DIY Pool or Splash Pad

[Jon Bon]

So I am preparing for "the worst" pools being closed this summer!!! I definitely want to set up some sort of water feature for the kids (5,5,7)

I know I can just drill a bunch of holes in PVC and get some sort of water sprinkler but it wont be dynamic and they would get bored with that pretty quickly.

Anyone have an ideas on how to do this? DIY splash pad kit perhaps? The issue I think is being able cycle the water on and off to the different jets/sprinklers etc.

I also am willing to buy a small pool and build some sort of deck next to it. I have a smaller yard, so it could not be huge. Also the kids are not strong swimmers yet so that would also be an issue. Maybe just only fill it up to the point where they can touch?

What say you hive mind?

[lthenderson]

When my kids were that age, I did two things. I bought an inflatable above ground pool that we willed to the appropriate level for them. It worked fine. We got two years out of the first one before it was destroyed by a deer using it as a drinking fountain. The second one lasted a year before it met the same fate. But they are incredibly cheap. The only thing I didn't like was that you had to stay on top of things treating them or they got funky pretty fast.

The second thing I did was rig a sprinkler to one of the poles outside of their trampoline. The sprinkler was a lawn sprinkler that oscillated and that got lots of mileage out of that, more so than the pool. I just used a couple of plastic zip ties to hold it in place. My oldest is not almost 14 and they still like the trampoline and sprinkler.

I have bought a couple plastic slides with sprinklers built in to lubricate the slide with water. At least the two we owned were junk and almost single use. The sprinkle feature was hard to dial in so it was actually lubricating the slide and not over or under shooting. The grommet holes where you stake the thing in place generally ripped out almost immediately.