Pool Pad Planner

How to Plan an Equipment Pad

Start with what you cannot move: the pipes that already come out of the ground, the wall or fence behind the pad, the gate you carry a filter cartridge through, and where power and gas arrive. Those go in first as connection points and markers. Everything else is arranged around them.

Then follow the water. Suction lines from the skimmer and main drain join and enter the pump. The pump feeds the filter. Filtered water goes through the heater, then any UV or ozone system, and the chlorine source goes last before the return. That order is not a style choice: unfiltered water fouls a heater, and chlorine-rich water straight from a salt cell or feeder attacks it.

Leave room to work. A filter that fits on the pad is not the same as a filter whose lid you can lift and whose cartridges you can pull. The Service clearance layer draws those envelopes so you can see where a pump basket, heater front, UV lamp or chemical tank refill needs space. A pad that is a foot wider often costs less than the service call it avoids.

Measure before you trust the numbers. With a pad width and depth entered, the planner measures routed pipe and counts elbows. Without them, the drawing is an unscaled concept and the checklist says so. The pool plans show finished pads for ten common layouts if you want to see where you are heading.

The Main Equipment Categories

• Circulation pump. Variable-speed pumps run slowly and quietly most of the day and speed up for cleaning or heating. Our best variable-speed pumps guide covers the models in the catalog. An existing single or two-speed pump can be mapped as owned equipment.
• Filter. Cartridge filters need no backwash valve and no waste line. Sand and DE filters backwash to waste, which means a legal place for that water. The pool filter guide compares the three.
• Heating. Gas heaters need a gas line, venting clearances and a check valve ahead of any chlorine feeder. Heat pumps need open air on every side. See best pool heaters and best heat pumps.
• Salt systems. A cell goes last in line, after the heater, with its flow switch and straight pipe per the manual, and a power center on the wall. See best salt chlorine generators.
• Dosing and feeders. Liquid chlorine and acid each need their own tank, pump, tubing and injection fitting, and they run only while the circulation pump runs. Tablet feeders are inline or offline and need a check valve. See best chlorine injection systems.
• UV, ozone and AOP. Supplemental treatment plumbs after the filter and often on a bypass. You still keep chlorine in the water.
• Cleaners. Robots, pressure-side and suction-side cleaners connect in three different ways, covered below.
• Monitoring. A smart monitor such as the Ondilo ICO reads ORP, pH and temperature from the pool. Store ORP in millivolts and keep free chlorine from a test kit as its own number in your chemistry log.
• Valves, pipe and fittings. Tees create branches and count as fittings. Two-way valves isolate lines, three-way valves divert pool and spa, and check valves stop backflow.
• Automation and power. Panels, timers and the sub-panel are markers on the wall so the electrician sees what needs circuits. Bonding is on every checklist.

Suction, Pressure, and Robotic Cleaners Connect Differently

A suction-side cleaner is pulled by the pump. Its hose goes to the skimmer or a dedicated suction line, and everything it picks up lands in the pump basket and filter. The planner connects it only to a suction endpoint and adds the hose, regulator and skimmer adapter the model ships with.

A pressure-side cleaner is pushed by filtered water. Some models need a booster pump on a dedicated line with a wall fitting; others run on the filter pump through a return. The booster rule is stored per model, so a Polaris 280 asks for its booster and a Polaris 360 does not. The booster feeds from after the heater and before the chlorinator, and it must be wired to run only when the filter pump runs. Our pressure-side cleaner guide explains the tradeoffs.

A robotic cleaner has its own pump and filter. It needs a power supply on a GFCI outlet at least ten feet from the water with a cable long enough to reach the far end, and optionally a caddy and spare fine filters. It adds no plumbing. The best robotic pool cleaners guide covers the Dolphin and Clear models seeded in the catalog.

Switching from a pressure cleaner to a robot removes the booster, the dedicated line fitting and the feed hose from the plan; the replacement preview shows exactly which rows change before you apply it.

Understanding the Water Flow Diagram

The Water Flow view redraws your connections as a schematic: suction sources on the left, the pump, the filter, then heating, treatment and chlorine devices in the order you plumbed them, and returns on the right. Waste paths branch off the filter, cleaner lines branch off the return side, and chemical feed, sample water and power show as thin dashed lines.

Boxes in the schematic are not the physical equipment, so moving things there is deliberately impossible. Change the operating mode in the top bar to see what is active: in filter mode the waste path is dim and raises no errors; in backwash mode it must have a destination; spa mode highlights spa suction and return.

The diagram is where order problems show up. A heater drawn before the filter, a salt cell upstream of a heater, or acid injected after chlorine each produce a conflict with a one-line reason.

Plumbing Appearance Options

Two different colors control the pipes. The diagram color belongs to a circuit (suction, return, waste, cleaner, chemical) and only helps you read the plan; you can override it per pipe and nothing on the checklist changes. The actual pipe appearance previews what you intend to install: white PVC, gray Schedule 80, black or painted, blue flexible, or a custom color, for the whole project, per circuit, with fittings matching or in their own color.

Appearance never establishes suitability. Material, size and pressure rating are set per pipe, and the checklist groups pipe by those, not by color. Drain-waste-vent fittings look like pressure fittings and are not.

Two lines that cross on the plan stay separate. A branch exists only when you add a tee or a three-way valve, which also puts that fitting on the list.

How the Shopping Checklist Works

Every row comes from something on the plan: a piece of equipment, a part the manufacturer says it needs, a route you drew, or a rule such as a check valve between a heater and a chlorinator. Open "Why" on any row to see the reason and jump to the object on the layout.

The quantity math is simple and visible. Required is what the design needs. Included is supplied by another selected package, such as the unions and gauge that come with a filter. Owned is what you already have, and purchased is what you have bought for this build. Remaining is required minus those three, never below zero, and each allocation is kept separately so a part is never deducted twice. Original accessories on owned equipment count only after you confirm they are present and reusable.

Pipe is grouped by size and material, totaled from the measured routes plus any vertical or off-page run you enter, increased by the allowance you choose, and converted into stock lengths. Buried and unknown runs are listed but not counted. Media comes from the manufacturer's documented charge; when we do not have it, the row says select filter media rather than guessing.

Prices are the ones you type in, plus The Pool Nerd store prices for the Dolphin robots we sell. When some rows are unpriced the budget is labeled Priced items subtotal. Optional upgrades start unselected, installation work sits in its own group to confirm with your installer, and anything you bought that a later change made unnecessary stays visible as surplus.

Accuracy and Tool Limits

The planner knows equipment order, connection rules, typical footprints and documented accessories. It does not know your soil, drainage, setbacks, wind, noise rules, electrical code edition, gas pressure, or pump curve. Flow-dependent decisions such as pump speed for a suction cleaner or minimum return pressure for a booster-free cleaner need the manual and, often, an installer. Treat every exported packet as a planning layout and verify site measurements, manuals, hydraulics, electrical and gas requirements, and local rules before installation.

Pool Pad Planner FAQ