Building a pool...on an island

Hi All!

I'm new to the forum, as well as a first time pool builder/owner/maintainer and an aiming to start building a small, rectangular concrete/block pool in the next few weeks. I live on an island in Panama so I won't have access to shotcrete, a powered mixer, anything that would make the job easier, unfortunately. It'll all be manually done, from the digging, to the mixing, to the pouring. Bagged cement, sand/rock and water. I've been doing some research here on the forum to help guide me along and so far I'm feeling a lot more confident, which is good! The specs for the pool (and don't laugh...I said it would be small :) ) are 14' x 7' x 4' deep. Of the 14' in length 4' will be 1' deep and the remaining 10' will be 4' deep. There won't be a transition, it'll just be a big step or shelf. The floor will be 6'' of poured concrete with 2' of poured concrete wall all around to serve as the footing, also 6'' wide. The remainder will be 6'' block filled with concrete and 3/8 rebar. The floor will have 1/2'' rebar in a cross-hatch pattern, spacing 12'' apart. Once poured/finished I'll be "polishing" or smoothing the walls with fine sand/cement mixture and then finally finishing it off with Diamond Brite (verde) to seal it. Since it'll be built on a slight incline, the back wall will only stick out of the ground a few inches, whereas the front wall will be approx 2' out of the ground.

The pools usage will be mainly personal and for guests as I own a Bed and Breakfast here. Max capacity at the B&B is 10 people, so there won't be a high volume of people at any one time. I toyed with the idea of doing an infinity style pool with the moat and all that, which would look amazing, but fear it's a bit more of an undertaking that I don't want to mess with, so I'll go with a more standard style.

Since parts are hard to get here I'll be ordering most of them online from the US and having them sent down in a friends container. Lucky me! Things I'll need. From what I understand I should have two main drains, for safety sake, at least 3' apart. Correct? With that I'll be putting in a Hydrostatic Valve along with a Collector Tube in at least one drain, as certain times of the year it rains a ton here and the water table rises, so if the pool is ever empty at that time, all of that ground water won't damage the concrete or float the entire pool. I'll also be needing a skimmer, a pump, a timer and a filter.

Filters: I've been looking at the Hayward S166T. 16'' sand filter, top mount. Applications say In-groung pools of all shapes and sizes, although while chatting with an account rep online at INYO, he says that filter is for above ground pools and pointed me toward one that is twice as much (which is what I expected), so I'm not sure. With the pool being so small at 2300 gallons I don't think a bigger filter would be optimal.

Pumps: Choice right now is between the Hayward Power Flo II or the Pentair Whisperflo (mainly for noise control), although I believe most pumps are on the quieter side these days and much different from when I was a kid and my uncle ran the pool pump.

Timer: Intermatic 110V Plastic casing. T101P3. Metal rusts fast, so plastic it is!

Skimmer: Just looking for something basic. Likely the Hayward 1070.



At this point anyone can tell me I'm crazy, I'm fine with that :) If anyone has any tips or pitfalls I should watch out for while building or equipment suggestions and maintenance needs, that would be greatly appreciated!

Photos to come soon!
Thanks in Advance
Ryan

Can't really go wrong with a larger filter. Consider a small 2-speed pump, it'll be quieter on low and save on power. Be careful with AG pumps as some of them need to be flooded to run (can't use above water line).

Thanks BigDave!! I'll check into some 2-speed pumps and see what I come up with!