my son actually cut his foot on them. Take you time with the tiles and check that when you grout there are no sharp edges. Not a difficult improvement to make.

When you take a closer look at the formed coping, it just hasn’t been “finished” correctly. It has been poured and it is a good shape and looks great, but has just not been smoothed over. One last pass with the trowel or a damp sponge would have finished it perfectly. Instead, you are left with somewhat of a rough finish. Again, this is something that with a little bit more care could have been fixed.

The Plumbing

The plumbing layout on the pool is identical to the layouts that I have in my own designs. You have a pump, filter, two water returns into the pool, a skimmer and an inward suction drain. Very simple setup and something that you can incorporate into your own pool designs.

There is no heater on this particular pool as being in Spain, it doesn’t need it. In terms of the plumbing, there is not a great deal that I would change. I have noticed that the pool pump seems to be running pretty much all the time. This is not necessary.

Domestic pools should turn over the water which means pass the whole thing through the filter every 6 hours. In this pool’s case it has to be doing that a lot more. I know a holiday pool gets a rough ride in terms of lotions and the amount of use it gets, but still, I don’t think 24/7 running of the pool pump is needed.

The Control Room

Whilst this pool looks like it is in ground, with the villa being on a sloped plot, as are most villas in Spain, the pool is actually build up about 10’ to the level of the patio. Underneath the patio is where the control room or pump room is located.

The setup in here is again pretty straight forward. There is a self-priming pump – not really needed as it is below ground and a sand filter. A sand filter is much more hard wearing in this scenario of a holiday pool so I would recommend using one of these instead of a cartridge filter given the amount of use the pool gets.

The skimmer seems to be in the roof but as we are so low, it is just in the top of the pool and there is also a separate run on the suction side of things from the drain in the deep end of the pool.

There is also an overflow that is piped into the skimmer so if the water does get too high, it will drain onto the wasteland next to the villa and not flood everything.

Pretty straight forward setup here. There is also a piped in water top up valve that seems to be redundant. This is not something I would pipe in myself and think it is always easier to top up your pool with a hose pipe. It is just one more thing to go wrong in my opinion.

Can I help you with your “Holiday Pool”?

If I can help you with the design of your holiday pool, then please do get in touch. I can create a custom design, help with the parts supply or even provide an off the shelf design that will save you money.

No pool idea is too big or too small – so please do get in touch with the form below.

Happy Holiday Pooling

Can I Help You?

If I can help you in any way I would love to hear from you. You can get in touch using the form below.

Thanks - Andi

Hi, Andi here. I own Buildahottub.com and also write all of the articles and info pages on the site. Some years back now, I built my own hot tub but struggled to find the information I needed. So, once my tub was complete, I started this website to help others in their own pursuit of hot tub and plunge pools DIY building information.

Today, I've helped over 1000 DIY customers just like you all over the world build hot tubs and pools. Have a good look around the site, there are lots of resources here. Please do get in touch if I can help you. - Cheers, Andi