A pool is a closed system that never connects to your potable water supply. A few building inspectors will demand to see a pressure check to make sure the lines don't leak. But they never check to see if the lines are sized correctly. They do inspect the size and viability of the gas line to the heater. The half-inch pool refill line is also inspected since it connects to the potable water supply.

Boilerplate pool contracts state the homeowner guarantees the soil has the correct load-bearing capacity and the soil is not expansive. The contractor (or owner builder) obtains a permit using boilerplate engineering. The engineer's drawing states that the design is for soils with certain load-bearing and expansive characteristics. That's it. In the last 10 to 15 years some cities have been a little more demanding, but the vast majority of pools are built with no soils tests whatsoever.

(Gunite is short for pneumatically applied concrete.) The inspector checks the distance between the steel reinforcing bars and the earth, which should normally be three inches. If that standard is met, the inspector releases the pool for gunite. The only way that the inspector could know how much material is on top of the steel (i.e., between the steel and the water) is to actually watch the entire gunite operation or by drilling samples. (One municipality does send out an inspector who stays on site for about 15 minutes of the four-hour gunite operation.) Most of us have seen pools with rust spots, caused by not enough gunite on top of the steel. This problem is so widespread that at least two firms derive their entire livelihoods from fixing rust spots in pools.

If concrete (or gunite) is ordered from a batch plant, the amount of sand, cement, rock, water and other additives are certified by a weighmaster. But when gunite is applied to a pool, a delivery of sand and cement is made to the site. The product is mixed right there in the rig. It always frightened me to see the gunite subcontractor take cement home at the end of the job. Wasn't that supposed to go in the pool?

Until then there was no universal standard for most components of pool construction. There were inspections of the steel and the electric and gas lines, to be sure. But what about whether the pool is deep enough for a diving board? How many skimmers should it have? What size pump should it have? How many pipes should go back to the pool? What size plumbing should be used? None of these issues were addressed by any standard. The builders and owners mixed and matched and tried various combinations for over 40 years. Most of the pool plumbing I see is undersized. It does not meet industry standards. And even today there is no agency that enforces existing standards. The ANSI standards were actually developed by the National Spa and Pool Institute. They had been available for several years, but compliance was strictly voluntary. It still is today. The difference is that now builders cannot plead ignorance in litigation that might ensue from lack of adherence to the standards.

Until the late '70s the final inspection was done when the pool already contained water. The inspection mainly addressed fencing. The happy customer was swimming and the happy builder had been paid. So the builder would tell the homeowner to notify him when the homeowner had finished the fences and gates. Naturally, both forgot. Around 1980, cities realized that more than 50,000 pools had been installed and a significant number had not been finalized. So most municipalities started doing a final inspection before the pool was plastered and filled, but even then some pools got filled without one.