Underground Lines
The standard setbacks for typical household underground lines are 5 feet from the water's edge to electrical, gas, telephone, city water, and cable TV lines. Please note that this does not include lines that are buried within a utility easement.
Overhead Lines
Most insulated household service wires (electric, telephone, and cable) are required to be a minimum of 10' from water’s edge. If you cannot maintain 10' to water’s edge, it will be necessary to bury wires or have the overhead service moved to another location.
Access To Backyard
As a rule of thumb, in order to accommodate standard sized machinery, we generally need at least 8'6" opening with 18' of overhead clearance. We can, however, use a miniature excavator and overhead boom truck to lift the pool over your house and place it in your backyard if access is too tight. The amount of landscape repair needed after installation will depend on several factors including slope of yard, type of soil, current weather conditions, and size of machinery needed.
Surface Drainage
The pool shell and all related accessories (concrete apron, fence, and landscaping) must not impede the drainage of surface water from downspouts, sump lines, sprinklers, or heavy rainfall to their intended destination (storm sewer basin, pond, ditch, street, etc.) Often times, it is necessary to install deck drains in the concrete apron and reroute existing downspouts, sprinklers, and sump lines to avoid damage to your new pool.
Retention Walls
Retaining walls may be needed if the final grade exceeds a slope of 1' in height to every 6' in length. Types of retention walls include boulders, colored blocks, wood timbers, and poured concrete. Even mounded dirt can be used as a small retention wall if your lot is large enough.
Setback Requirements
Each and every municipality independently governs how close a pool can be located to the house, property lines, septic fields, wells, overhead decks, easements, garages, out buildings, wetlands, woodlands, overhead wires, and waterways. Some cities even have laws that restrict lot coverage percentages. If your pool does not meet the criteria for desired placement, a variance can sometimes be obtained from your local municipality.
Fences
Most states require that all inground pools must have a fence. Your local municipality can add additional ordinances to the state requirements. Door alarms are also required on any doors that have direct access to the pool. This does not include pool gates that are self-latching and self-closing. The only exceptions to installing door alarms are to encapsulate the pool perimeter with fencing or to install a key-operated safety cover.
