The Complete Handbook of Pool Water Slides

Chapter 1: Understanding Pool Water Slides

Walk out to any backyard with an inground pool, and you can see the appeal instantly: a painted fiberglass flume rising over the water, a thin stream of water sheeting down its surface. But the difference between a joy ride and a liability claim is not visible to the eye. It lives in numbers: gallons per minute, dynamic head, slope degree, and radius curvature. This chapter establishes a working definition of a pool water slide and gives you the mechanical and hydraulic knowledge you need to understand everything that follows in this book.

Consider first what a pool water slide is structurally. It is not a single object, but a system of components working in concert. The primary structure is the flume itself, which is the long trough or tube that supports the rider. The flume is supported by a framework of legs, struts, or a solid base, and the framework is anchored to a concrete pad or an integrated deck. Then you have the water delivery network. A pump draws water from the pool, passes it through a filter (usually the pool's main filter) and a heater (if installed), and then sends pressurized water through a dedicated pipe up to the slide's entry point. At that point, an inlet manifold distributes water into the slide's grooves, channels, or a full-width weir at the top of the flume.

The critical thing to understand is that the slide is not merely a static piece of