It's too bad you cannot get 15 more feet, that would be a lot nicer pool to swim in. But for what you are doing, do maybe a 9ft wide lane, and then sink in lane lines just a couple inches from the wall the full length. That will knock down 85% of your chop, and the further you put if from the wall, the better it will work. So if you do 6 inches on each side, you will have an 8ft lane, a little more, then maybe 7 1/2. A normal lane is about 7 ft wide, so if two of you, that should be plenty.

I built my own 4 lane 75ft pool, used this technique and a few other build in things to make it waveless. But those cost a bit more, the lane lines are the cheap way to get most of it pretty smooth.

Once I receive the bids, I'm going to see how adding 5' in length affects the cost. Still not 75', but 65' would be nice.

It never occurred to me that a lane line next to the wall would help dissipate chop. Great suggestion. I'll need to have anchors installed though, right?

If the people you are talking to have built lap pools before ask them for the references and call the people or even go and swim in their pool.

I have an endless pool that I often gets calls from random people to come and test. I don't mind at all. I'm sure others wouldn't.

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Find out what they charge extra for. It may be volume, in which case you can make it a bit shallower in places, and then lengthen it in others. Do you just not have room for 75 feet? At any case, yes you need anchors to hook the lane lines to, either before, or after. It is pretty easy to do after, and probably cost 10 times less than they would charge. It is just drilling a hole into the concrete, and then using cement glue to put the anchor into. Costs a few bucks more than the anchor, if they do it, probably a $100+ for each one.

The key to this process is to make sure you have some room on the other side of the lane line for the surge to go, once it is slowed down by the line. then it hits a wall, and then travels back towards the line again, to get blocked once again before it goes into your lane. The wider that gap, the more energy that gets sucked out of the wave, and the more effective the lane line will be. You can also spring for the oversize ones, which work better, or you can double up the smaller ones too. I did the double up with a foot on the outside of the lane, and then a 45 degree slope that the water would hit, instead of a flat wall where it just bounces off of.

My pool is 25mx2.4m with only a bit extra for steps (section is small)
Actually 25.07 because pool builder didn't have a tape that long and I didn't know - I'd have lent him mine.

About 5-6s slower per 100m than a competition pool because of the wave feedback. Have to be a bit careful about multiple swimmers as the concrete edges are unforgiving. Difficult for small swimmers in with bigger/faster swimmers as they get battered by the waves.

So I'd seriously consider Montys suggestions and a bit more width.

If you design the walls to have overflow gutters, either deck-level or recessed, the chop will be reduced significantly. The problem there is that it’s a much more expensive option than the flat wall/skimmer a arrangement. Do a comparison of the cost of overflow gutters vs making the pool wide enough to add space for lane ropes on the outside of the lanes.

Also, get the returns aligned so that you aren’t getting water jetting out into the lanes or pushing against you at the end walls. Align the returns pointed downwards, and returns at the end walls to be aligned under the ropes.

Even 20m instead of 20 yards.

20 metres =
65 feet 7.402 inches
OP should get some lane rope mounts for at least one side to reduce the water going back and forth.

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Chop would be good practice for open water :)

Great tip about the location and trajectory of the returns.

The pool at my gym is about 8' wide. Even with 4 people swimming there is no chop.

The pool at my gym is about 8' wide. Even with 4 people swimming there is no chop. //

It probably has overflow gutters, that can be 100's of thousands of dollars, depending on how big the pool is overall. What the OP is talking about is a flat wall pool, where the water energy dissipates outwards, hits the wall, and then bounces back in the main pool area. If you gym pool was like this, it would be a very windy ocean in it with 4 people trashing about..

I actually do have room for 75’, but it would put me over my budget and visually look strange. But the cost is the main issue. Builders here charge by the linear foot for the pool itself, so extending the length of the pool by 15’ adds 38 linear feet to the cost (15’ length times 2 plus 8’ wide). That doesn’t include the cost of the additional decking that would be required as well.

By comparison, making the pool 2’ wider only adds 4 linear feet to the pool. I’m going to take a hard look at doing that.

And thanks for all the feedback above. I hadn’t even thought about where and how the return jets are pointed. My gym pool has them pointing upwards, and I forgot that they always push me sideways.

You will have to decide if this is your forever house or not. If it were me, and it is just you and your wife swimming laps, I would just build one 75 ft lane, with a very tiny middle section with stairs to walk down into. I would go 4ft to maybe 5ft deep, and an 8ft wide lane to accommodate the lane lines.

Another thing that has not been mentioned is the cleaning. I did a salt water generator, and I would highly recommend you get one of those. No more chlorine or testing the water every day, it cuts a lot of hours off maintaince, and the water is pure enough that you really dont have to shower after. All you do is dump 5lb bags of salt into the pool, get it up to snuff, and then some every couple months if needed. And it was not that expensive.

Do you plan to heat this pool? If so, then the volume matters a lot. I get to just use the sun for mine, it goes for about 5 to 6 months of the year. I got a heater, but it was just so dam expensive, it was a waste of money. If you have a heater, I would do 3 1/2 ft to about 4 ft on the other end, and definitely have a cover. That's just me though, but I think you started this to get input, so there you have it. IF I had a 60ft pool, I would hardly ever swim in it. With a proper 25yd one, I would be swimming in it 5 days a week. Will you be happy in a 20yd pool flipping all the time?

Also think how you are going to finish it, plaster or tile? I just went ahead and tiled the whole pool, and just used normal house tiles, and it has been fine. That way I got to also tile a line on the bottom with T's at both ends for flip turns, and targets on the side like regular pools have. If you plaster, maybe think about getting a painted line down, that shouldn't be too pricey, and the targets on the walls..

Appreciate all the feedback - that's why I posted this. I'm definitely going with a salt generator, for all the reasons you mentioned.

I'm in Texas, and my backyard gets full sun until 3 in the afternoon. I'm planning to install a heat pump / chiller to keep the pool at a comfortable swimming temperature for most of the year. I realize I won't be able to swim 365 days a year, but I think this will maximize the number of days I can swim. I'm fine with putting on a sleeveless wetsuit in the cooler months so that I don't have to warm the water up too much. The builder I plan to go with mentioned putting a cover on the pool for winter time.

Do you have a gas heater or a heat pump? My understanding is that a heat pump works a lot better for maintaining a constant temperature, whereas a gas heater is good for quick heating of the pool for short periods of time.

For finishing the pool, my plan is to use Pebble Tec, but I need to figure out how lane lines / markers can be installed. Perhaps some combination of tiles and Pebble Tec. My builder said he had some ideas on this.

The total length issue is a tricky one. I don't think this will be our forever house, and going from 60' to 75' is a pretty big jump in cost. Once I have the complete bid for the 60' pool, I'm going to see whether 65' or longer is doable. I'd like to get to at least 65' though.

I'm also in TX and am in process of building my "forever home" and plan on putting a pool in within the next 3 years once my kids get out of the crawling phase. I was thinking of building something fun/functional and adding a fast-lane/current for my training. Did you look into this at all or are you strictly looking for a lap pool?

The first design from a builder included a Fast Lane, but my wife and I ultimately decided against it. It's a great device and allows for continuous swimming in a relatively small pool, but

- Our yard is large enough for a reasonable length lap lane, and I'd much rather be moving when I swim than stare at the ground. I've spent quite a bit of time in an endless pool for swim instruction, including solo time to warm up. I didn't really like swimming in place, and it felt unnatural to have water thrown at you versus grabbing onto the water and pulling.

- My wife and I pretty much swim at the same time, so a single Fast Lane wouldn't work for us.

- The Fast Lane is an extra piece of equipment to maintain. Plus, I want to do a salt water pool. I called Endless Pools, and the guy there said that salt pools tend to require the internals of the Fast Lane to be replaced every 2 years, compared to 6+ years for a traditional chlorine pool.

If we were constrained by size/budget for a smaller pool, I absolutely would have put in a Fast Lane though, despite what I said above. The ability to swim train at home is huge.

In the summertime (4 months) I swim in a 20m (~65ft) outdoor pool with salt water at a seaside resort, and I don't lose so much fitness compared to winter training in the 25scm indoor pool with fresh chlorined water. I wouldn't go shorter than 20 meters anyway (my training pace is usually in the 1'20 - 1'30 / 100m range). Is it possible to know what is your budget +/- ? Good luck!

Simple i-bolts installed in the walls on each end. Lane lines just have an S hook at each end, nothing special. Installing an i-bolts shouldn't be any harder than drilling a hole and it's the way most commercial pools do it (either in the gutter or directly in the wall). There is a little bit of tension on a lane line but not a ton. An anchor in the wall should hold.

https://www.swimoutlet.com/...lJ6InCBoCC50QAvD_BwE

This would look better than an i-bolt and should be pretty easy to install if done at the time of construction.

https://www.swimoutlet.com/...hor-3-round-7539014/

I signed the contract for the pool. Final design has the length at 65 feet. 10 feet wide at each end, with the middle 30’ being 16 feet wide. The builder’s design came out really well. Appreciate everyone’s input.

If anyone contemplates doing this, hit me up. Happy to discuss.

Congrats. Now you have no excuse for not being 1st out of the water :). Please send pics of the finished product

I've been following the thread. Keep us posted and send some updates with pics. Take lots of pics during the build, I am very interested to see them!

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"If it costs you 30 minutes at Maryland so what" -dwreal

That's great, is the 6ft in the middle split up as 3ft on each side? Or is it a 6ft stair section to enter the pool? And for lane lines, go to local municipal pools and find some used ones they are getting rid of. That is how I found mine, and got them for almost nothing, as they were going to just throw them out anyway. They are quite expensive new, so another way to save a few bucks..

Here's a rendering of the final design. Hopefully this is what the finished product looks like. The thin line on the right side is a steel fence, so this design still leaves us with a fair amount of grass space.

In case you're thinking about privacy, we don't have any neighbors behind us.

One thing that may not have come up with the pool contractor is any potential for a shelf around the perimeter. Something like what is used in public competition pools. The typical residential pool edge provides nothing for damping waves. My recent experience with this showed a surprising amount of waves and turbulence even with one swimmer. It will still work awesome but if you can include something to help reduce waves it will help with two swimmers. It may be possible to install lane line dampers at each side of the pool, but this won’t look as nice.

It may be possible to install lane line dampers at each side of the pool, but this won’t look as nice. //

Ha, you must not have read the thread, it is almost entirely helping him out with making his pool as waveless as possible, with lane lines...