Hooper has some of the best backyards we work in and some of the worst ground. Both are true at once, and if you are thinking about a pool out here you should hear the second part before anybody sells you on the first.
The good part is obvious. Lots out here are big. You are not squeezing a pool between a fence and a shed and calling it a day. There is room to actually design something — the pool, the deck, the shade, and the space around it that makes a backyard somewhere you want to be.
Hooper sits low and close to the Great Salt Lake. The Utah Geological Survey defines shallow groundwater as water within roughly 10 feet of the surface, says it is most likely in low-lying valley ground near lakes, and warns it can destabilize excavations. That is a fair description of a good chunk of Hooper.
In practice that means two things. During the dig, the hole wants to fill with water and the walls want to come in, so we dewater. After the build, groundwater pushes up on the bottom of the shell. If the pool is ever empty and that uplift beats the weight of the structure, the shell can lift out of the ground. It is called popping, and it will ruin a pool. The answer is a hydrostatic relief valve and a build designed for wet ground from day one.
It is also why we say bluntly: do not drain your own pool in Hooper. Call us. An empty pool in saturated soil is the most dangerous state a pool can be in, and people do it every year trying to save a service call.
Most of Hooper irrigates off secondary water. It is untreated canal and well water, and it is fine for grass. It is not what goes in a swimming pool. Your pool fills off culinary water, and that is a real line item people forget to plan for.
Utah has adopted the International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, with statewide amendments in Utah Code 15A-3. A residential pool is permitted, inspected work, and the safety barrier around it is code, not an upsell. We pull the permit and handle the inspections.
If your neighbors run sump pumps in the spring, say so on the first call. If there is standing water in the field behind you in April, say that too. None of it disqualifies you from having a pool. All of it changes how we build it, and all of it is far cheaper to know before we dig than after.
And if you want water in the backyard this summer rather than next, an above ground pool on a properly prepared pad is not a consolation prize. On ground like Hooper's it is sometimes the smarter build.
Yes, and we do. It means dewatering during excavation and a hydrostatic relief valve in the finished pool so groundwater cannot float the shell. It is a solved problem, but it has to be designed in, not patched in later.
Because an empty shell in saturated ground can be pushed up and out by groundwater pressure. Draining a pool in Hooper without relieving that pressure is how people destroy a pool they just paid for.
No. Secondary water is untreated irrigation water. Pools are filled with culinary water, and you should budget for it.
See West Haven, Syracuse, Clearfield and Layton.
Send us your address and we will tell you honestly what your ground is likely to do. Have a look at inground pool construction and custom pool design, or get in touch.
Ogden Pools — 190 W 33rd St 160 suite K, Ogden, UT 84401. Call (801) 751-9057.