Who is the Swimming Pool Expert Will Witt?

The Life Story of a Civil Engineer

This is the story of a long working life as a Civil and Structural Engineer on some of the biggest and most complex projects in the world - as well as lots of small ones - and how I eventually became a swimming pool expert.

I also managed to fit in the setting up of three successful construction based businesses - Pentacon went spectacularly bust after 6 years life in 1990 - Robert West is still operating today and Bluepools has evolved and changed since it was first established in 2005.

Civil Engineering Graduate from Sheffield University

I was one of the hundreds of very successful graduates produced by the Sheffield University Faculty of Civil and Structural Engineering that was run by the mercurial Professor Bill Eastwood.

His enthusiastic and highly logical approach to engineering problems was transmitted to his students and has inspired many of his students to reach very prominent positions in the UK construction industry and the universities.

Good Honours Degree and then out on site for experience

I managed to get a good honors degree and went straight out on site to learn about how things were really built - I could not get there fast enough! During the second half of those 3 years on site I was in control of a 10.0m euro (current value) manufacturing project - we were given lots of responsibility at a very tender age in those days!

When I look back on these years I now realise just how lucky I was to get into university - let alone one with the reputation of Sheffield Universty.

Only about 3% of school-leavers managed to get to uni - and only about 15% of these got a 2.1 honours degree - I just missed a First - but that is another story!

3 Years on Site and then in the Design Office

After 3 years in muddy boots it was time to see what design work was all about, working in an Design Office.

I then became a fully qualified Civil Engineer when I was admitted as a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE) that signifies Chartered Engineer status in the UK - and am still a member now.

I also found the time to pass the Institute of Structural Engineers Examinations at first try and was a Member of the Institution of Structural Engineers (M.I. Struct.E.) for over 25 years.

Became the Office Design Guru at 30

After several years in different jobs as a Senior Engineer with companies involved in the onshore refinery and petro-chemical industry I joined a port and harbour works civil engineering consultancy in London.

The firm was run by a couple of pretty average engineers and so at the ripe old age of 30 I became the office guru on technical matters and found to my surprise that I had a real flair for understanding and simplifying very complex issues.

Setting up Robert West Consulting

I left to set up a similar business as a partner of Bob West. He was good at getting the work - and I was pretty good at doing it. This was when I started to use computers in engineering analysis in a big way for the first time. The firm was very successful and we did lots of master planning and feasibility studies on port and harbour and infrastructure projects and also built quite a few as "the Engineer".

It was during my period with Robert West Consulting that I first obtained real in-depth experience with water retaining structures - that was eventually to become so useful in the design and installation of swimming pools - but more about that later.

Many of these projects like the West Bank container terminal at Ipswich Port are still in operation and include the infrastructure for the Lakeside shopping centre and the adjacent retail warehouse complex on the old Tunnel Cement works site in Thurrock, alongside the northern M25 approach to the Dartford Crossing.

Robert West Consulting is also still in business today. See www.robertwest.co.uk

Setting up a new type of UK business called Pentacon

After 7 years I became frustrated with the conventional consultants role and set up a design and construction business called Pentacon.

I was the majority shareholder with 3 junior co-directors. I had total control of this business and quickly developed a very informal, very efficient, focused organisation that built all its projects to time and budget.

Large projects for major blue chip Clients

We did studies, design and construction of work to a total value of approximately £60.0m for a variety of major blue chip clients. This included being "The Engineer" for the infrastructure of the suburb of Chafford Hundred at West Thurrock in Essex.

This project was very involved and complex. It involved feasibility studies and master planning of roads, drains, large pumping stations, utility services, railway station, schools and shops, on 5000 hectares of abandoned quarries, for a new suburb of 10,000 people - all undertaken over a 5 year period in close conjunction with Thurrock Borough Council.

All the housing has now been built and occupied and it is now a thriving community. (Just type Chafford Hundred into Google and you will see).

We also built offices, warehouses and industrial units for a large variety of developer, retailer and manufacturing clients throughout England.

We also designed and built many water retaining structures like the very large pumping station that sits alongside the northern portal of the Dartford Tunnel and is owned by the Anglian Water Authority.

Pentacon and the Credit Squeeze

We also undertook property development and this eventually caused the firm to go bust. Pentacon ceased trading in September 1990 when it became a victim of the severe credit squeeze that was imposed by the UK government.

We developed the Palmerston Business Park in Fareham, Hampshire. In Spring 1990 it was valued at $20m and 6 months later $10m - and the bank pulled the plugand then sold it all on at a massive profit - I have never trusted banks since!

This was my first setback and it was a big one! I had given personal guarantees to the banks and was eventually forced into personal bankruptcy in 1992. I got divorced at the same time - what a year!

Working as an Artisan

This was during the big construction recession of the 1990's and so I bought myself some tools and started building house extensions and garages etc - and taught myself to do all the building trades. I enjoyed the work - but not working outside in the UK winter!

This was when I first learnt to drive a digger and do the plumbing and electrical work that was also to provide such an invaluable background to solving the technical problems posed by swimming pool design and installation.

Working as a consultant to KBR

In the mid 1990's the construction industry started to pick up again and so I put the builder's tools aside and started to work as a consultant to Kellog Brown and Root (KBR) - back in the oil and gas business that I had worked in during the 1970's.

Biggest projects in the world

Working at KBR turned into a fantastic opportunity and for 8 years I was involved with some of the biggest projects in the world including;

• Flood protection projects for London Underground - stopping the threat of the River Thames getting into the Underground Tunnels
• The Darwin to Alice Springs railway in Australia
• The giant Tengiz onshore oil-field in Kazakhstan
• The D154 nuclear refueling facility project at Plymouth dockyard in Devon
• The massive Kashagan offshore oil-field in the Caspian Sea
• Master plans for two gas based industrial estates with their own ports, power plants and aliminium smelters in Sohar, Jordan and Darwin, Australia
• Various LNG plant schemes

Last Project for KBR in 2003

Eventually I became a bit jaded from the perpetual travelling with KBR and did my last major project for them in 2004. I had moved to France a couple of years before this with the intention of setting up a swimming pool business in partnership with my oldest son Luke.

How did I get into Swimming Pool Design and Installation?

How did I get into Swimming Pool Installation?

I first got interested in pool installation when I was working in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia in 2001

There were lots of new houses and swimming pools being being installed in Darwin at the time and being naturally nosy I had a really good look at every swimming pool installation that I could find - and there were hundreds!

It really triggered my interest in becoming an expert swimming pool designer - and my fascination with the endless variety of problems and solutions in the pool business has only increased since then.

Australian pools all seemed to be made from Concrete or Fibreglass

In Australia, at that time, most of the pools were designed using water-proof concrete or made from fibre-glass.

Each concrete pool seemed to take about 6 months to install and old fibreglass pools just looked awful.

I also could not help noticing that every fibreglass pool I looked at was not level from end to end. They just do not look right when the distance from the water line to the top of the coping stones is 3 inches at one end and 6 inches at the other!

Moving to France where they build 100,000 pools a year

In 2002 I got fed up with all the flying you have got to do in the oil industry and my experience in Darwin had really sparked my interest in swimming pool design and installation.

So I moved over to France to learn about how swimming pool designers and installers produced them there because France has:-

• Over 1,000,000 installed in-ground swimming pools
• An industry that installs about 100,000 pools every year
• The biggest pool industry in the World after the United States

Research into PVC Liner Pool Types

Before I went I talked to a leading UK panel pool company about installing their PVC liner pool kits in France. And then did some basic research into PVC vinyl liner pools to discover they are often used to waterproof concrete pools as well as panel pools.

I particularly liked the basic idea that the pool structure stops the sides of the pool from collapsing and the vinyl liner keeps the water in. And they came on very strong about how quick their panel pools were to build.

Panel Swiming Pool Kit installation trials

To cut a long story short I decided to give the panel pool system a trial.

I built two of them as an experiment - one 8 x 4 metres with 1.5 metre walls and the other 9.2 x 4.7 with 1.2 metre walls.

The panel pool kits were about the most expensive available in the UK or Europe.

They are dense polystyrene panels with galvanised steel faces that are held in alignment by steel channels at the top and bottom of the pool walls. The panels were originally developed for the cold store industry.

Some very clever marketing has made them very popular in the UK pool industry and they are now being installed across the UK

Panel Pool Kit Installation needs loads of Concrete and Gravel

Lots of concrete and pea gravel is required to backfill behind the panels and stabilise them, before fitting the PVC liner and filling the pool with water. The top rail was held in position by a piece of steel angle that is hammered into the ground and tied back to the angle with a bit of screwed rod.

I did not find these pools particularly easy to build and the process was certainly not quick because of the steep learning curve.

The walls moved during backfilling and had to be dug out to allow wall realignment

On both of the pools I built one of the longer walls moved into the pool by about 100 mm after I backfilled behind the walls. The backfilling was carried out as recommended by the panel pool manufacturer. I had to beef up the anchors on both pools using a few tons of concrete to keep the walls in alignment during re-backfilling operations!

I understand that the anchorage system has been beefed up since that time but the whole experience really put me off panel pool kits and they are anything but Good Value for money!

Impossible to Empty many Panel Pools becausue the Walls are likely to Collapse

It was also obvious that many panel pool kit walls are only really stable when the pool is full of water pressing the panels back onto the pea gravel behind them and if the pool needs to be emptied for any reason the walls can collapse.

Pools need to be emptied quite frequently for all kinds of reasons and as a Chartered Engineer there was no way I was going to install pools that would always have a high risk of structural failure whenever this was necessary.

So back to the Drawing Board for the budding Pool Designer and Installer!

Fibreglass Pools

Everywhere you go in France you see one-piece fibreglass pools propped up in the air by the roadside and so I had another look into the fibreglass pool option and soon decided they were even worse than panel pools like "You know Who" - and that I cannot mention by name!

It did not take much research to find out that fibreglass pools not only collapse but they can also shoot up out of the ground as well - in a process that is delightfully known as "Popping" in the United States - where they are very common.

When you think about it a fibreglass pool is just like a fibreglass yacht - so it's bound to float if the water level outside is higher then inside!

Fibreglass very prone to Manufacturing Defects

The gel coat surface to the pools is also very sensitive to poor quality control in the factory - and when the gel coat fails and lets the chlorinated water attack the fibreglass behind, structural failure will soon follow.

To be fair Fibreglass pool installation is probably OK if:-

• You are absolutely certain you do not have a high water table in the winter and spring at your home
• You can buy one with a good quality gel coat (Two layers, 0.4 mm each and sprayed on with multi-passes)
• You tile the pool with mosaic tiles on fibre-glass sheets
• The back of the pool shell is coated with a suitable paint that stops structural deterioration caused by water underneath the pool.

High Ground Water Levels in Spring

There is no doubt that high ground water levels exist all across the UK and France during heavy spring storms and there is a large doubt about the guarantees that come with anything that you buy there - so fibreglass might work in some cicumstances but was not the definitive answer!

You can read more about fibre-glass swimming pools here Fibre-glass Type wimming Pools

Concrete block and PVC vinyl liner pools

I then looked into the other options on the market and decided to try the concrete block and PVC liner system that many French artisans use. I designed and then installed two pools using this method - one in very good ground and the other in very unstable ground.

The installed pool structures worked well under both good and bad ground conditions and the Clients were both very pleased with the finished product.

There were several installation drawbacks however:

The interior walls of the pool needed to be finished by rendering with sand and cement. This is a very weather sensitive process - it cannot be done if it is too wet, too frosty or too hot.

The 3 stage process - screed rails, scratch coat and finish extended the pool installation programme by about 2 weeks.

It was also very difficult to produce a very flat finish to the top of the walls so the liner lock was level - this extended the programme by a few more days.

Good Product but it takes too long

So the system can produce a good product that is not sensitive to poor ground conditions - but it takes far too long to install and is very weather dependent!!

This is the approach many artisan pool installers in France follow and is one of the reasons why they always take so long to build a swimming pool.

I needed a system where I could tell our Pool Clients exactly when we would be on site and how long their pool would take - So it was back to the drawing board!

Reinforced Concrete filled Polystyrene Block Wall pools

So then I looked at how some of the big French pool installers were building their pools and discovered reinforced concrete filled polystyrene block pool walls - or PolyBloK pools as I now call them.!

I immediately thought Yes!

The first pool I built using these was a great success because it was quick and easy to build, the pool water was clearly a lot warmer in the mornings and the pools walls felt and looked very good.

In other words all the insulation benefits that the insulated panel pools provide as well as great strength and very long life at a very economic cost!

It was a Euraka moment for me!!

I was entirely sold and from that moment on we only designed and installed PolyBloK Pools in France simply because they provide such solid value for money.

But there were still a couple of problems that needed to be resolved.

Ice Loading

I wanted to make the design of our pools as robust as possible and the installed swimming pools were robust enough to withstand the highest ice loadings that might be exerted on the walls in a very severe winter.

I remember the winters from the 1960's and I think we are in a cycle where they will return - global warming or not!!

Most of the pools in both England or France have been installed during the last 30 years and have never had 100mm of ice cover on the pool. So most modular panel pools and fibreglass pools are going to be completely knackered if we have temperatures that remain well below zero for several weeks - let alone months - simply because the design is not robust enough.

Gunga Din!

Are you confident enough - from all the pontification by scientists that severe winters are behind us - to spend £30 or £40,000 without a guarantee from your pool installer that your pool will not collapse under ice loading?

If you are - "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din" (Rudyard Kipling 1892).

And there was another major issue. Under extreme ice loading every type of pool will be damaged

swimming-pools-ice-damage

So all our pool installations had to have a pool structure that is designed in such a way that the pool can be emptied at short notice if there was a forecast of a long period of very low winter temperatures.

I also realised the polystyrene block walls were not enough on their own because of the very poor ground conditions that cause paving subsidence around pools that is so often seen in France and the UK.

Subsidence Around the Pool

Most French pool designers just provide a swimming pool installation and do not concern themselves with the the backfilled ground between the pool walls and the edge of the excavation for the pool.

And around every pool there is also a wedge of sub-soil that has been weakened by the excavation for the pool and that continues to be weakend by rain water getting into the backfilled ground around the pool - as shown on the sketch here How a PolyBloK Pool Works

When the paving is installed around the pool it subsides as the ground around the pool settles. There is absolutely nothing that can be done about this in Modular Panel Pools like Polypool or Fibreglass pools because they are not designed to take the weight of any concrete bearing down on them.

The ARConWall Slabs

However the reinforced concrete filled polystyrene block pool walls are designed to accept the weight from a concrete slab. To take maximum advantage from this we also install special steel reinforcement to connect the concrete slab to the top of the pool walls - including around the Roman Steps - as shown here How a PolyBloK Pool Works

We call this pool installation system the "ARConWall System" an ancronym from "Anchored Reinforced Concrete Wall" .

Every one of our pools is completely surrounded by these ARConWall slabs that ensure that under ice loading your new pool will not be damaged beyond repair.

Greek and Roman Steps

Greek pool entry steps are the ones that are rectangular  on plan and Roman steps are semi-circular – You probably did not know that!

The design and installation of the Structure of these Steps is also very important because if these move or deteriorate visually the pool will lose all its Value as an Investment.

Fibreglass Roman Steps are Not the Answer

Initially we installed Fibreglass Roman Steps as are used on Polypool pools. But it soon became apparent these were not a satisfactory design solution for many reasons including:-

• The surface of the fibreglass steps will start to deteriorate in 5 years followed quite closely by total structural failure.
• The steps are not renewable when the PVC liner eventually needed to be replaced.
• The steps are very difficult to hold in position during concreting beneath them - they need concrete there as they will bend and crack under people's weight.
• This resulted in highly stressed fibreglass at the junction between the steps and the pool walls and highly increased risk of future structural failure
• The long length of joint between the PVC vinyl liner and the steps also increases the length of potential leakage points in the liner cut-outs by about 100% - at a point of maximum vulnerability from damage caused by the feet of pool users.
• The bare ends of the fibreglass steps allows steady moisture ingress and possible structural collapse
• It is not possible to provide really non-slip treads on the steps
• Freizes on the PVC liners cannot be carried around the steps and the colour of the Steps cannot be matched with the colour of the pool liner
• The step layout is fixed and inflexible.
• The narrow tread width and the pointed ends of the steps are a real safety hazard.

Mass Concrete steps covered by the Vinyl Liner Look the Best

It was obvious to me that the use of fibreglass steps was totally incompatible with our desire to provide unequivocal safety and structural guarantees. So we abandoned their use in favour of mass concrete steps, covered by the PVC vinyl liner with non-slip treads.

These have been very successful and have really improved the appearance of our pools.

The use of fibreglass steps by a pool designer or pool installer is a sure sign that a pool builder is an amateur - as we were when we started!

Poacher Turned GameKeeper

We all know that the best Gamekeepers were previously Poachers and that is exactly what Bluepools does know in the pool installation business.

And I mean built them by actually being on site driving diggers, mixing concrete, getting wet, getting cold, getting frogs out from behind liners, getting sun-stroke, being frightened by snakes, camping out in ruins, dealing with drunk French delivery drivers, hitting low bridges with the digger on the back of the HGV, putting digger tracks back on, recovering the digger after it has slid downhill into a barn, pulling the engine apart when it is minus 10 degrees C........the list of horror stories goes on and on.

Luxury Pools that Work!

But through all this I had to design and install a truly luxury product that worked whenever the Client wanted to swim in his pool - and I did!

Anyway to cut a very long story short I stopped the actual installation of pools in the middle of 2009 to concentrate on the design and marketing side of the pool business and now get other pool installers in both the UK and France to install them.

6 Very Tough Years Building Pools

I built my first two pools in 2004 and completed about 50 on a total hands on basis by the middle of 2009 - they were 6 pretty tough years for someone more used to driving a computer - not a digger and HGV's down very narrow French lanes!

Bluepools SARL

Bluepools SARL was jointly owned by myself and my eldest son Luke who is also a civil engineer.

We set it up in 2005 and it was owned on a 50:50 basis by the two of us.

It ceased trading in 2009 after the severe downturn in the pool market in France - simply because the workload was insufficient to support two of us.

So Luke returned to the UK where he is now working as a professional civil engineer again.

And I have now reverted to my primary interest which has always been in the marketing and design of construction projects - only now I only do pool projects - I explain a lot more about how this works on the Home page of the website.

The Bluepools Website is owned by me personally and through it I provide Swimming Pool Design and Internet Marketing Services for Pool Installers in the UK, France and Italy.

Bluepools also provides Design and Project Management Services for Custom Pool Projects anywhere in the World.

The Insitution of Civil Engineers

The website of the I.C.E. can be found here:-

www.ice.org.uk

My name Will Witt is on the register as a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (M.I.C.E.) and my Membership No is 41858410. You can check this by contacting the Secretary at the ICE.

The ICE has very strict professional conduct rules and you can check with the ICE that I have never beeen found guilty of any professional misconduct since being admitted as a Member in 1974.

Regards

• Bluepools Home Page
• Everything You Need to know about Swimming Pools
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Does Swimming Pool After Sales Service Matter?
• Who is Will Witt?
• Directory of UK Swimming Pool Installation Firms

Fill in your Email and CLICK on the Orange Link to get the Pool Cost Estimate Tool as well as my Free Report on Pool Installation

I guarantee that I will never give your Email address to anyone