Small Fibreglass Pools

A small fibreglass inground pool, also called a mini, tiny or compact fibreglass pool, is a moulded shell short enough to fit a small backyard and long enough for an adult to swim across. No industry body defines where the small band starts and stops, so each builder draws it differently. MFP Easy draws the small band at 4 metres to 5.5 metres long, with depths from 1.00m to 1.78m. Three Australian competitors draw it wider. Barrier Reef Pools Perth calls 2.6m to 6.9m small. Compass Pools groups plunge and small together at 2.8m to 7.0m. Leisure Pools Australia defines small as under 3.50m wide and up to 6.00m long.

A fibreglass plunge pool is built for cooling off, floating and socialising; a small fibreglass pool gives you a swim line you can move along. Use, not size alone, separates the two.

The shortest shell MFP Easy installs is the Infinity 3, a round shell that sits below the small band: 3.00m by 3.00m, 1.45m deep, holding 6,275 litres. The Infinity 4 is 4.00m by 4.00m and 1.45m deep, holding 10,410 litres. In the small band itself the smallest swimming pool is the Malta at 4.00m by 2.00m, graded 1.10m to 1.54m deep, a 401 kg shell holding 6,900 litres. The next size up is the Serenity at 4.00m by 2.50m, 1.10m to 1.47m deep, a 379 kg shell holding 9,500 litres, the same length as the Malta on a wider footprint.

Aqua Technics classes two of the shells we install as spas, not pools: the Bastia at 3.20m by 2.00m and the Elba at 4.00m by 2.00m, each a flat 1.00m deep. Both sit outside the 4 metre to 5.5 metre swimming-pool band. Australian manufacturers do not mould much below 2.8m. Compass Pools advertises the Plunge 2.8 at 2.85m by 2.13m and 1.2m deep, Leisure Pools Australia lists the Fiji Plunge at 2.10m by 2.90m, and Swimming Pool Kits Direct advertises a 3m Yarra at 3m by 2m. The shells advertised below the 4 metre band are plunge or spa shells, built for cooling off rather than swimming, so a 2.85m footprint is not a like-for-like alternative to the 4.00m Malta.

A small fibreglass pool costs from $46,053 installed. Your site decides the rest of the number: the pricing quiz prices a small pool against your access width, slope and spoil removal in about two minutes. We confirm the exact figure once we measure the site.

Price does not scale with water volume. The excavation crew, the crane lift, the filtration package, the council approval and the fencing barely shrink when the shell does.

The MFP Easy small range is ten shells. The swimming pools run 4 metres to 5.5 metres long; the two Spa Series shells, at 3.20m and 4.00m, sit outside that band as spas. Every footprint is listed below.

Model	Footprint	Depth	Shell weight	Water volume
Bastia (Spa Series)	3.20m × 2.00m	1.00m flat	344 kg	3,800 litres
Elba (Spa Series)	4.00m × 2.00m	1.00m flat	341 kg	4,920 litres
Malta	4.00m × 2.00m	1.10m – 1.54m	401 kg	6,900 litres
Serenity	4.00m × 2.50m	1.10m – 1.47m	379 kg	9,500 litres
Verona	4.50m × 2.50m	1.10m – 1.50m	414 kg	10,300 litres
Latina	4.50m × 3.50m	1.37m – 1.78m	604 kg	18,500 litres
Allure	5.00m × 2.50m	1.10m – 1.60m	477 kg	12,800 litres
Sovereign	5.00m × 2.70m	1.00m – 1.63m	481 kg	12,550 litres
Paradiso	5.50m × 2.15m	1.05m – 1.60m	505 kg	11,400 litres
Portofino	5.50m × 2.50m	1.10m – 1.60m	498 kg	13,200 litres

We crane the shell in, so the shell itself does not have to fit down the side of the house: the excavator and the bobcat do. Access width is what we measure first, because it decides which excavator and bobcat can get to the hole.

• Access under 1.38m wide means the dig is done with a mini excavator.
• Access of 1.38m to 1.57m takes a mini excavator working with a standard bobcat.
• Access of 1.57m and over takes a full-size excavator and bobcat.
• Access of 3m or more, with the truck within 5m of the hole, sends spoil straight from the hole to the truck and shortens the dig.

The crane sets the second limit. On a tight block the crane's reach, not the shell's size, decides which crane we book, and reach is measured from where the crane stands to where the shell lands.

• A standard lift takes a 20 tonne Franna.
• A 0m to 15m lift takes a 13 to 16 tonne small slew crane.
• A 15m to 20m lift takes a 40 tonne medium slew.
• A 20m to 30m lift takes a 55 to 60 tonne standard slew.
• A 30m to 36m lift takes a 60 tonne slew with counterweight.
• A 36m to 48m lift takes an 80 to 120 tonne large slew.

Swimming Pool Kits Direct advises leaving about two metres of clearance on one side of the pool for outdoor furniture, and Complete Fibreglass Pool Kits puts the point where site access starts to add cost at under 2.5m wide. Complete Fibreglass Pool Kits also states that a fibreglass shell can sit up to about 300mm above natural ground before a retaining wall or an engineered rib system is needed. On the average new Australian residential lot of 474 square metres (Leisure Pools, citing the National Land Survey Program), the clearance kept around the water and the length of the shell compete for the same fixed space.

Small fibreglass pools are moulded in four shapes: rectangle, slimline rectangle, square and round. Rectangles fill the 4m to 5.5m band, and square and round shells are moulded at and below it. A freeform or kidney shell is barely available at this footprint, because those shapes are moulded at longer lengths.

• Rectangle. Straight sides and a floor graded from a shallow end to a deep end. The Verona at 4.50m by 2.50m and the Portofino at 5.50m by 2.50m are rectangles.
• Slimline rectangle. A rectangle moulded narrow to sit close to a boundary on a tight block. The Paradiso is the narrowest shell at the long end of the band, 5.50m of length on a 2.15m width; the Sentosa at 6.50m by 2.15m, the narrowest pool Aqua Technics moulds, runs longer than the band. Melbourne Fibreglass Pools moulds a Horizon Slimline range at 4.5m, 5.5m, 6.5m and 7.5m by 3.0m, and Barrier Reef Pools moulds the Billabong Slimline at 6.20m and 7.20m by 2.80m.
• Square. Equal length and width. Kinetic Pools moulds the Versace as a square shell at 3.0m, 3.4m, 3.8m and 4.2m.
• Round. A round shell needs clearance on all sides of one diameter; a rectangular shell needs its full length clear along one axis. Round shells sit below the small band at 3.00m by 3.00m and 4.00m by 4.00m.

Yes. Depths in the small range reach 1.78m, a comfortable standing and swimming depth for adults. The deepest shell in the range is the Latina at 4.50m by 3.50m, graded from 1.37m at the shallow end to 1.78m at the deep end, a 604 kg shell holding 18,500 litres. The Sovereign runs 1.00m to 1.63m over 5.00m of length. The two shells the manufacturer classes as spas, the Bastia and the Elba, have a flat 1.00m floor, which is worth knowing before you pick on footprint alone: a small shell is not automatically a deep one.

The floor profile is moulded into the shell at the factory, so the depth of a small fibreglass pool is fixed before the shell reaches the site. A deep end is not dug deeper on delivery day, and a flat floor cannot be graded afterwards. River Pools states that most manufacturers mould smaller shells shallower than larger ones.

Yes. Australian suppliers sell small fibreglass shells as owner-builder kits, and the advertised price buys the shell delivered to the kerb. Complete Fibreglass Pool Kits advertises $17,500 for the Easy Access Plunge, $18,700 for the Whitsunday, $20,400 for the Daintree, $20,700 for the Byron and $22,100 for the Bondi Beach Entry. Swimming Pool Kits Direct prices an inground plunge pool kit at $12,500 to $16,000 and delivers kerbside, and Bermuda Pools prices its 4.9m by 3.2m Miami kit at $18,200 including GST.

What a kit price leaves for the owner-builder is everything between the kerb and a pool full of water:

• The crane lift. The shell travels from the kerb over the house or the fence and down into the hole, and Complete Fibreglass Pool Kits prices the crane separately from the kit.
• The excavation and soil cartage. The hole is dug to the shell's profile and the spoil leaves the property, both priced separately from the kit.
• Retaining and traffic management. Retaining holds the ground where the shell sits proud of natural level; traffic management covers the road while the crane occupies it. Complete Fibreglass Pool Kits prices both separately.
• Approval, fencing and certification. In Queensland any pool holding more than 300mm of water needs council building approval, a compliant safety barrier and a record on the state pool safety register before it can be filled.

We handle the council paperwork, engineering, certification and fencing sign-off as part of every installation, and the approval fees sit inside the installed price. A kit price buys a shell at the kerb with those trades and the paperwork still ahead of the owner-builder; the from-$46,053 installed price covers them and hands over a pool you can swim in.

A small fibreglass pool is worth it for cooling off, playing and swimming across. What it gives up is stroke-and-turn swimming: 8 metres is the practical minimum length for that at home, and the small band stops at 5.5 metres. What it keeps is the rest of the specification a larger pool gets: a magnesium mineral chlorinator, LED lighting, the same premium filtration package, and the same lifetime structural warranty on an Australian-made Aqua Technics shell built with Graphene Nano-Tech construction.

Running cost follows water volume. Heating, chlorination and filtration all scale with the litres in the pool, and the spread inside the small band is wide: the 4.00m by 2.00m Malta holds 6,900 litres against 18,500 litres in the Latina, the deepest shell in the range.

Two buyers should look past the small band. If nobody in the household intends to swim and the pool is for cooling off and floating in a courtyard, a plunge pool sits on a smaller footprint. If you want a longer swim line for adults, the medium range is where the length starts, because the small band ends at 5.5 metres.