Nagging wife and kids

We used to have a cattle trough that was 20 feet across and made of galvanized steel that we swam in as kids. I also saw a pool made out of buried shipping containers with the tops cut out that was supposed to be rain water storage when I was in Australia. The local kids used to swim in them as they were connected to each other by about 30 inch pipes.

Sounds ridiculously expensive and prone to rust and degeneration.

If this is in-ground the alternatives are fiberglass (yuck) or vinyl lined pools.

Ours is a vinyl lined. They dig a hole, pack the walls with wet sand, and drop in a custom fit vinyl liner. Cost is comparable with concrete to maintain, but may be cheaper to install.

from a general consensus here at work, stainless or galvanized would be the way to go.

Well, since you limit it to CS with a lining, I think you should forget it. Will you line it with cement? You'll need some traction when walking on the bottom, so roughness is essential.

And, rust never sleeps. What about the outside? It will require coating, as well.

You will need to complete the assembly "out hole", coat it everywhere and then install it into the pit. I can see no way to build it "in hole" because you won't be able to coat any of the outside weld seams.

Since the steel will, by my intuition, be lighter than a cement equivalent it will be more like a boat made of steel, so flotation in heavy rains will be an issue, unless you use 1/2" steel. I didn't do a comparison so don't quote my on material densities.

My in ground vinyl lined pool has sheet metal steel sides and a packed sand bottom. Liner is held in tracks on the concrete surround and then covered with powder coated metal extrusions.

Knowing that there will be oxidizers of chlorine, plus superoxidation chemicals added, and knowing that both Iron and zinc (you mentioned galvanized) will react with chlorine, I'd pass on doing the home build.

see msds here: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/z2280.htm

Most of the expense is the excavation and the accessories-pump filter etc. How talented are your friends with shovels and wheelbarrows?

milo

building a pool the conventional way is not that difficult at all. You go down the local rental outfit and rent a large track hoe for a day. That will set you back a few hundred, BUT they are a blast to drive and if you're smarter than a box of rocks, you'll be using it like an expert in no time. Carefully shape the inside of the hole to the shape you want, including the steps in the shallow end, and then the hard part - line the entire thing with bent rebar to your local code and put in the wire cross ties. Tedious, but it's not rocket science. Put in your plumbing and lights (you WILL have to have a plan for this, but there are no shortage of them floating around on the net). Then the magicians come in - the guys who blow the gunite in with a big pump and hose. If you get a good company, they will amaze you. With a 4 inch hose, spewing reinforced concrete, our contractor put in the entire shape of our pool including the steps. Hardly had to do any troweling at all! When all that dries you spread on the cementatious liner, put in the tile around the rim and edges, lay your decorative brick for the walkway (or alternately, pour concrete sidewalks/patio and viola' - pool. That's got to be at least as easy (and cheap) as fabricating a steel pool, digging the hole (which you have to do either way) setting it, backfilling and then doing all the tile/concrete walk/patio work. Besides, who wants a rusty pool? And if you can afford a stainless pool, then why are we discussing it?

Wouldn't the chlorine / chlorides render the stainless pool useless in no time at all? Surely the daily treatment would run the PPM way beyond permissible for SS. Unless we go exotic duplexes, 2205 or at a minimum Type 316. At which rate, nope...Can't afford it. Anyway, it never was about cost...Just trying to utilize the manpower and materials that have "Accumulated" over the years in the shop. Hiring someone is no fun anyway. But it sounds like the consensus is hole / re bar / Gunnite / finish.

Thanks for the imput...

No, but it will still slowly corrode over a long time.

An example of this would be the stainless steel ladder in my pool. It is probably 6 years old and still in reasonably good shape, but close inspection shows some pitting.

The bigger factor is cost. Stainless steel is going to be very expensive and a lot of work to fabricate.

I am sure that many materials have been given consideration for pool construction (literally millions have been made) and the industry has settled primarily with concrete, with vinyl a somewhat distant second for in-ground choices. There is a good reason for that, too.

Epoxy paint would probably hold up best on the inside; some kind of bitumen on the outside (?). I don't know how well sand or other texture could be added to the bottom for foot traction. Maybe a thin layer of concrete in the bottom? There might be an issue with external ground pressure, especially if the pool is emptied.

I wonder if expansion and contraction would not make short work of the epoxy.

You can always mix sand with epoxy. It's done all the time.

The whole thing got started when a customer canceled a tank project and let me keep the material. So now I have a yard full of 5 x 10 x 1/4" black iron and a stack of 5" sch. 40 pipe. So the idea was a straight shell starting at 5', flat bottom, sloping down to a 10' flat bottom. Roll the end sheets to a 7' rad. Rip the pipe long ways and cap of the edges like an inverted J. Throw a couple of rolls of MIG wire at it then coat the whole thing with epoxy per AWWA D102 with a little silica or quartz broad-casted in. Labor is inexpensive (Outside the US) so cost has never been the issue. Design as if it were an open top tank and just add water. I just cant seam to get anyone to concur. A Scotch and a soda wont even convince my most loyal cohorts. And the misses just keeps shaking her head. Every time she reads a response on this,...well, I don't have to tell you.

I see. This does look like a downward spiral. :)

Maybe you need to take the family on a beach vacation?