Given the proliferation of removable pools on terraces of homes in recent seasons, the College of Property Administrators of Madrid warns of the risk that its installation poses for the rest of the neighbors, since the building is not designed so that the slab supports the weight of this type of pools.
That is why before installing a removable pool, "it is important that the owner orders a study signed by a competent technician, in which the correct installation is guaranteed, in addition to proceeding to the contracting of a civil liability insurance that covers possible accidents and damages ", advise from CAFMadrid.
With the situation experienced in the last two years by the restrictions of use of community pools many neighbors have launched the purchase of portable pools for installation on terraces and patios, but while the installation in patios, if there is no basement below, It should not create any problems, laying on terraces is much more dangerous.
All structures, whether with the current Technical Code (DB SE-AE) or with the previous regulations, are calculated based on permanent loads, time and variable loads.
The loads or permanent actions are basically the weight of the materials that make up the structure, as well as the partition.
Variable loads are those that can vary throughout the life of the building; such as overload of use, snow overload, or overload produced by wind action, among others.
In these cases we can have typical values of:
This makes a total of 300 kg / m² of overloads that the terrace can withstand without problem.
To understand it, let's see an example in which we are not going to take into account the weight of people:
A pool of 3 meters in diameter occupies an area of π x r2: 3.14 x (1.5)2 = 7.068 m 2. If it is filled with water up to 0.5 meters high we would have a volume of:
7.07 m2 x 0.5 m = 3.534 m 3.
Knowing that 1 liter of water weighs 1Kg, and that 1 m3 are 1,000 liters would have a weight of. 1.000 (l / m3 ) x 3,534 m 3 = 3,534 l = 3,534Kg that distributed between the surface of the pool results in a weight of: 3,534 Kg / 7,068 m2 = 500 kg / m2. Taking into account that the calculations use safety coefficients that increase the loads and reduce the resistance of the materials, the permissible load could be increased between 30% and 50%, this would give us an admissible load between 390 kg / m2 and 450 kg / m2, which are still values lower than the weight of the pool, with the risk that this entails.
In addition, the calculations have been made considering only 50 cm of water height, if it were filled up to 1 meter the weight would increase to 1,000 kg / m2, which is a really dangerous weight for the structure of the terrace.
To meet the 300kg / m2 should only fill the pools to a height of about 30 cm and with the highest could reach up to 45 cm , but eye would be overloading the structure for a long time with what is not advisable.
Consequently, before installing a pool of these characteristics, you must have a previous study of the load that supports the place where it is placed to avoid serious problems. On the other hand, it would be very advisable to take out civil liability insurance to be covered in case of accidents, or check if the insurance you already have offers this coverage, since if that volume of uncontrolled water is punctured or burst it can cause serious damage to objects and people.
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