The concept of a swimming pool built using our thermal-foam polystyrene pool wall system to build an energy-efficient, thermally-insulated, inground concrete structure for a warmer pool and giving you more choices of interior finishes need some explanation.

We take blocks of Expanded Polystyrene Styrofoam (EPS), which are cut into panels. The panels are delivered within the blocks, so the builder just pulls the panels out of the foam blocks and puts them together. The foam blocks act as more or less of a crate and protect them from damage during transport. The wall panels are numbered and notched to help assembly and can be put together in the excavated site in just a few hours.

To utilize these panels in the construction of a swimming pool, a hole is excavated for the pool.  The excavation area is a little larger than the pool so that both sides of the thermal-foam panel can be plastered making the EPS panels a sandwich structural insulated wall capable of supporting the backfill around the pool.

AB/road base or sand is compacted in the base of this excavation. Quality control is assured thanks to the fact that we provide a panelized product, which means all you have to do is some assembly on the job site.

Our pre-cut panels are glued with a standard foam adhesive and stood in the prepared excavation to complete the desired shape of your pool. The assembly is very quick and easy. Additionally, you can use the panels to construct the steps, benches or swim-outs at this time as needed or wanted.

The panels are plastered on both sides with two (2) thin coats of our custom design structural plaster (of which materials can be purchased from any local home building supply store) with a polystyrene mesh embedded between the coats. The two (2) thin coats of plaster or rendering over the foam wall panels can be applied by conventional hand methods or can be spray-on with a hopper or spray gun. The area behind the pool wall is filled with self-compacting pea-gravel or any other suitable compactable backfill. 

After the curing process, the next stage is setting up the floor by grading the AB base or sand to the desired shape and depth of the bottom, and before backfilling of the over-dig area, you need to install 4” more of compactable fill against the inside bottom 4” of the pool wall, which will stabilize the bottom of the wall system so that you can backfill. Then before pouring the 4” concrete floor you can install the insulation barrier, a green building insulator. This underground insulation material is an all-in-one subsurface barrier of extruded expanded flexible recycled polystyrene foam (XPS). The barrier is a 100% vapor, water, and moisture barrier as well as a thermal break of conductive heat transfer. (This insulation can be used as a 4' frost barrier around the pool structure where frost might occur 4' deep.) Enough material for the bottom of the pool is included in our total insulated pool kit.

If you are going to finish the pool with our Elastomeric Variable Membrane (EVM) Coating (rolled-on/sprayed-on finish) or fiberglass, the floor needs to be poured with concrete, but if you are going to use a pre-fabricated vinyl liner then you can use pool-crete or concrete. At the same time you pour the floor, the pool ringbeam around the top of the pool is poured in place with concrete. A coping and/or decking is then installed over the ringbeam and then an interior finish of our rolled-on sprayed-on EVM coating, or a composite fiberglass, epoxy or vinyl coating, or a pre-fabricated vinyl liner can be installed in the pool. The entire construction process takes about thirty days or less with the installation of the pool equipment, etc.

All kits include the EPS panels and fibermat reinforcing fabric (mesh) along with the construction installation manual and CD, engineering calculations and pool specifications, setting and excavation plans and wall section. Kits can be purchased in one of four ways; (1) as a kit with the panels and mesh alone, (2) as a kit with our EVM Coating [roll-on or spray-on] finish-no equipment, (3) as a kit with equipment (which includes pump, filter, returns, inlets with eyeballs and a skimmer with extension collar)-no finish, and/or (4) as a kit with equipment and our EVM Coating finish. You can also purchase additional panels, equipment and other items.

Our thermal-foam pool wall system was tested by an ICC-ES approved Laboratory, Terrapin Testing, Inc. in accordance with ICC-ES Acceptance Criteria for Sandwich Panels (AC04). The results from the testing on our “thermal in-ground pool panels” met and exceeded all California building requirements for strength, as well as meeting all national requirements for APSP-5, NSPI-5 and 99 BOCA Codes.

INTERLOCKING WALL PANELS