Swimming Pool - Maintenance Nightmare?

[Corporateburnout]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tryan A good friend had a pool in TX ... says "never again". Clincher was the 2 year old walking across the cover after opening the sliding glass door. Cover held her (thank god) but the back yard became essentially useless unless an adult was using it.

I live in MA and have had an inground pool for the last 20 years. It is set back about 50 feet so we've enjoyed our backyard and only allowed the kids (when they were young) and their friends in the pool area when supervised.

Pros:
-Our kids spent their teen age years in our back yard with their friends so we knew where they were at all times.
-Reduce vacation costs as we spent most of our summer poolside.
-Convenience of exercise in your back yard instead of a gym or the Y
-sanitary problems with public pools
-Entertaining family and friends.

Cons:
- Summers are too short in New England (3 month swimming seasons).
- Costly maintenance when you have a problem such as a new skimmer line @2500 or a new liner @4000.
- Frustrating water chemistry problems (two weeks ago I had to add 52 lbs of chlorine shock to the pool at start up because of "chlorine demand")

[thefed]

an update on my 15ft intex pool....i loveit! best 200 i ever spent. im thinking of getting a bigger intex pool, 12x24x 52" with pump/cover etc etc for 1100 shipped...if it lasts 5 yrs i will be happy...

talked to local pool house and can have a 24 ft round steel pool,.20 mil liner, saltwater chlorination system, covers,ladder etc installed for about $3500. not as bad as expected....

[clifp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by free4now If you're the kind of person who looks at a gym and says "If only I could have all that equipment in my home and be responsible for its all its upkeep" then a pool is probably your thing. But in my opinion a pool is the least practical thing in a YMCA to run for yourself.

Between the ages of 13 and 39 I spent roughly 20 years taking care of a pool, first my parents than mine. I am sure there were days where I appreciated having some nice place to cool off, but those were few and far between compared to the days I wanted to fill the stupid thing in.

If I had several kids between 6 and 13 who really wanted a pool, maybe I'd relent, but in general, go to a gym.

Pools are nice to have pool parties around but you said you guys are introverted so you probably don't entertain every week.
Home pools are a lousy place to exercise because they just are not long enough to do laps, basically you can only get 3 or 4 strokes before turn around. It is bad training for any type of competitive swimming and not even that great of a work out.

Yes you can hire a pool service (I was paying 65 month in Northern Cal back in 1999 so I assume it is higher.) Yes you can get robot sweepers which work for many pools, but sadly not for mine or many custom pools.

Chemicals do only take 15-20 minutes to week to maintain, but keeping the pool clean is pain in the butt. Pumps need to be run 8-12 hours a day and consume a moderate amount of electricity. Heating them even with covers is very expensive anyplace outside of Fl, AZ or So California. So if you outsource everything you can probably get away with spending $100-150/month for the pool + 50 more if you want to heat it and use it in the spring/fall.

When I sold me house I allowed a 10K credit to either replaster the pool, or fill it, most people were more interested in filling it in. I tried to talk the guy who bought the house out of replastering it and just filling it in. Next time I am in the neighborhood I'll check and see what happened.


If you decide that you don't want the pool, you will find out they add zero to the value of the house and will cost roughly $10K to get rid off.

[Rambler]

We also did pebble-tec. I suggest it, or the fiberglass.

Saline chlorinator and robotic pool sweep. We have an auto-water level (adds water automatically if it gets low. Can't vouch for electric cost since we have a solar electric system that covers it all.

We live there about 3 months of the year in total, two in summer when the pool is in use. The filter/saline chlorinator run year round 5 or so hours a day. I sweep it when I am in town, DD sweeps it once a week in the summer when I'm not there to do it. We add acid a few times a year. We maybe spend $50 bucks a year between the acid and salt. With our system, there is no need of extreme time consuming maintenance or a company to do it. On-going cost is minimal, although the initial cost was high (38x18, lots of decking and fencing, auto cover, auto saline chlorinator, auto water feed, robotic pool cleaner, two fountains, $75k). You can do it for a lot less than that if it is mainly for play, and smaller...we wanted something bigger so we could get a little exercise in as well, since DD is a swimmer.

Also, no pool heater, we may add solar heating later, but we are only there in the hottest part of summer and the middle of winter when you can't swim anyway. The cover keeps it warm.

R

[W2R]

[quote=clifp;668462] If I had several kids between 6 and 13 who really wanted a pool, maybe I'd relent, but in general, go to a gym.

"Strike one": No kids here, and I intend to maintain my gym membership whether I buy a home with a pool or not...

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp Pools are nice to have pool parties around but you said you guys are introverted so you probably don't entertain every week.

"Strike two": The last time I had a party of any kind was forty-seven years ago, so I am in that category as well. Hmm.

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp Home pools are a lousy place to exercise because they just are not long enough to do laps, basically you can only get 3 or 4 strokes before turn around. It is bad training for any type of competitive swimming and not even that great of a work out.

"Strike three": This is enough information to persuade me not to buy a house with a pool. The whole point of a pool (for me) would be to engage in an enjoyable form of exercise without leaving home.

Sounds like a pool is not for me! Maybe instead I would prefer a house within walking distance of a good gym. Thanks, Clifp.

[Moemg]

I think it really depends where you live how practical a pool is . In Florida it's a year round thing but I know when I lived in new Jersey it was a short season and not worth the bother . I have a fiberglass pool and except for occasional problems it has been easy to maintain . It does make me nervous when the grankids are over but if they are going to fall anywhere I'd rather they fall into the pool than the Bay because I'm not jumping in there any time soon .

[cute fuzzy bunny]

In the "how stupid can you be?" category, I was talking to my neighbor the other day. Good friends of theirs had their 2.5 year old drown in their pool while the wife was pregnant with their second. Two and a half years later, that one drowned in the same pool.

In a strong competitive move, one of my wifes co-workers is expecting twins any day now. They have a pool and a koi pond. The co-worker is adamant that he will NOT be putting in any fences or other child proofing on either the pool or the pond. He will be telling the children not to go near them and "raising them right" and that'll be good enough.

[Marquette]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny In the "how stupid can you be?" category, I was talking to my neighbor the other day. Good friends of theirs had their 2.5 year old drown in their pool while the wife was pregnant with their second. Two and a half years later, that one drowned in the same pool. In a strong competitive move, one of my wifes co-workers is expecting twins any day now. They have a pool and a koi pond. The co-worker is adamant that he will NOT be putting in any fences or other child proofing on either the pool or the pond. He will be telling the children not to go near them and "raising them right" and that'll be good enough.

This is what happens when stupid people realize they have an on-site Von Neumann machine.

[clifp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny In the "how stupid can you be?" category, I was talking to my neighbor the other day. Good friends of theirs had their 2.5 year old drown in their pool while the wife was pregnant with their second. Two and a half years later, that one drowned in the same pool. In a strong competitive move, one of my wifes co-workers is expecting twins any day now. They have a pool and a koi pond. The co-worker is adamant that he will NOT be putting in any fences or other child proofing on either the pool or the pond. He will be telling the children not to go near them and "raising them right" and that'll be good enough.

These folks sound like strong competitors for a Darwin like award. Ok you managed to get lucky and reproduce but we are going to get rid of your offspring before they can do any further damage to the species.

[RichardMcmillan]

Maintaining your pool is easy if you will just take not of the following:

Bi-Weekly Check

• Use AquaChek test strips to check the balance of your pool chemical.
• Maintain the water pH level at 7.4 – 7.6
• Maintain free available pool chlorine [moderator edit to remove link] at 1.0 to 3.0 ppm.
• Clean and empty the skimmer baskets; skim leaves, bugs and other debris floating around the pool.

Weekly Check

• Brush the pool walls and clean the pool floors with a pool vacuum
• Pour in a bag of shock for every 10,000 gallons of water you have in your pool. You may need to add even more after a rain storm, after many people bathed in the pool, or during unusually hot weather.
• Add some Algae Preventative to prevent algae growth.

Monthly Check

• Get a full chemical testing of your pool water by sending a sample of your pool water to a Professional Water Testing Service for analysis.

Seasonal Check

• Clean off any accumulated oils and grease on your filter with a Filter Cleaners with the Filter Cleaner Degreaser.
• Add a Flock and Metal Remover to the water, wait 24 to 36 hours, then vacuum the pool floor before swimming in it again.
• &nbspo not test your pool water during rainy or windy days. These natural occurrences will render your test results inaccurate.

[Nords]

It frequently confounds me what inspires people to make their first post here.

Mods, the software still whines about posting to two-year-old threads, right?

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords It frequently confounds me what inspires people to make their first post here.

Based on the mod edit of the post in question, I suspect it was inspired by the world's second oldest profession - spamming.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords It frequently confounds me what inspires people to make their first post here

It's a Texan thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Mods, the software still whines about posting to two-year-old threads, right?

It does.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan It's a Texan thing.

You know you'll be considered an import until you learn to say "thang".

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo You know you'll be considered an import until you learn to say "thang".

, oops, after 23 years I still haven't cracked the lingo.

[harley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardMcmillan Maintaining your pool is easy if you will just take not of the following:

I think I don't know Dick.