Earth Friendly Plungie

Housing blocks are getting smaller, people’s sensitivity to increased water and energy usage is heightened, the market trend is moving toward smaller, more water/energy efficient homes - but pools haven't evolved. Traditional swimming pool construction methods are not efficient. There were no efficiencies offered in pricing for choosing a smaller pool - no reward for buying responsibly. A 14, 000L pool would cost the same to construct as an average 40,000L pool due to multiple trades, high levels of waste and multiple trips to the site. The smaller/responsible pool was overlooked. A new, more sustainable, commercially viable method of construction was needed.

The original scope was to develop efficient small inground pools for flat blocks. The final “Plungie™” is installed both inground/above ground, on flat/sloping blocks. World first monolithic step/bench design reduces material volume and provides equipment housing area under the steps, that reduces the plumbing run and equipment noise. A shear wall design was developed to easily adapt the Plungie™ into an infinity pool, also lending itself to aesthetic cladding options. Smart design and Earth Friendly Concrete material achieving 30% strength improvement and saving 90% carbon emissions over tradition concrete was used to exceed the scope and achieve a holistic solution.

.The Earth Friendly Plungie™ promotes happy healthy people swimming more often. With a lower acquisition and ongoing operational cost the Plungie™ is more accessible to a wider community. By creating an entirely new level of pool ownership, the Plungie™ brings more people together and interacting ‘phone’ free. The Plungie™ encourages more active time spent outdoors, proving a sustainable alternative to spending time inside in the air-conditioning. Commercially home builders are installing the Plungie™ as part of their outdoor energy compliance requirements which provides significant benefit to the overall home design and is on trend for future mass market appeal.

The Plungie™ is a great example of when design for manufacture, sustainable materials, lean manufacturing and a real-world demand coalesce into what we believe Good Design is all about. The Plungie is a well-designed practical product that achieves a premium result that above all is commercially viable. The Plungie™ has been designed from the ground up to achieve a balance of lightest possible weight with the strength needed for competing forces of lifting, transport, flex, whilst also withstanding the dynamic loads applied across the entire spectrum of installation variables. The adaption of a light weight thermo-pneumatically applied, high performance polymer waterproof interior, the monolithic step coupled with a shear wall design achieved the necessary economic and practical installation mass while offering a flawless design profile and functional swimming area. To achieve the required strength and shortened cycle times, advance manufacturing techniques were custom designed, which required us to also develop a non-traditional high tolerance reinforcing method. This was coupled with advanced geo polymer concrete technology that achieves extreme high early strength, increased water proofing and reduced cycle times in production. Our Plungie is changing and improving people’s lifestyles in Australia and soon globally.