Installing Paving Flags Around Your Pool

From a strictly aesthetic point of view, an in-ground swimming pool is pretty much just an area of water that is supposed to reflect the colors of the sky overhead and the pool’s floor and walls. It is the landscaping and paving around the pool that makes or breaks its appearance, so it is worth the time, money and trouble to get things right.

When designing paving around a new swimming pool, the most important thing to remember is not to make the pool look good, but to make it structurally stable. Usually, most in-ground pools have a gap of up to 500 mm wide between the outside of the pool’s wall and the edge of the excavation. The backfilling to this gap will greatly affect the stability of the pool’s walls. An issue when paving a pool is that the gap is usually not backfilled properly with compacted soil, hence the walls are not stable enough to support reinforced concrete slabs, which in turn will support paving flags.

Many contractors today choose to lay the paving flags on a special bed of wet mortar, about 50 mm thick. The paving flags should ideally be at least 35 mm thick, because if you go any thinner than that, they could break during winter.

One question is whether a better landscaping option for pools is decking instead of installing paving flags. After all, decking is a lot simpler to do and costs a lot less.
However, if you plan to have meals around the pool area, then the better option is to go with paving flags. This is because with paving flags, food that may be dropped inadvertently can be cleaned up properly. If you are unable to remove all traces of food items, this can lead to wildlife or insects feasting around the area, which is not hygienic at all.

You may also choose to have paving flags just at one side of the pool, where the sitting and eating area will be placed, and to surround all the other sides with decking.