Enclosing a pool with a fence is good pool insurance. It keeps children, pets and non swimmers out of the pool when it’s not in use and also provides security and privacy when you are not swimming.
Indeed, many apartment communities require fencing with self-closing and self-fetching gates around swimming pools. Check your local building department early in the landscape planning stages. Even if there’s no code to this effect in your area, a fence is a good safety measure for your own children and those of your guests – even for non swimming adults.
Besides providing a safe environment, fencing can be used to separate your lot from your neighbour’s, to designate space, to conceal pool support environment, and even to store hanging pool maintenance equipment. A fence near the pool can keep debris from blowing into the pool and reduce maintenance. It also provides more specific climate control in your pool area. You can orient the fence panels to block out cool winds and admit sun when you want it.
Under no circumstances can safety or property line fencing be less than 3 feet from the edge of the pool; that’s the minimum width required to permit safe passage around the pool.
The type of fence you build will be dictated by cost, location, the architectural style of your home, and the visual effect you want to achieve.
Whether you purchase a prefabricated kit, build the fence yourself from scratch, or have a professional do it, you will find that advice from a landscape architect or fence contractor can help you decide what style and type of fence are best suited visually and functionally to your pool landscape.
fencing materials include wood, chain link, wire mesh and wrought iron. For pool fences, choose pressure-treated wood or rust-resistant and noncorrosive metals.
The style of your fence can affect the amount of wind protection you receive in the pool area. For example, wind rushes over a solid fence like a stream of water. Such a fence provides little or not wind protection past the distance equal to its height.
Angling a baffle of 45 degrees into the wind, extends maximum wind protection to a distance almost more than twice the fence height. Or, you can eliminate the downward crash of wind by using a baffle angled 45 degrees with the wind. You will feel warmest in the pocket below the baffle and at a distance equal to a little more than the fence height.
To break the wind flow, use fencing with operating at least 1/2 inch wide, or use plant screens. Up close, this type of fencing offers little protection; temperatures are warmest at a distance equal to twice the fence height. Dense plants offer even more protection.