Building Pool Deck

[matt4x4]

cvoytek,
I'm not sure what you mean by " aren't you risking bending the rail?"
I'm planning on building my deck next to the pool like Huskerfan's pictures show, leaving 1/2" - 1" gap between the two structures, the only way I can see bending the rail would be if people walk on it, however, in my case, teh pool structure is blow molded resin, it's extrmely strong, and the likely hood of anyone walking on it is slim to none.
My deck will be built on a floating foundation - I think it will heave/settle with frost about the same as the pool.
However, if you use sonotube and go over your rail, you are limiting how much frost expansion can occur, once you hit your maximum, the pool will push up into the underside of the deck and the wall will crush, if you go under the rail and the pool settles beyound where it is now, the pool rail will end up sitting on your deck and may separate from the remaining structure if the pool settles even more. Leaving a small gap between the two should allow for them to act as sepaprate entities without any interference to each other.

[huskerfan]

I agree completely with Matt- actually he was influencial in how we built ours! I'm really glad we went the way we did. The only downside is that a diving stick will fall down in that crack- that's why I found a neat basket with a lid that flips up for all our pool toys, goggles... I hope we don't have to replace our liner for a long, long, time, though- no matter what position you put the edge of your deck up to your pool, it would make it a real pain to take the top seats off to do a replacement. Positioning your deck under the top rail on our pool would make this chore even harder yet, positioning your deck over top of the top rail makes that step down into the pool even farther down, along with the heaving issues Matt mentioned. The older one gets - even an inch can make a big difference. I wouldn't worry about your top rail bending- they're made nowdays to be able to handle being walked on, even though we don't.

[cvoytek]

Thx for the advice. It turns out the one deck i remember seeing while growing up was done incorrectly with the deck overhanging the pool. I asked and they said don't do it that way because of the cover issues as well as the frost heave. Thanks Matt and Husker!