How to create a private swimming pool with porcelain stoneware

by Sara Costi

Looking for ideas to create a swimming pool in your garden, on your terrace or inside your home? From the huge Casalgrande Padana range, we have selected a few particularly sophisticated porcelain stoneware covering collections with impressive material appeal, which come with mosaics, decorations and trims specifically studied and redeveloped for use in swimming pools. Join us to take a look.

Relaxing in complete privacy in the pool of your own home is a dream for many, and today it can come true thanks to innovative technical solutions and an increasingly extensive, varied offer of porcelain stoneware coverings and mosaics for indoor and outdoor pools. If you have a large garden, the morphological conditions of the ground are suitable, and you can obtain permission to build one, you might like to opt for an in-ground pool.

Whether the pool is to be built indoors or outdoors, it is important to adopt a number of specific measures, especially when it comes to choosing coverings, which must be resistant to humidity and able to prevent the formation of mould. In addition, to make the most of the outdoor area surrounding the pool, it is necessary to create a paved area where the appropriate furnishing accessories can be arranged, such as loungers, beach umbrellas and seats.

The wide range of products offered by Casalgrande Padana allows you to choose the porcelain stoneware covering best suited to your needs and tastes, both for the bottom of the pool, together with different types of mosaics, and for the exterior flooring.

Casalgrande Padana porcelain stoneware pool coverings: natural as water

Private swimming pools are increasingly common, and have become not only important architectural projects, but also places designed to awaken emotions and stimulate the senses. The materials used thus have a key role to play in creating comfortable, inviting settings in which water steals the show with its calm, relaxing allure and the shot of vigorous energy it brings.

Casalgrande Padana has developed a selection of porcelain stoneware coverings in sensual shades, boasting excellent technical performance to stand up to constant contact with water and humidity. A series of collections in stoneware for covering the bottom of the pool or tiling the area around it that are stylish, long-lasting and hygienic, with formats ranging from the small 15x15 cm size up to the large 60x120 cm and including mosaics, decorations and trims such as gratings or overflow channels for the outside of the pool.

The result of a cutting-edge production technology able to deliver excellent performance and a wide range of composition solutions, a perfect choice for swimming pools are the stone-effect ceramic tiles from the Amazzonia, Basaltina, Marte, Mineral Chrom, Natural Slate, Pietra Baugè and Pietre di Paragone collections. Drawing inspiration from the rarest, most precious stones, and faithfully reproducing their veins and colours, the surface texture of the ceramic tiles is deliberately slightly rough, characterised by eye-catching three-dimensional effects in a variety of shades of colour, so that no two tiles are alike, just as in nature.

Another ideal choice for swimming pool coverings are the wood-effect ceramic tiles from the Country Wood and Newood collections, where the original beauty of wood and the pleasantly soft feel of the material are combined with excellent, lasting practical performance.

The range is completed with the line of Padana Glass mosaics in glass paste, composed of Atolli-Uni plain-coloured mosaics and Atolli-Mix multi-colour mosaics. Thanks to the 2x2 cm tesserae and the slim 3 mm thickness, it is possible to tile curved surfaces, edges and corners on both horizontal and vertical surfaces of any size, both in pools and in the areas around them, offering a flexible resource for project designers to recreate the appealing shades of colour of the water and pleasant backgrounds for wall coverings.

Pool edges: how to tile them with porcelain stoneware

Swimming pools are high-performance, technical constructions that require a painstaking planning approach and construction work, from water recovery systems to safety coverings for the architectural elements.

The two most commonly used pool edge systems for residential use are the skimmer and overflow systems.

The skimmer edge is the most common, because it is easier to construct and therefore cheaper. It is characterised by the presence of two openings commonly known as “skimmer holes”, which suck in the water and channel it towards the filtering system, maintaining the water level 15/20 cm below the perimeter edge. This system is generally used in small pools, and its main function is to prevent the water present on the pool surface from entering the pool, and to give users something to hold onto.

In overflow pools, the water is at the same level as the perimeter edge, and forms a sort of mirror effect that is pleasing to the eye and is sometimes known as an “infinity view”. By means of gratings, slots or grooves, in the overflow system, the water flows over the edge into a compensation tank, from which it is conveyed to the filtering system, where it is treated and returned to the pool through the outlet vents, generally positioned on the bottom.

Overflow edges are more complex to construct, because the pool must be built perfectly level so the water overflows evenly on all sides. They can be personalised in numerous ways: depending on the space available and the needs of the customer, the overflow can be created on all four sides or on just one.

Maximum hygiene with Bios Antibacterial by Casalgrande Padana

Thanks to the Bios Antibacterial® technology, Casalgrande Padana porcelain stoneware tiles are able to eliminate the main bacterial strains, combat unpleasant odours and the growth of mould and yeast in any type of environment, both indoor and outdoor. In addition, the benefits are even more impressive in the presence of humidity, a traditionally fertile environment for the development of bacteria. Nature, comfort and well-being, teamed with safety and lasting quality: a solid combination of technology and contemporary style.

Material research, analysis of the critical issues relating to the project and the application of advanced technical solutions are the core activities of the Casalgrande Padana technical team, which combines engineering skills with lengthy practical, direct experience, and is available to develop a range of solutions tailored to all kinds of requirements.