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walkitoutR. and T. drove out to Florence (a village in Northampton) to look at a piece of land. T. liked it a lot; R. thought it might work, but wanted to take a look at some more parcels. I found another one for them to visit next week.
I also spent a few hours on Houzz, looking at a variety of things, but mostly indoor pools. I have a few observations to make that might or might not be of general interest.
(1) There are a lot of narrow (single lane, generally) pools with very narrow ledges surrounding them in rooms with no windows in London, England. I conclude from this that a Thing that the wealthy in London do to make their cramped, multi-floor expensive housing more enjoyable is to install a basement pool.
(2) Pool pictures on Houzz with cyrllic captions and locations in Moscow are very different.
(3) “Indoor pool” as a search term finds a lot of pools that are definitely not indoor. Not sure what to do about this.
(4) There is an entire category of “indoor pool” which is located in Florida (very rarely other southern states) and is covered with a quite extensive glass enclosure. Some of them are unbelievably cool. This is not a solution that will work for my purposes.
(5) Virtually all freeform pools which are enclosed are in Florida in the type of enclosure mentioned in (4). I believe I found one counter-example. There might be more — they are rare. Searching on “free-form” and “indoor pool” turns up a lot of outdoor freeform pools, some of which are not freeform AND not pools (hot tubs, for example). And, as noted, not indoors.
(6) I like exposed wood framing.
(7) I like large bifold doors to get the indoor / outdoor effect. This may be a possible solution for us.
I also spent a few hours on Houzz, looking at a variety of things, but mostly indoor pools. I have a few observations to make that might or might not be of general interest.
(1) There are a lot of narrow (single lane, generally) pools with very narrow ledges surrounding them in rooms with no windows in London, England. I conclude from this that a Thing that the wealthy in London do to make their cramped, multi-floor expensive housing more enjoyable is to install a basement pool.
(2) Pool pictures on Houzz with cyrllic captions and locations in Moscow are very different.
(3) “Indoor pool” as a search term finds a lot of pools that are definitely not indoor. Not sure what to do about this.
(4) There is an entire category of “indoor pool” which is located in Florida (very rarely other southern states) and is covered with a quite extensive glass enclosure. Some of them are unbelievably cool. This is not a solution that will work for my purposes.
(5) Virtually all freeform pools which are enclosed are in Florida in the type of enclosure mentioned in (4). I believe I found one counter-example. There might be more — they are rare. Searching on “free-form” and “indoor pool” turns up a lot of outdoor freeform pools, some of which are not freeform AND not pools (hot tubs, for example). And, as noted, not indoors.
(6) I like exposed wood framing.
(7) I like large bifold doors to get the indoor / outdoor effect. This may be a possible solution for us.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 11:33 pm (UTC)I have a friend in London who lives in a very posh part of town, and apparently a thing people do there is dig under their historic homes to get another level of living space, as they cannot build upward. This is in row houses where the kitchen is already in a basement with a dug-out area behind it for a scrap of walled garden. It's apparently very nerve-racking living in a row house with someone digging underneath the house next door. I wondered what people did with these presumably almost windowless sub-basements, but I guess pools is one thing. Or storage so they can reclaim living space further up.
I knew about the subbasement / stress and neighbor conflict thing
Date: 2020-07-16 12:37 am (UTC)FWIW, a huge part of making any indoor pool work is humidity and temperature control. Having automatic pool covers is regarded as a nice to have in an outdoor pool; if what I am reading is correct, it is absolutely mandatory indoors — if the pool is not in use, you can dramatically reduce the energy expended managing humidity by covering the pool. Some people recommend radiant heating in the deck to help as well. *shrug* I would imagine that if you correctly sized your dehumidifier, a basement would be no different than any indoor pool in a cold weather area. You have to seal it up to heat it (it is not even just about cost — it is whether you can keep it warm at all), and once it is sealed, you have to dump the moisture somehow.
I spent some time trying to get a handle on equipment room sizing. I knew from other things that I would need the pool side of the team to win whatever argument happened with the architect / design side, because if it goes the other way, the regrets happen when you need to replace or repair equipment. But I was startled to see what the rule of thumb ratio is for equipment room size to pool is (1/8th!). I mean, it sort of makes sense, but jeez.