Schwimmteich / Natural Pool

Accomodation, House and Garden
1
Hello all,

Has anyone any experience of building a Schwimmteich / Natural Pool. We are building a house but discounted a normal swimming pool, as I know people with them and they take a lot of maintenance.

If there was a self-sustaining natural pool that needed little to no maintenance, it might be a decent solution.

If you could give us an idea of cost / how much maintenance it really takes, that would be great.

Thanks,

StirB

2
One thing you may want to consider is that if you have or plan to have children or you have regular visitors with small children; you can't have a cover over a natural pool because of the plants.

This is a problem year round - in the summer, young children could just fall in. In the winter, they could fall through thin ice - especially if it's covered in a thin layer of snow.

Also, don't under-estimate the benefits of a cover to keep the water warm - especially if it a solar one which really warms up the water.

I think natural pools look great though!

3
I read once that pig manuar makes a good waterproof barrier.

Never tried it.

4
There's a nice page here , in English, where a man built one in Switzerland.

You mentioned costs in the original post. One of the major costs of a 'normal' pool is the electricity to run the pump (you need to run it in Winter too to stop freezing) but in the article above, their natural pool also has a pump.

5
I envy you just for having a large enough plot-size to consider having a natural pool.

Also, after looking around a bit, I found this:

https://www.salamander-garten.ch/faq/

Now, I envy you for seemingly having 50k-100k+ disposable for such a thing...

;-)

6
Definitely want one of those, when I grow up

Can't help much, sorry. But I know it still needs work as algas etc. will still be a subject.

7
Don't envy too much, that's definitely out of budget!

8
You could build it yourself.

I know someone who dug a large swimming pool, by hand using a spade.

It took them five years.

9
A spade or a tea-spoon?

10
A spade - which I thought was masochistic enough. It looked brilliant when it was finished though.

11
.

12
It is possible to use a net over at least part of the natural pool. The beautiful photo you posted shows the deep area clearly. It is, of course, possible to drown in very shallow water, you're right, but less likely in those areas with the stones and plants.