Vanishing Edges and Swimming Pools

Swimming pools that have vanishing edges, or disappearing edges, can be very exciting.

A vanishing edge is a part of the pool where the edge of the water…….vanishes.

The water in this section seems to have nothing behind it...all you see is the water.

To be able to have this element as part of your swimming pool design, your property should slope off behind the water.

Where does the water go?
Ahhhh....a mystery!

Well, not really. The water flows over the wall into a lower catch basin. Now this is very important. Everything has to be laid out so that you do not see the basin!

This is done by determining the best swimming pool elevations and positioning based on how far away you are when viewing the pool and how high up you might be.

Of course, you are often right at the pool itself. But what about the situation where you are viewing the pool from inside your home on an upper floor or from a deck? If you were standing in these places, would you see the basin? It depends on how far away the pool is and how high or low its elevation is.

• Picture standing on the deck (or on an upper floor of your home) and the pool being very close to the house.
• There's a good chance you will see the basin.
• However, if you move the pool much further away and/or raise its elevation, you might not.

Positioning the Pool
I asked the pool contractor I work with, if he would come out to the project and work with me to see if where I located the pool and its elevation on my preliminary drawing were optimal. As it turned out, we moved it back and raised it 6 inches. Now, how did we know to do this?

I located the disappearing edge, and the pool contractor anchored two posts, one at each end of the disappearing edge.
The pool contractor then ran a string line, connected it to the two posts at the proper elevation.
We then went up on the deck. And there you go!
We could actually tell if we would or would not be able to see the catch basin by looking at the string line.
We could, so we moved it, changed the elevation slightly, and ran that string line again.

Areas Next To The Disappearing Edge
The areas that are adjacent to the vanishing edge will have pool coping. There are a few choices for the areas behind this coping:

• The land is graded down and away to make it appear that there is nothing there, just as behind the vanishing edge..
• The land is leveled out and plantings are placed behind the coping. Plantings are adjacent to the coping and water.

Vanishing edges can curve in, curve out, or be a straight line. Let it blend in with the design of the swimming pool.

What fun!

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