Building a fiberglass pool in Riverton

On a narrow Riverton lot, the three 5-foot rules decide where the pool goes before taste does. Take 5 feet off the back and side lines and 5 feet off the house and any shed. Any fence inside the yard also has to stay 5 feet from the water; ours runs on the lot lines, so that one rarely bites. Add a platted rear easement and the space that's left can shrink fast. We draw that box first, on your plat, before we sketch a single curve.

The 10% cap counts every accessory structure on the lot, not just the pool. A big shed or a covered pavilion draws on the same allowance, so we add up what you already have before we size the pool.

The 6-foot fence is about small children, and it's a good rule. A fence that fully encloses the pool and keeps the house out of the barrier is the best-proven single protection against a child drowning. Our approach is the fenced yard: a 6-foot fence on every lot line with self-closing gates, closed against the house. Every MP pool also gets an automatic safety cover. Riverton's ordinance doesn't list a cover as a stand-in for the fence, so here the cover goes on top of the fence, not instead of it.

That 5-foot gap between fence and water becomes deck, and owners on pool forums often say they wish they'd had more deck. We plan it as the lounger strip. On the outside, the fence needs 3 feet kept clear of anything a child could climb, so boulders, raised planters and the pool equipment stay back from it.

Nobody has mapped Riverton's soils lot by lot in anything we could find. The Utah Geological Survey's western-valley hazard maps cover Herriman, South Jordan and West Jordan around us, and they show shallow groundwater and soils that swell or collapse when wet. So on a Riverton lot we don't assume the ground is dry and stable. We find out.

Backwash goes to the sewer, not the gutter. Riverton's stormwater program bans backwash and salt water from its storm drains and points residents to South Valley Sewer District. If you want a sand or DE filter, we plan a sewer connection for it. A cartridge filter doesn't backwash at all.

One oddity worth knowing: Riverton's page gives its chlorine limit as ‘1PPM (0.1 milligram/liter)’, and those aren't the same number. We go by 0.1 mg/L, the lower figure, which is also what the county health department uses.

Fill with city water. At Riverton's posted rates, 20,000 gallons in an otherwise empty billing month is about $123, plus the $8 meter charge. Added to 8,000 gallons of normal household use it's about $147, and a 25,000-gallon pool about $192. Split the fill across two billing cycles and more of it lands in the cheaper tiers.

Never top up from the secondary line. That water isn't treated, the state health department says it can make you sick, and it can be cut off: Riverton warned of a shutoff in 2016.