How about a swimming pool, dear?
Swimming ponds are an increasingly popular alternative to swimming pools for back-yard summertime splashes. For years after we started our garden, Amy would drop occasional hints about how nice it would be to have our own swimming pool. When one of our neighbors put in an above-ground pool, and two others built in-ground pools, the peer pressure only increased. But I wasn't so easy to convince. I didn't like the idea of a chlorinated body of water, nor the unnatural look that would make most swimming pools seem decidedly out of place in our very informal garden. We dabbled with vinyl-sided contraptions for a few years, but tired of the work required to keep them from becoming slimy and smelly. So that, years later, we still had no place to plunge into a refreshing body of water on hot summer days. A swimming pond would be nice too, sweetieArrive the notion of swimming ponds. Originally popularized in Germany and Austria, they proceeded to gain a foothold elsewhere in Europe, and are now starting to catch on on both coasts of the United States, swimming ponds are naturally filtered water features designed for human recreation. I don't remember how we became interested, but Amy figured out that this was a back door option to something resembling a swimming pool - one that was more palatable to me, and would fit better with our gardening habit. We started reading up on the concept (see the Sources section below), originally hoping to construct one ourselves. After some investigation and introspection, it was clear that it was a bigger job than I was prepared to undertake by myself, so we started looking around for someone to help us out. Yeah, we can do thatProblem was, their didn't seem to be anybody in our area who had experience with swimming ponds - or even knew what they were! After striking out with many phone calls to both pool and pond companies, we tried a landscaping company specializing in pond construction just down the road. To our surprise, they were familiar with swimming ponds; and even though they'd never built one, they seemed eager to make ours their first. Steve, the "pond pace" of the company we wound up hiring for the job, paid
us a visit, listened to our ideas, and shared his experience building naturally
filtered ponds – mostly for gung-ho koi owners. He proceeded to
redesign according to his own ideas, in which the original shape we had
suggested was sacrificed in favor of a more circular design. After the
sticker shock had worn off a bit, we decided to empty our savings account
and go ahead. In our case, one of the supposed benefits of a swimming pond over
a pool – lower cost – didn't materialize.
Because we opted for a pond installation company, the materials and methods are those of a naturalistic pond (not all swimming ponds look like natural ponds - in fact, some swimming ponds are swimming pools that have been converted to natural filtration). As I'll explain further on, there are good and bad points about this. I wrote about the installation of the big pond several years ago, shortly after the project was completed. I still called it a "pond" at the time, because the situation with township permits was murky: was it a pool, or a pond? After consultation with the township inspector, it was not designated as a pool, but I still put a fence up around the yard to comply with the spirit of township ordnances. I'm planning a few more pages in which I'll tell about the specifics of our swimming pond, while placing them in the context of swimming ponds in general. There will be pages on layout and construction, filtration and water quality, and maintenance.
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Last modified:
August 30, 2009 |
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