Alfresco Plunge Pool

SPASA Awards 2014 Bronze Winner
Category: Plunge/Courtyard
Company: Barrier Reef Pools
Phone: 9314 1388
Location: Hammond Park

By Sally-Ann Jones
Three men and a dog excavated the hole for this award-winning plunge pool in a day, or so Barrier Reef Pools managing director Brad Hilbert said.
“We kept hiding the bone for the dog to dig up,” he joked.

On a block of about 550 square metres, the pool needed to be ‘hand-dug’ because there was no access for big machinery. 
Mr Hilbert and his team really did do most of the digging with spades – with a little help from the owners’ dog – and were also able to use a 750 mm-wide micro-excavator which they were able to drive through a doorway with very little room to spare.
“Hand-digging is becoming more common these days,” Mr Hilbert said. “It’s because of small block-sizes.”

The pool – a 5.2 x 2.6 metre Alfresco model which is between 1.5 and 1.1 metres deep – is   in a colour known as Ocean Blue Shimmer. It has flush-mounted LED lights and four spa jets – two on each side of the seats.

Gas heated with an Astral JX 160 and fitted with an Astral pump and cartridge filter, it took out the bronze award in the plunge/courtyard category at the recent SPASA awards – the first fibreglass pool to win in this category.
“We were up against expensive concrete pools,” Mr Hilbert said.

The key to this job’s success was that it was well-planned, he said.
“Everything was itemised: all the colours and products were selected before the dirt was turned. There was no last-minute scramble to make choices.”

A unique Barrier Reef Pools water feature – a sunbed – adds to the attractiveness of this courtyard pool.
The sunbed, which is built along one side of the pool, is covered in black mosaic tiles that continue around the water-line of the pool in a band. At 60 ml deep, the water on the sunbed ripples thanks to two bubble-jets.

“Water features can be really noisy,” Mr Hilbert said. “Most people don’t realise what a noise they can make. It can be a problem on small blocks. The sun-bed water feature is soft and makes a pleasant echoing sound.”