Not content to labor myself with only a pool, deck, stairs, fence, etc., my initial design calls for a wooden seat and storage cupboard at one end of the pool deck.

When I designed the pool, I placed the entrance in the corner nearest the main residence. The elevation of the pool deck at this point is 1200mm below that of the wooden deck above it, which is at the same level as the house. Stairs are thus required. Once through the gate I wanted the whole area to feel open and so designed the stairs to descend in both directions. The alternative of stairs descending towards the pool with a rail on the side would look quite awkward, creating a wall on the deck side of the stairs.

Where there is water, there should be plants. To this end, the design includes a generous flower/plant bed at the shallow end of the pool. The design is such that the top 600mm or so is plant bed, while beneath that we have a large storage cupboard, accessible via a door from the lawn below. The final product should look something like this:

A beam of concrete around 200mm thick is typically poured on the ground around the edge of the shell, locking it into place. Something like this:

We covered cutting and bending in the first-part of this two-part post. Now it’s time to place the bent, cut, steel with the help of chairs and ties.

534 meters of bar plus mesh to be precise. As discussed during the detailed design, the retaining walls and wall footings contain a lot of steel. Specifically, N12 and N16 bars. This type of steel reinforcement inside concrete is typically referred to as rebar, or reo, depending on which part of the world you’re in, and adds tensile strength to the concrete.

After completing work on the compacted base for the retaining wall footings, it’s time to make preparations to pour the concrete footings themselves.

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand Mathew 7:26 And yet sand is a popular base material under foundations :P

Fiberglass pool or concrete pool? Concrete pools are built directly in the ground onsite. Concrete (or more often shotcrete) is set on a framework of steel reinforcement and then plastered or tiled. Concrete pools are endlessly customizable and can be built to suit any site.