polyblok logo
will and luke witt
 

Tel +33 (0) 547 48 01 96 (Sales only)

Tel 0207 100 3551 (VOIP for UK calls)

 

 

HOME PAGE of Swimming Pools in France

PolyBloK Pools

PolyBlok Pool Kits
PolyBlok Pool Installation
CUSTOM Pools
FAQ's on Pool Installation
Bluepools Case Studies

The Bluepools BLOG

CHOOSING POOL TYPE AND THE INSTALLER
Pool types available on the French market
Pool Installation in very Difficult Ground conditions
How Pool Quality can affect the Value of Your Property
POOL DESIGN INFORMATION
The ARConWall Structural System
Pool Shapes and Depths
Pool Liner Colours, Patterns and Freizes
Through the Wall Fittings Colour Options
Videos
PDF File of Video "The Pool Types Available"
PDF File of Video "Ground Conditions and Pools"

Ground conditions and pools Video

PDF file of Video "The ARConWall System"

The "ARConWall" system Video

EXISTING POOLS
Pool Renovation, the Costs and Economic Justification
Heating an Existing Pool
SUNDRY TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Pool Safety Devices and Legal Compliance
Pool Water Filtration and Optimising Pool Hygiene
The Insulation of Pools and Pool Heating
Tiled Pools and why they Leak
Shared Use Pool and the DDAS rules
Fosse Septiques |Fosse Toutes Eaux
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

 

Thank you to Bluepools for the lovely swimming pool you have installed for us. We are very pleased with it and this justifies our decision to choose Bluepools to do the installation for us. It has been a great success with our gite clients also, from whom we have had some very complimentary comments.

Best Regards
Kevin & Debbie MILLS

"Blue Pools have done a fabulous job on the pool at our holiday home in Argenton-sur-Creuse. It wasn't easy to instal but they kept us informed of progress and always came up with solutions that overcame the obstacles & ensured we got our dream pool. What I liked most is that they returned to put right a couple of problems with the equipment after the job was done, at no extra cost. The finish is very good and is made to a high standard with very low maintenance. It is great to see such dedication & integrity - I can't speak highly enough of Will, Luke & their staff.

Andrew Campbell"

I appreciated the answers to my questions and the time Luke spent at our initial meeting, going thriough the various options, with helpful suggestions and observations on our plans for our new pool at our holiday home near Tarbres. It was a relief to find a company that was prepared to offer a full construction solution including the terracing, steps and landscaping. I found the quotation very comprehensive, and useful to have an idea of the costs we might incur should ground conditions prove difficult - which they did!! Also appreciated Bluepools ability to overcome the difficulty encountered with the water table.

You were pretty accurate in terms of timescale for completing the project although there was an over run of three days because of the day or two later than advised start, the extra work involved in overcoming the water table issue, and the inclement weather towards the end of the final week.

Having been initially advised by Luke that an engineering project of this scale would undoubtedly create damage to the land surrounding the pool site, we were pleasantly surprised at how little damage had actually been caused.
Overall, very happy with how everything has been handled, and would happily recommend Bluepools - especially now they're going to have a presence down that way.

Kind Regards

Andrew Lund-Yates

I would like to thank you for the way you handled the installations off the two swimming pools for me. You managed to start just after the selected time, proved to be totally reliable and finished in the time frame you had expected. The quality of the work was fine and you left everything neat and tidy after you had finished. I have good relationship with Luke and he has always been available to sort out any teething problems. I would like to wish you all the very best for the future.

Kind Regards Keith Trenter

When working on an old house there are always many unforeseen problems, and, like many other Brits, our house is old. So when it came to putting a swimming pool close to the house it was not surprising to find some complications. Bluepools proved themselves by recognising these complications and coming up with solutions.
Their ability to cope with these extras has made such a difference. Otherwise we would have been chasing around, spending time we really do not have, looking for additional artisans to do those unforeseen bits and pieces.
From the earliest stages, a test hole for the fosse septique soak-away, through to completion of the swimming pool Bluepools products and services have been good which means peace of mind for us."

Peter Butler

Hi Luke,

The pool has been brilliant and we have had an increase in the number of people wanting to visit as a result. But that is something we can put up with!

Caroline Jones - August 2007

Dear Luke

Many thanks to you, Will and the lads for a terrific job, Amanda and I are really pleased with the result.

Tom Dodds 20th June 2008

 

 

     

Bluepools Case Studies

Introduction

Pools built over the past 5 years

The pools shown on this page are a representative cross-section of the pools built by Bluepools over the past 5 years.

Please click on the thumbnail image for a larger picture. They are big files and may take a while to download.

If you want to look at any of these pools we can probably make the necessary arrangments with the owners, depending on the timing.

Case 1 - Pool near St Jean d'Angely finished in 2005 for Mr and Mrs Coley

We started to use the Cara Terra paving on this pool - It looks so good that we have installed it in every pool since this one.

Case 2 - Pool near Nontron finished in 2005 for Mr and Mrs Ramsden

Surprisingly this is the only pool that we have built that just has decking without any paving stones. As you can see this works quite well and can be a sensible alternative when the subsoil is not good enough to support paving as was the case in this instance.

Case 3 - Pool in Argenton-sur-Creuse finished in 2005 for Mr and Mrs Campbell

This pool is in a beautiful park like garden and the combination of part decking and part paving works really well visually.

Case 4 - Pool near Cognac finished early in 2006 for Mr and Mrs Ritson

One of the nightmare pools to build. We knew before we started that we had a potential problem because the water level in the adjacent stream was only about 1 metre below the pool paving level. However we had hoped that the sub-soil would be clay so that the ground would not be too wet.

How wrong we were! The ground was fill and very wet. The first photo shows the sub-pool drainage that was installed. We extended the pipe up to ground level and pumped continuously for a month while we built the pool.

We also had to heavily reinforce the pool wall footings as well as the pool floor.

But the client was pleased with the finished project and it looks good as you can see from the second photograph

 

 

Case 5 - Pool Near Gemozac at a Gite Complex - built early 2006 for Kevin and Debbie Mills

This pool was built in very difficult ground. The top 800 mm of soil was very loamy topsoil that was difficult to deal with when wet. Beneath the topsoil was very hard rock. It took over two weeks to excavate the pool and its hopper down to the required finished level. It is a 12 x 6 pool built to DDASS standards

Case 6 - Pool near Montendre - built in Spring 2006 for Mr Peter Butler

This pool was built in a very restricted site as the pictures show. The first was taken before we started and the second during the screeding of the pool floor.

We also installed a fosse and filter bed and the landscaping to the front garden.

Case 7 - Pool near St Jean d'Angely built in Spring 2006 for Mr and Mrs Benn

This small pool was built in delightful location overlooking fields and in a real sun trap. The safety fence spoils the pool appearance but it was necessary for the children that visit the site.

Case 8 - Pool to the south of Bergerac built in summer 2006 for Mr and Mrs Markham

This pool was built on an awkward sloping site as the pictures show.

The first picture was taken on the first day and shows our PC 95 Komatsu digger. When we started in France we were called Bluebird Aventure Anonyme and that's why it says Bluebird on the digger.

This is not a cheap machine to maintain and cart about but it is often needed on steep slopes like this and when the ground is very rocky and hard to dig.

The second picture shows the walls completed and backfilled and the pool ready for the installation of the Roman End.

The third shows the completed pool. It was quite difficult to get the drainage around the pool right and the rain water off the hillside is taken past the pool by a large diamater pipe installed near the end of the house.

Case 9 - Pool near Mirande, Gers built in the summer 2006 for Mr and Mrs Lund-Yates

This pool was one of those that showed us how difficult it is to build and maintain a pool that is nearly 300 km away from our base at Jonzac in Charente-Maritime.

The ground water table was very high after a few storms even though the pool was built in the middle of the summer.

The top picture shows our digger again as well as the Volvo HGV that we need to cart it about from site to site.

The site looks flat but it is on a slight slope with a massive area of land above it that channels water across the site during periods of high rainfall.

You will notice that this pool is only protected by an alarm even though it is in an unfenced garden - but it still complies with the law as it stands at the moment.

Case 10 - Pool built in summer 2006 near Argenton-sur-Creuse in Indre for Mr and Mrs Stobbart

This pool was a large 15 x 5 metres and again built a long way from our Jonzac base. The ground around the pool had to be built up to suit the required level at the end near the pool plant room and so the narrow paved areas in the picture are supported on concrete block piers to avoid subsidence.

Case 11 - Pool built in autumn 2006 near Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure in Charente for Mr and Mrs Smith

This pool was built on a very restricted site as can be seen.

Case 12 - Pool built in late 2006 near Saujon, Charente-Maritime for Mr and Mrs Timmins.

This was a small pool built in very bad ground conditions - but the weather was quite dry and so it went quite well.

You can see how bad the ground is beneath our small digger the Komatsu PC 27R

Case 13 - Pool built in the spring / summer of 2007 near Monflinquin in Lot-et-Garonne for Mr and Mrs Bull

Well - this is the biggest pool that we have built and it was one big big big problem!

It did not look too bad when we started - you can just see the outline of the pool location on the first picture.

The second two pictures show what the site was really like. We had to install a 50 metre long large diameter drain just to get the site dry enough for the digger to move around the site.

Eventually we got the foundations finished as you can see from the fourth picture.

The pool and walls are built on consolidated fill and so the foundations of both the walls and the pool are highly reinforced.

We also had to build the 2.5 metre high curved retaining wall in reinforced concrete filled hollow concrete blocks. At one end of the wall we built an underground plant room as well as a long flight of suspended concrete steps over 4.5 metres high.

The walls were covered with Orsol concrete facings and the pool was equipped with a floating safety cover that is mounted on submerged motor driven roller.

The project took about 6 months to build and the final contract value was about 120,000 euros HT.

 

Case 14 - Pool built in the winter / spring 2007 near Ruffec in Charente for Mr and Mrs Roberts

The excavation for this pool looks very dry in the first photograph - and then the rain started - and did not really stop until the end of August 2007.

We had to pull off this site and several others because of the very very wet spring and summer and we eventually became about 3 months behind our planned schedule for 2007.

We had to stop taking new orders and just finish the pool jobs we had in hand.

We have now done this and are back schedule and taking orders for 2008.

Case 15 - Pool built in spring / early summer 2007 at Challignac, near Barbezieux for Mr and Mrs O'Leary

Another of the pools that were hit by the awful weather conditions of 2007.

However the site itself was dry and there were no subsoil or ground water problems.

Case 16 - Pool built in autumn 2007 at Aujac, near Matha for Mr Ian Morris

Another of the pools that were hit by the awful weather conditions of 2007. We were late starting it and it is still not quite finished as you can see from the second picture.

The first picture shows the excavation and the very high ground water levels - this rose immediately after any rain and continuous pumping from an underpool was required during pool construction.

This pool has a square Roman End - they are a 1000 euros cheaper than the semi-circular ones and they provide a lot bigger seating area for those times when you just want to sit in the pool to cool down!

Case 17 - Interior Pool liner and plumbing installed in the autumn 2007 near Tarbes in the Pyrenees for Mr Overend

This project only involved the liner and pool plumbing installation - it was also delayed but is now finished.

 

 

 

Privacy Policy Terms of Service

Bluepools is a a Brand name owned by Piexe Limited Registered in England No 6348048 145-147 St Johns Street, London EC1V 4PY and operating from a French office at 15 Avenue de Lattre de Tassigny, 17500 Jonzac, France