in deck or on deck slide and diving board

[bszaronos]

Hey all,

We are having a pool built and was wondering if anyone has any pros and cons to getting a slide or a diving board put in deck or on deck.

In deck the poles are submerged in the concrete.
on deck the poles are anchored by screws to the concrete.

Thanks
Brian

[PoolDoc]

In deck the poles are submerged in the concrete.
on deck the poles are anchored by screws to the concrete.

Huh? I don't quite get that.

Anyhow, check with your homeowner's insurer -- some of them are allergic to diving boards, these days. Also, ever since the Meneely lawsuit that bankrupted the NSPI a few years back, you have to think in terms of a LARGE pool with a really DEEP deep end, to avoid a presumption of negligence.

In that case, the guy who brain panned himself, reportedly preceded his dive with the statement, "Watch me do a suicide dive!" Yet, after quadra-pleeging himself, he still won a multi-million settlement. When I was 18 or 19, I did some really, really stupid things myself . . . and God protected me. But I would hope that, had He not, I would not (or at least my parents would not) have used the courts to take the cost of my idiocy out of someone else's hide. (To be fair, it does appear that the NSPI had sat on data indicating that the pool shapes they approved were not as safe as they'd indicated. But, then Meneely had already worked that out, for himself!)

I'm NOT a fan of lawyers.

I'm sure that, somewhere in the world, there is a personal injury lawyer with honesty and integrity. But it's my guess that they are about as common as the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Check out this url, which searches Google for "Swimming pool accident":
https://www.google.com/search?q=swimming+pool+accidents

Almost ALL the top results are either for attorneys, or for attorney sponsored sites.

I just found a tick crawling up my leg (literally just now; I had to get up to flush it; we walk in the Chickamauga Battlefield most days, and the warm weather has brought them out, early.). Both ticks and personal injury lawyers are parasites . . . but ticks don't know any better.

However, just as Susan and I have to prepare to deal with ticks, like it or not, so you have to prepare to deal with lawyers if you put up a slide or diving board. For what it's worth, diving board injuries tend to be much less common, but much more severe than slide injuries. I don't personally know of a diving board injury, except the chest or back raspberries you get when you come too close. But I've known of numerous slip, fall and break something injuries on slides.

If I could build any pool I wanted for my family, we WOULD have a diving board (and a 13' deep end with a 30' long hopper) but I would not have a slide.

[bszaronos]

This question is more about the way to install a slide or diving board. There are two ways to install these. The in deck, or on deck method. This is the way that the support poles are anchored to the concrete.

[PoolDoc]

Normally, that will be determined by the model you get, AND by whether the equip is installed after-market, or originally. However, drilled anchors can work loose; poured-in anchors can not, unless the concrete breaks.

What models are you looking at?

[bszaronos]

We are having an in ground pool constructed. We were told that it would only take 5 weeks and everything would be done. The contract was signed last summer. So it has been almost a year.
They were going to pour our decking, when the pool people put that on hold so they could install the waterfall,slide, and diving board. We were told that they had it in stock, turns out they did not and now 3 weeks later
we got a call saying the slide is going to be delivered on Friday, and they are going to install everything on Monday.

We were getting frustrated because our other backyard projects have been on hold until they pour the decking. So we were thinking of having the slide and diving board installed on deck. I guess we will see if it gets installed by Monday.

[PoolDoc]

I don't know what to say. I don't think you can fix the problems with your construction schedule, by taking shortcuts on the slide & diving board.