When installing a swimming pool, you’re probably more concerned about how warm the water will be, how long the swimming season is and where you’re going to put the surrounding patio furniture and barbecue. But determining the correct depth of your new home addition should also be carefully considered. How deep should an inground pool be? An inground pool can be as shallow or deep as you want it, so you’ll need to make some hard decisions based on how you plan to use it.
How Will You Use It?
What do you think the main use of your pool will be? Are you a hardcore fitness buff who intends to swim lengths on a daily basis? Do you have small children who will be wading and learning to swim? Do you plan on playing games such as water polo? Do you want to have a diving board? Or do you just foresee you and your family simply relaxing, floating around and cooling off? These are all questions that should be taken into consideration before any digging begins.
Diving
Diving into a pool can be a very dangerous activity. Every year people end up disabled by diving into water that’s too shallow. If you plan on having a diving board, you want your pool to be at least 10 feet deep. The deeper you can go the safer you’ll be. That said, there are some considerations if you plan to have a deep end and a shallow end. The deeper your deep end, the longer your pool will need to be to cut down on the angle between the shallow and deep ends. Too steep an angle and this can become dangerous for young children or non-swimmers who venture too close to the deep end.
Swimming Laps
If you plan on using your swimming pool as an exercise centre, you’ll want the water to be at least four feet deep. Five feet is even better, but then you might be excluding any young children or non-swimmers from using it. This is also a good depth for games such as water polo or water basketball.
Children and Non-Swimmers
For those who know people who aren’t the greatest of swimmers you’ll want a shallow end that allows them to use the pool with confidence. Depending on how old your children are, this depth may range from 18 inches to three feet. If you want a pool that caters to both swimmers and non-swimmers, you might want to consider adding an L shaped extension to the pool that has a minimal depth to allow for sunbathing and an area for small children to wade. These so-called tanning ledges allow the pool to be used by many different bathers at once time.