Swimming Pool Project

[Jonboy13]

I am planning to build a small swimming pool in my back garden. Ideally I want it enclosed as you know what British weather is like. I've been looking at pool enclosures and to be honest the cheap ones are ugly and the nice ones are well out of my price range. I was thinking, can I get away with buying two self-assemble conservatories and attaching them together to create a free-standing enclosure? To strengthen the structure I could build a brick interface with tiled roof to join the two conservatories where they meet in the middle. The brick part could house the pump/filter/heater etc on one side and a small changing cubicle on the other side perhaps? It seems to me like a fairly inexpensive yet elegant way to make a DIY pool enclosure. Any thoughts?

The type of conservatory I would be looking at is a couple of Wickes dwarf walled Edwardians, approx 4m x 4m giving me a total size of about 4 x 9-10m to play with (allowing for brick interface). I was also thinking of half sinking the pool into the ground so the top of the pool is level with the top of the dwarf wall. Pool will be re-enforced concrete construction with tile finish.

Also, how would l stand on planning permission/building regs with this? As far as I know, conservatories don't require either, but then I'm not using them in the orthodox way (i.e not attached to the house).

Any thoughts much appreciated!

Jon

 

[Richard C]

The biggest flaw in your proposal is that you will have a span of 8M without any intermediate support; a tall order by any standards. These conservatories are designed to be supported at one end by the house wall & usually an internal steel tie rod at mid span; they are almost certainly not strong enough as a single free standing structure let alone 2 bolted together! I suppose you could build some sort of self supporting central arch to fix them to but this will probably be almost as expensive as a custom design.

As far as I know, you don’t need PP for the pool but you will need it for the cover if it’s over 30 sq/m; Where I live, someone was recently forced to remove a pool external cover he’d erected without PP under a council enforcement notice & he’d gone all the way to the ODDP under appeal!