After about a year of working up designs and pricing with a few pool builders, reading stories on PBs (both great and horror stories), talking to a few people about both PB and OB, I've decided to go the OB route. Fingers crossed I'm making the right decision. Settled on BYOP and have an initial draft of a pool design. I’ll be going to a hardscape designer for everything else.

I will be retiring next year and moving in July with my wife from IL to Buckeye, AZ to a 55+ community in a home being built now. Hope to start construction in August or September. I have never had a pool so I'm as green as they come. I'm an electrical engineer and have been a project manager for an electric utility for many years. I have dealt with quite a bit of construction, contracts, and contractors, so that aspect of being an OB I'm entirely comfortable with. After months of reading this forum I realize how much there is to this whole pool thing. I throw myself at the mercy of the experts to help me make the best decisions as an OB and keep me from making significant mistakes. I expect to make mistakes, just trying to avoid big ones.

Anyway, on to my plans. I'd really love to hear any suggestions, critiques, or comments on anything below. I do have several questions throughout my notes. Thanks in advance for any contributions.

The primary purpose of the pool will be for me to jump in to cool off after golfing in the summer, my wife wants the baja ledge, so a baja ledge she gets! As the saying goes, happy wife... She doesn't think she will use a spa, and while it would look nice we think it would get little use by us or guests, I'd rather save the $15-20k, so no spa. She wants an IFCS because she doesn't want to see a robot and cord running around the pool. I've overruled her on this one (hope I don't regret it later) and decided I don't want the additional IFCS equipment, expense, and inevitable maintenance. I'd rather have a robot, for me and our dog to play with.

Pool will be 30' x 16' rectangular with a 4' shallow to 5'6" deep, 12' x 7' baja ledge 9" water depth, ~19K gallons. We are waffling on the depth of the water for the baja ledge – 6", 9", or 12", any comments? Seating along entire South wall, and along the deep end of the North wall. Still debating on how deep to make the deep end, I'm 6'1" so I think I could stand, but wondering what folks think about 6' or maybe 6'6". Also, I was thinking about having the shallow end flat for 10' or so, but the BYOP designer said it needs to be sloped. Is he right and if so what is the reason? Is there a typical minimum slope advisable? Any comments about a flat section?

Some additional pool plans:

Skimmer – 2 A&A Venturi – Each skimmer will have its own dedicated plumbing line back to the equipment pad

Returns – 4, but should we have one on baja ledge? I welcome comments on their placement in the attached initial plan. Any likely dead spots?

Main drain – Dual AVSC – Have dedicated plumbing back to equipment pad

Vacuum line – Install dedicated plumbing line to the equipment pad – Is this a waste money to put in a vacuum line?

Lights – 4 Color Microbrites, all facing away from the patio/house, still have to review the jandy doc on lighting

Water feature – 12’ long 18" tall wall with 3 – 24" copper scuppers (might want to change these to 12”)

Fire feature – 2 fire pots on columns at the ends of the water feature wall

Initial equipment plans:

Equipment Manufacturer – Pentair

Pool Pump – Pentair VSF

Feature Pump – Pentair water feature pump – Can I control flow with automation with a valve or would I need a variable speed pump?

Filter – Cartridge Pentair 420, install valve downstream of the filter.

Control center – Pentair Intellicenter i8PS – Is this the right one for what I am planning?

SWG – 2x size of pool min (probably IC40)

Cyclone – MultiCyclone

Debris Canister – A&A LeafVac

QuickWater Leveler – Run soft water line for auto fill

Heat pump – plan pad space for future – Not sure we want one, want to see how we use the pool and how it performs

Glacier Chiller – plan pad space for future – Same comment as with heat pump

Rebuildable valves and unions on both sides of all equipment

All diverter valves and no ball valves used

Will want a plumbing schematic drawn up – BYOP guy says he can prepare one, however most plumbers will make their own schematic (their preferred method), is this really true?

Equipment pad – Plan for a light by the pad

The HOA language is pretty strict for the screening equipment. It says “The solid screen wall and solid gate shall be a minimum of 12” higher than the highest point of the equipment in order to provide full visual screening from the golf course, streets, Open Space, and adjacent lots; with a maximum height of 54". This seems to say all equipment must be below 42”. I’ll be asking about it, but if so, that seems to significantly limit my choice of filter. If this is true, I couldn’t even use the smallest Pentair C&C filter. Did I say yet how much I hate how restrictive HOAs are?