Having Questions About Pool Installation?
What does it take to install a fibreglass swimming pool? How does the pool installation process proceed? What paperwork needs to be done and what approvals are needed for the pool installation? What happens after the machinery arrives in the yard on the morning of the first day? There are so many questions that most future pool owners need to have answered. With our advice articles, some of them in form of a video answers to popular FAQs, you will get the confidence of knowing the basics.
Common Pool Considerations
Learn about pool planning with regard to pool installation, considerations about the pool budget and what affects it, pool-building timeframe, issues of accessing your yard and how the installation of pool accessories works. Generally speaking, it can take 8-12 weeks to place the pool into the ground. This is the time from the initial approvals and when the pool is placed into the excavated area. Learn everything about pool installation in our collection of articles collected from different sections of the Compass Pools Australia website.
We’re often asked, if I install my pool, will I need a water tank? That is a really good question. As a general rule, pools up to around about ten metres generally don’t need a water tank. As soon as you exceed the ten metre mark which correlates to the number of litres in that pool as a rough rule of thumb, if your pool has more than 40,000 litres of water in it, under the BASIX rules it’s generally required that you install a water tank with your swimming pool.
The other tipping point is not just 40,000 litres, because you could have a pool or a volume of water that is a lot less than 40,000 litres, the other trigger is whether the overall project exceeds $50,000 in cost.
When thinking about installing your pool, thinking about where it goes may come naturally. This might be, ok, that’s the spot I’m definitely going to have my pool installed. Other properties might have tremendous flexibility. There can be a little bit of consternation about where that pool is exactly going to go.
When we’re generally talking about installation of a pool and you’re thinking about it in relation to your lifestyle, what is most ideal is that the pool becomes an extension of your living area. It’s an area that is connected to your house. You may want to see your kids swimming and so forth, which is an important factor as well.
There are lots of exciting things about building a swimming pool. But one of the considerations you need to take into account is what am I dealing with on my block? In many cases, we are out at properties which have things such as easements. They are areas which you just can’t build over. It’s on your property but it really belongs to the council.
Other considerations are things like main sewer lines and so forth. There is a house sewer line that generally connects the main sewer lines unless you’re on a system such as a septic tank and that is a different consideration altogether. But where you’ve got a house sewer line that connects to a main sewer line, and you think that is in the path of the pool, that is not such a problem. Those things can be diverted. The main sewer lines for example, or any other thing that is fairly substantial, needs to have really careful consideration as to how we build around it.
We’re often told by people looking at planning their pool and installing it, I’ve got young children. I’m worried about them, they’re not great swimmers, there’s a little baby. So what I want to do is I want to create a beach area, something shallow in the pool.
One really important aspect of a swimming pool is when you install it, if you’re planning to stay in your house for quite some time, you’re really going to live with whatever you’ve got for as along as you’re in that house. The important thing is to think, they’re children for a little while, but they grow up. It’s not long before they’re incredibly competent swimmers. They’ve got all their friends home from school and they want to use as much of that pool as practically possible.
A lot of people who come into my display centre to have an early-stage think about getting a pool always want to know what is involved in getting a pool. Among a hundred different things that are important when you’re planning a pool, how long it takes comes up pretty often.
You need to, I think, nut it down into four areas. They are planning the pool, getting the approval to build the pool and having the pool built, so that is effectively the installation of the pool. That is before all the nice cosmetic, easier things like the fencing and the paving all come to fruition.
Once a customer brings their council approved paperwork into the office, usually the timeframe from receiving approvals and the pool going in the ground is between six to eight weeks. That’s a rough timeframe. Weather is something that is beyond anyone’s control but it is usually between six to eight weeks.
Filtration equipment is obviously a really important part of your pool. What we need is usually around two metres, two and a half metres but that depends on the amount of space you’ve got available in your yard. So we can customise the installation of your equipment to best suit your yard.
I talk to a lot of people have anxiety about access to their house. The first thing to let you know is just about everything is possible. Ideally, we’d turn up at a block, it would be flat, we would have no house in that spot and we could drive straight in with all the equipment. Realistically when a pool is built, we literally want to turn up with the biggest digging machine and excavator and as many tipper trucks, usually three, as we can, to keep running that fill out of that property.
Most properties that we consider have great access are properties that you can pretty much drive a car to where you want to put the pool. That is pretty much as good as it gets in most cities today. Outside of the city, on rural properties and so forth, that is an added bonus because it is often very easy to get to the site you want to put the swimming pool.
We’re often asked how long is it going to take to build my swimming pool?
There are a couple of different elements that come together for that. Obviously we’ve worked through the time for contracting the swimming pool, designing it, doing all the bits necessary for now to be well on our way to having a pool in the backyard.
The next step for us is we need to manufacture it. Every Compass pool is built to order. We don’t build your swimming pool until we get an order for it. So it’s always your very own swimming pool, issued with its very own birth certificate. This is an important element of Compass Pools.
Having worked at Compass for a little under ten years now, one of the best pieces of advice I can give anybody considering or looking at putting in a swimming pool is take your time. A swimming pool is generally something that when people are considering putting one in, they’re usually pretty committed to their house. It usually means a long term investment in the property that they currently reside in.
This is not like going out and purchasing a motor car. If you went out and bought a motor car and decided, you know what, I just don’t like this car, there is something wrong with it, you can sell it. You can’t sell your pool without selling your house. So you want to be really careful when you think about all of the different options and all of the different inclusions that you can make part of that swimming pool.
As a pool planner, the number one question that I get asked nearly every day of my life is how much does that pool cost? It’s a great question, it really is, but the truthful answer is how long is a piece of string? It comes down to exactly what you want and on your site.
The things to think about in being able to even give you even a ballpark range is how big do you want your pool to be? Do you want it to be five metres or do you want it to be fifteen metres? Do you want to have a very automatic system so that you aren’t manually cleaning your pool, it’s looking after itself, it’s the easiest thing in the world to own? Do you want your pool to look spectacular at night with beautiful lights in it? Do you feel that you might want to heat this pool? Do you feel that you need to have a cover over this pool?
Get closer to your dream pool!
It’s so easy to find out how much your dream swimming pool would cost. Follow these three easy steps to get your detailed,
non-obligatory pool quote and start moving forward with your dream pool project
Please fill out the form so that we have the installation address and your details to connect you with a Compass dealer near you.
Project details
Our authorised dealer will discuss your pool project with you, go through the options and help you select the right pool for your lifestyle.
Your pool quote
Your detailed pool quote is ready! We sincerely hope that you'll decide to have a Compass pool built in your backyard.
