Today’s one-piece pool options have evolved into a sophisticated and quality home pool ownership option that give customers ‘exactly what they see on the tin’.
From a consumer point of view, one-piece pools are sold from a price list with no ‘guesstimating’. This is particularly well received by customers who relish being able to change the ‘spec’ and options just as they would when buying a new car. For the trade, one-piece pools offer a fast-track installation and a controllable profit margin.
The systemised one-piece installation is quick, straightforward and can be done in almost all weather conditions, therefore limiting the number of costly factors that can ultimately eat into the profit margin.
“I would estimate that around 20 to 30 per cent of all UK pool installations are one-piece currently,” says Alex Kemsley of Compass Pools UK. “The one-piece concept really began in Australia and over there the figures are more like 90 per cent, simply because it’s a more established method. As the one-piece concept becomes more understood in the UK, we could see figures rise to 50 per cent in the future.”
Ed West of Sundance Pools UK agrees: “In the sixties and seventies there was some low quality fibreglass being produced but the technology has moved on greatly with the introduction of better materials used in the structure.
“Our sales in recent years suggest that swimming pool companies are showing more and more interest in our product as the vast advantages of one-piece pools become more widely known.”
In March this year, Milton Keynes-based Sundance Pools completed the installation of an Aphrodite one-piece pool as part of a large home extension project in Wiltshire. Sundance team first attended the site in August 2014 to deliver the pool and install the underground services, returning at the end of the year once the building had been erected around the pool. The steel-framed pool house was constructed with oak cladded beams, coping stones matched to floor tiles and floor-to-ceiling windows. With this in mind, heating the pool and the pool building efficiently was a careful consideration for the Sundance team.
The pool was commissioned in February and the client opted for a key-operated slatted automatic safety cover, four LED underwater lights and C-Salt salt water chlorination.
“The most significant trial of this project was delivery,” explains Ed. “The client’s home was located down a narrow private road, so there were just millimetres to spare either side of the pool as the Hiab lorry made its way past neighbours’ garden walls.” He continues: “On arriving at the customer’s driveway the one-piece pool was then transferred to a specialist trailer capable of going off hard-standing, behind a 4×4 vehicle with better manoeuvrability. The pool was then transported between the house and an adjacent lake and a telehandler was finally used to place the pool into position.”
The client opted for a sophisticated ducted air handling system, which Sundance Pools supplied and installed with the assistance of their duct work engineer. As a solution to window condensation as well as effective heating, this air system uses a dehumidifier in the plant room to draw in moist air before recirculating it as dry air and channelling it towards the window panes.
To read more on this story, subscribe online today.
