ACM - Enclosures, covers and roofs for swimming pools

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Introduction

1. The Design

2. Structural material

THE ADVANTAGES OF INSTALLING AN ENCLOSURE

. No planning permission is needed for this type of construction, saving money and tedious paperwork.

. Greatly extends the period of the year the pool can be used, without the need for heating. You and your family can enjoy your swimming pool even when it is wet and windy outside. Even in the case of cold areas, where some form of heating is installed, the enclosure will save a lot on fuel bills.

. Keeps the pool cleaner - not only the water but also the furniture, objects, plants, etc., avoiding the entry of leaves and insects, thus saving over 50% on cleaning products.

. Makes your garden safer: with the swimming pool covered you can make sure children and pets do not have accidents. The closure systems ensure that no-one will go in once you have locked it.

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide you with all the basic information you will need if you are thinking of installing an enclosure, whether it be a small one for a private garden, or a large one for a municipal pool, a club or a hotel: the various types of structure, their characteristics and the components and materials used.

The first point to be sure of is that you deal with a company that can offer sufficient guarantees in every respect:

• A company that will sell you a product that has been properly calculated and designed to comply with the relevant building standard. It would be a mistake to think that a prefabricated structure can equally well be installed at sea level or at a ski resort, since the loads to which it will be subjected are very different. Structural profiles with different mechanical characteristics would be needed as well as different materials for the glazing - glass, methacrylate, etc.

Furthermore, the structure must be properly calculated and dimensioned in accordance with the NBE-AE-88 building standard and Eurocode 9 on Design of Aluminium Structures.

This applies not just to big jobs, but to any type of construction, no matter how small, and whether or not official approval is required.

. A company that is sound and stable, with its own technology - that is, one that has been in business long enough and which has enough financial resources to face up to any possible problems arising from the sale contract, as well as to offer a responsible after-sales and maintenance service.

(You could find that the company you buy from is a mere distributor working out of an office, and once they have collected the money you might not hear from them again.)

. A company that can offer you guaranteed quality. You should look for ISO-9002 certification as a minimum, and that only the best materials are used (e.g., that in an aluminium roof all the other components, particularly the hidden ones, are made at least from stainless steel).

. A company that employs only qualified welders using certified welding processes, and which employs at least one engineer.

Point 1: the design