Tanning ledges: are they worth it?

A tanning ledge, also called a sun shelf or Baja shelf, is a large flat area inside the pool with just a few inches of water over it. You can lie on it in a chair made for the water, sit with a drink, or let a toddler splash around while you sit next to them.

Liberty Composites, the fiberglass manufacturer we install, gives its standard ledge depth as 12 inches from the top of the pool, which works out to about 6 to 8 inches of water. That is shallow enough for a lounger's legs to sit on the floor with your body in the water, and deep enough to stay wet and cool on a hot day.

On a fiberglass pool the ledge is molded into the shell, so it is there on install day with nothing extra to build. Liberty also sells two standalone fiberglass ledges that set beside a pool: the Purity, 7 ft 8 in by 15 ft 8 in, and the Symmetry, 8 ft 4 in by 16 ft, both 10 inches deep. On an ICF concrete pool we can form a ledge at any size and depth you want.

Our swim season runs roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day. A heater and a cover stretch it, but plenty of days in late May, June and September are warm enough to be outside and not warm enough for a full swim. The ledge covers those days. You can sit in a few inches of sun-warmed water with your feet in and never get your hair wet.

Shallow water on a sunny ledge also feels warmer than the deep end, simply because there is so little of it between you and the sun. On a July afternoon in Akron or Canton, that is where most of the adults end up.

Then there are the kids. A ledge gives little ones a place to play in water they can stand in. That is not a substitute for watching them, and we come back to that below, but for families with small children it changes how the pool gets used in the first few years.

Space, mostly. The ledge sits inside the pool's footprint, so every square foot of ledge is a square foot you cannot swim in. On a big pool that barely matters. On a small one it can leave you with a pool that is mostly ledge and steps.

Look at the numbers on a mid-size model. Liberty's Hero is 12 by 26 feet and holds about 7,000 gallons, with a ledge, swim-up seating and multiple entries. It works because it is long enough to fit both the shallow shelf and a real swimming area. On a 9 or 10 ft wide plunge-size pool, a ledge crowds out most of the water.

Our rough rule: if you want to swim, play catch or float in the deep end, pick a pool with enough length that the ledge takes no more than a small share of it. Our 3D design shows you exactly how the ledge, steps and swimming area split the pool before you commit, so this does not have to be a guess.

A standalone ledge like the Purity or Symmetry is a different trade. It adds shallow water beside the pool instead of taking space from it, but it adds to the project cost and needs room on the lot, and a wider deck around it.

• Lap swimmers. If you want the longest unbroken swim lane your yard can fit, a ledge is in the way.
• Small yards. Where setbacks and a septic field squeeze the pool down to a small model, give the space to water you can swim in.
• Divers and deep-water players. A ledge shifts volume to the shallow side. Remember that Liberty's fiberglass pools are non-diving unless noted otherwise.
• Anyone who really wants a spa. If the budget only covers one feature, a spillover spa does more for the Ohio shoulder seasons than a ledge.

None of that makes a ledge a bad idea. It just means the ledge has to earn its place against the other things you could do with the same money and space.

Liberty's model list uses three terms that sound alike and are not. A tanning ledge is the big flat shelf with a few inches of water, wide enough for loungers. A wading area is a shallow section, usually at one end, deep enough to stand in and play but not meant for chairs. Liberty lists wading areas on models such as the Dignity, Poise and Virtue. Swim-up seating means benches under the water, where you sit shoulder deep and talk. Almost every Liberty model has some.

They solve different problems. If your goal is a place for adults to lie in the sun, you want a ledge. If you have kids under six and want them standing in water at their own height, a wading area might serve you better, and it takes less space than a full ledge. If you mostly picture friends sitting in the pool with a drink after dinner, benches do that without giving up much swim space at all.

Plenty of people come in sure they want a ledge and realize, once they see a wading area and long benches side by side in the 3D design, that the other option fits how they actually use a pool.

In-pool loungers. Regular patio furniture will float off or rust. Brands such as Ledge Lounger make chairs that you fill with water to weigh them down. Their Signature Chaise is built for 0 to 9 inches of water and is 70 inches long, and they suggest at least 60 inches of ledge for it. Measure your ledge against the chair before you order. Ledge Lounger also says its chaise loungers cannot withstand freezing temperatures, so in Ohio they come out of the pool and go in the garage or basement for the winter.

Bubblers. Liberty offers bubblers on all of its models and ledges. They push a small dome of water up through the ledge surface. Kids sit on them, and the sound is nice from the patio. We place them after we lay out the chairs in the design so a bubbler does not end up under a lounger.

An umbrella. On a hot, clear day, shade on a shallow ledge is worth having. If you want one, pick a stand made to sit in the water, and plan for where it goes in the design.

Light. A ledge is a good place for one of the pool's LED lights. At night the shallow water glows and marks the edge of the shelf, which also helps people see where the deep water starts.

A ledge is safer to play on than the deep end, but a toddler can still reach the edge of the shelf and slide into deep water in a second. The CPSC says children younger than 5 account for about 75 percent of child pool drownings, more than half of them tied to a gap in adult supervision, and that most of the children had been missing for 5 minutes or less when found.

Treat the ledge as a place to play under supervision, not a babysitter. Pick one adult whose only job, for a set stretch of time, is to watch the kids in the water, and hand the job off out loud when it changes. We also like a clear visual line where the ledge ends: a contrast tile or a light helps.

And, of course, the pool still needs the barrier your town requires. The ledge changes none of that.

It can. Automatic covers need a straight run along the sides of the pool, so a ledge inside a rectangular pool is usually fine, while a ledge that bumps out of the pool's outline is not. Liberty lists several of its ledge models as auto-cover ready, the Compassion 12.26 among them. If a cover is on your list, and in Ohio it often should be for heat and safety, we pick the model and ledge position with the cover in mind from the start.

For a family pool of mid size or larger, yes. It adds a second way to use the pool, it suits the cooler edges of an Ohio summer, and it gives young kids a shallow area without building a separate wading pool. On a fiberglass shell it comes built in, so the question is mostly which model, not what extra you pay to build it.

For a small pool, a lap pool, or a family that already knows it wants a spa, put the space and money elsewhere. Bring your yard and your wish list to the consultation and we will show you both versions in 3D. Seeing the ledge next to the swimming area usually settles it.