Fiberglass pools in Salt Lake County

MP Landscape has built Salt Lake Valley yards since 2007; pools are our newest work. We're based in Riverton. Before we sketch a pool, Jason pulls the city's rules, your plat and the easements, because in this county those decide the shape of a pool more than taste does.

Then he walks the yard with you. Access, slope, drainage, the sprinkler lines nobody marked: none of that shows up on a map.

The Salt Lake Valley Health Department's guide applies in every city here. Backwash and filter-cleaning water go to the sanitary sewer, a septic tank or a drainfield, never a stream, ditch or storm drain. Acid-wash water gets neutralized and sent to the sewer.

Pool water can go on your own landscaping only when sewer discharge isn't possible, and only once chlorine is below 0.1 mg/L, the pH is neutral and the water is clear, with none of it running off your property. Penalties reach $10,000 a day.

Statewide, Utah's version of the pool code took the storm sewer off the list. Cities can add their own steps: Riverton, for one, allows dechlorinated, non-salt water to its storm drains only with an emailed permit. That's why we plan a sewer connection for the backwash, or a cartridge filter that doesn't backwash, from the first drawing.

The Utah Geological Survey has mapped shallow groundwater, shallow bedrock, and soils that collapse or swell in the western Salt Lake Valley, covering Herriman, West Jordan and South Jordan. Parcel-level conditions weren't established, for Riverton or anywhere else, so a map is a reason to test, not a replacement for it.

Clay that swells can push with as much as 15,000 pounds per square foot, and it usually moves the deck before the shell. The bigger risk to the shell itself is fill that was never compacted properly. The trade press calls it the most common cause of a pool shell failing.

Latham's fiberglass shells carry an ICC-ES evaluation report, ESR-2014, and some cities accept it in place of an engineer's stamp. Bluffdale's handout says ‘engineer's stamp or ICC-ES report’. Herriman asks for stamped plans and a soils report after the dig regardless.

The report's no-soils-investigation option doesn't apply where the dig finds groundwater, uncompacted fill or expansive clay. In those cases a design professional reviews the design, whichever city you're in.

After the heavy 2023 snow year, groundwater flooding was reported in Draper, and the state survey identified groundwater sites in west Salt Lake County.

High groundwater is what floats a pool. An emptied pool shell can lift out of the ground, fiberglass included, and snowmelt, landscaping that sends water the wrong way and lowering the pool water are all named triggers. Latham's label says to keep the pool full and contact Latham before draining, and its warranty is void if groundwater accumulates under or around the pool. So every pool we design here gets a hydrostatic relief valve, gravel drainage around the sides and a standpipe you can check. And nobody drains a pool in spring without looking in the standpipe first and calling Latham.

Jordan Valley Water's 2025 report shows hardness from 16 to 381 mg/L depending on the source, averaging about 182 mg/L, or roughly 10.7 grains per gallon. That's a wide range, so we test the water at your tap instead of assuming.

Evaporation takes only water and leaves the minerals behind, so every top-off raises the calcium a little. In this valley the long-run problem is usually scale, not too little calcium, and that shapes how we balance the water once the pool is filled.

Fill from the culinary tap, never the secondary line. Secondary water isn't treated or monitored for germs.