Newbie: Ideal Pool Depth

[mnittler]

I have to decide what depth I want the pool to be and don't want to make a big mistake. We have decided to not have a diving board or a slide (we are in our early 60's). (15' wide X 36' long with 7' X 7' connected hot tub). I made a comment to the installer that I had noticed that most pools are only used in the shallow end so why have a deep end? With this comment the installer recommended something called a Volley Ball style with 3'6" to 4'9" in middle and 3'6" on opposite end. I was at a hotel this past weekend and one of the pools was 3'0" flat and that seemed a little too shallow to me but it was usable and the kids seemed to be having fun. Anyone have an opinion on ideal pool depth for swimming and just hanging around? We will be having grand kids coming over from time to time. We are not planning on doing any olympic swimming training.

[PoolDoc]

If your kids (or grand kids) can swim, 3' is too shallow. Keep in mind that nominal pool depth is NOT the same as water depth.

Pools with an actual shallow depth of 4' are too deep for most people, but are preferred by swimmer families. My sons didn't really realize there was much difference between the deep and shallow ends of pools, till they got to be 8 or 9, since they were almost always in commercial pools where they couldn't touch the bottom. But they both swam competitively from age 5 on.

[Orion]

It's a good question. With no diving board, there isn't much point to having a traditional deep end, but it is nice for the kids to jump in without hitting the bottom. I would imagine the contractor can make a semi-deep end...5 feet or so.

My pool is 3' to 9' deep because of the diving board, but when family is floating around (not the diving kids), they hang onto what we call Doodles - 4 foot long inflated tubes, and there doesn't seem to be any point to variable depth.

[mnittler]

We have pretty much decided to install a sports pool (volleyball) which will have an actual water depth of 3' 6" on each end and 4' 9" in the middle.
The actual water level is 3" lower than the stated pool level of 3' 9" on each end and 5' in the middle per contractor. I finally just told the contractor to only talk to me in actual water depth. Has anyone built one of these type pools and did you wish you had made it deeper?