redneck old folk country spa/pool

You talking about a stock tank pool?

So the stock tank looks interesting but I’d use a water trough. The pickup bed isn’t what I’m looking for. But good tips. Has to be at way to pump fresh water into a cheap tub when needed. But the hot tub is a problem. So open to more ideas.

Build you a pool out of concrete block. A small pool would be easy. But with equipment, it’ll cost way more than $10k. Depending on how handy you are, you could do a lot of this yourself.

Lay out your drain plumbing.

Form up and pour a footer for your block walls with L-shaped rebar placed 16” apart through sticking up to tie one cell of every block and inward toward the pool floor.

Tie footer rebar to a rebar grid for the floor of the pool. Pour the floor.

Lay block walls. Use knock-out blocks on top row and place two sticks of continuous rebar in those blocks. Tie the rebar you had coming from the footer to these.

Knock out holes for your plumbing (returns, auto fill (if you want it)) lights, and cut blocks to place skimmer.

Pour concrete in all blocks - fill them solid.

Connect all plumbing and equipment.

Install coping and tile.

Plaster the interior.

Fill ‘er up.