Monday 26 May 2014

Mission 1 - The Pool

A Splish, A Splash, A Great Big Bath

Decided to make a pool in the garden. No reason. Laws of Physics dictates it will not be large. More bucket than Olympic size. Swimming

Guidelines:

  1. Don't flood the neighbours garden
  2. Use as many natural materials as possible
  3. Heated if possible
  4. Exercise pool - swim tether and/or endless 
  5. Must have floating beer can holder
  6. Good value (or cheap as others rudely call it)

Rough Plan:

  • Pondered for minutes before deciding to make the pool from straw bales with a pond liner.
  • Why bales? Cheap construction material, good insulator. Choice between hay & straw based mainly on cost. Straw bales £2.50 each, hay was £3.50. Sure both can be used. My only worry was that hay would attract more (hungry) rodent-like animals and end up nibbling the liner :-(
  • Liner. Look at heavy duty polythene.
  • Insulated base to prevent heat loss. Polystyrene sheets of some form.
  • Pin through the bales to strengthen the structure.
  • Need filter and heating to sort out.
  • Need to flatten off area in garden. We have a gently sloping every-which-way garden. Also if the pool doesn't work out I can simply drag it off and turf the area to make a sheltered sun trap. Using straw gives me the option of making a burnable pool.... self heating pool... well for a few minutes at least.
  • Move shed (again)
  • Demolish tomato greenhouse (as not really used any more). Before you get too upset the greenhouse was made of the double glazed window that I removed when putting the conservatory up along with second hand wood and boards - cost more in nails than materials.  Point of note: Why doesn't the local rubbish tip have somewhere for recycling glass windows? Bottles no problem. Not windows though. Straight to land fill is just wrong.

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