Pool installation for Swannanoa properties
Swannanoa has both kinds of pool lot this region produces. We install all four shell types here: precast, fiberglass, gunite and container. Either kind of ground has a workable answer.
The community sits in the Swannanoa Valley between Asheville and Black Mountain, with I-40 running through the commercial strip and US 70 through the middle of it. The Swannanoa River, which rises at Swannanoa Gap three miles east of Black Mountain and runs east to west, gives the valley its shape and the community its name.
The flat ground down the middle of the valley is the easy ground. Digging is straightforward on land that is level or close to it, and the truck and crane access off the interstate and the highway is as good as anywhere in eastern Buncombe County. On a lot down there the money goes into the pool and its surround instead of into moving dirt.
Both sides of the valley climb. The residential ground running up off the flat is steep, with narrower roads and driveways cut across the grade. Two Swannanoa addresses a few minutes apart can be entirely different projects, one of the widest spreads of any town this close to Asheville.
A narrow valley with steep ground on both sides
Water, more than grade, is the Swannanoa question, and the shape of the valley is the reason for it.
A narrow valley collects what falls on it. Rain landing on the slopes above you does not stay up there, and it comes down through whatever stands in its way. On a hillside lot that means runoff crossing the property, and on a lot down on the flat it means water arriving from somewhere else and a water table that can sit higher than you would expect.
For a pool, that carries three practical consequences.
Drainage is designed, not added. Where roof water and hillside runoff go, and where they go instead of across the pool area, gets decided at the same time as the pool’s position.
On lower ground, water in the soil matters. Water pressure in the ground can lift a pool shell, so what is built around and under that shell is doing a real job instead of serving as backfill.
Raised is often better than sunk. On a lot with drainage constraints, a pool that sits raised with a deck built off it turns the retaining you would have needed anyway into the shape of the finished space.
