OT: Anyone have a small backyard pool built ...

[DAWGS1.sixpack]

Average costs and pros and cons?
Concrete vs liner, saltwater vs conventional ?
Resell value ?
Upkeep/maintenance costs?
After this summer I’m thinking about it more and more.
Someone talk me out of it.

 

[Uncle Ruckus]

You’re going to resell a pool?

 

[Faustdog]

We bought our house with a pool three years ago. First summer used it a ton. Second a little less. I think we’ve gotten in four times this year.

We had a wrought iron fence built around it because of our young kids, but it still makes me nervous.

I think $50k is pretty average for the Jackson area. You will never come close to getting your money back. They add minimal value to your home.

 

[DAWGS1.sixpack]

Thank you Faust.
17 YOU Uncle Remus!
So many **** posters on here think they are comedians or internet bad asses!

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

Move into a nice neighborhood with a nice pool, you'll be much better off.

 

[RocketDawg]

One thing to keep in mind is the liability of having a pool ... in case someone somehow gets over your fence and drowns.

 

[DAWGS1.sixpack]

Yep RocketDawg, thought of that too.
Already have a wooden fence with gate and lock and neighborhood is now mostjy empty nesters but still that chance I guess.

 

[patdog]

My parents have a pool. Don't know the numbers, but it is a pain to maintain. You have to buy chemicals and occasionally replace the pump. It got used a LOT when we were all kids and we loved it. After we all moved away, it doesn't get much use at all. And, as Uncle Ruckus said, it's going to severely limit your market if/when you want to sell the house. I think greenbean's advice is good. Just move into a neighborhood that has a pool.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Average costs and pros and cons?
Concrete vs liner, saltwater vs conventional ?
Resell value ?
Upkeep/maintenance costs?
After this summer I’m thinking about it more and more.
Someone talk me out of it.

Count on about an additional $150 month into your power bill.

Your homeowners insurance will increase.

It will not add resale value to your home.

It not adding resale value to your home won’t stop the tax assessor from upping the assessed value on your property.

You won’t use it as much as you think you will. After a while, it’s pretty much yard art.

You need to learn to take a joke. Uncle Rukus was 17’ing with you. And doesn’t play “internet badass”, as you put it.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

I am putting one in right now.. In the permitting process currently. Went with the gunite. I actually built liner pools as a summer job in high school, but very few people can build them where I live so they have a stigma as less than. And I got a wuote from an out of town liner pool contractor and it was only a few thousand dollars cheaper than gunite. I am saving money by skipping the built in spa ($10k) and the heater ($7k). The pool gets used 100 days a year out here... The spa and heater get used maybe a fraction of that... When it's cold I build fires. When it's hot, I swim in the coldest pool I can. And besides, we have a covenant that requires wrought iron fences, so Mrs Socks ain't giving me any spa action anyway.,**

I am building a 24 by 40 with a sports floor (shallow on ends 6' right in middle.) It's great for volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, etc. Most people spend 75% or more time in the shallow end of the pool. Deep end is over rated. Diving board is great for kids about 8-13.. younger are too small, older are too stupid.

Skip all the water features and stuff... Way over valued. A simple pool with nice landscape/hardscape/ features looks better than the waterfall boulders from Missouri next to a pool in an old cow pasture. Not to mention, simple pools are much easier to maintain.

In my work (concrete) I see at least 100 pools a year, maybe more... Most people love the idea of saltwater, but it's been popular long enough now that some folks are telling me that it is eating up plaster and equipment. It's not a lot of salt, but I guess it matters. I guess a lot of pool materials are designed to hold up to chlorine, but not the salt that doesn't convert.

I went with chlorine, because frankly it's simple and I am used to it. I remember the best cure for my bacne in highschool was when we got the pool going, chlorine and sunlight cleared that **** up quick, so when my boys get older I will save thousands on dermatology bills.** Also, I wear contacts, so 17 everyone that wants to open their eyes under water.

 

[coach66]

I have a 14000 gallon salt water pool and its

Not a lot of trouble or expense in the scheme of things and makes my back yard beautiful.

 

[aerodawg.sixpack]

We had a pool when I was a teenager and pretty much had the same experience as Faustdog. Pools and boats follow the adage of don't get one yourself, but have a close friend or relative with one.

If you really are getting one, make sure you get the correct material for the sidewalls. I installed in-ground pools during the summer when I was in high school. We had to replace some where people had put pools in from kits ordered online because the soil just eats through some of the metal pretty quickly.

For the house value, it probably won't make much of a difference on price relative to the cost of install, but it may make it sell quicker.

 

[GreaterCowbell]

Added an in ground pool 4 summers ago after going thru a few above ground pools (wanted to see how much we would use one first before going permanent). Installed a fiberglass pool with salt water system because I wanted as close to a maintenance free pool as I could get. So far it has been relatively trouble free (add about 3 bags of salt/yr). The dolphin cleans the pool & I empty the filters once a week. I’m spending less than 30 min a week maintaining. I went with fiberglass because although more expensive on the front end, they are cheaper over the life of the pool. The cost will be close to a liner pool after 2 liner replacements, and still cheaper than gunite. Installation was quicker also, we were swimming on day 2 and completely finished by the end of day three. Think I have about 35k in it and I know I won’t get close on resale, but the kids are in it almost daily and we enjoy it.

Stay away from the wood walled liner pools. They are cheap on the front end but are a 5-10 year time bomb. I have friends that have filled in these in due to all the problems.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Count on about an additional $150 month into your power bill.

Your homeowners insurance will increase.

It will not add resale value to your home.

It not adding resale value to your home won’t stop the tax assessor from upping the assessed value on your property.

You won’t use it as much as you think you will. After a while, it’s pretty much yard art.

You need to learn to take a joke. Uncle Rukus was 17’ing with you. And doesn’t play “internet badass”, as you put it.

Damn... You must hate your pool.

More like $75.00 a month for electricity... When you are running it.. if you are paying more time to upgrade to a variable speed pump.

My insurance premium will stay the same after adding the pool, because I do not have a diving board and already had higher liability coverage. I am not worried about adding property damage as an additional structure... No trees in site.

I bought my house in May. The appraiser dinged the value $30k against the neighborhood comps because it didn't have a pool. When I sold my other house with a pool, it added $20k to the appraisal.

Bastards do get you on the property tax... I live in Texas which is a high property tax state with no income tax... The pool added 5% to my property taxes.

It's been 100° or more 20+ days so far this summer. I miss my pool more than I would my left testicle. If I lived on a lake, I would own a boat because I would use it on the weekdays. I live in a sweltering desert land... We used and will again use the **** out of the pool. I figure counting the depreciation, chemicals, energy, and upkeep, the pool will cost us $3500-$4000k per year. That's a ****** vacation for 5-7 days. It's a hunting club membership. It's a 2 pack a day Marlboro habit. It's a set of rims and tires for my mall crawler.

 

[ronpolk]

Count on about an additional $150 month into your power bill.

Your homeowners insurance will increase.

It will not add resale value to your home.

It not adding resale value to your home won’t stop the tax assessor from upping the assessed value on your property.

You won’t use it as much as you think you will. After a while, it’s pretty much yard art.

You need to learn to take a joke. Uncle Rukus was 17’ing with you. And doesn’t play “internet badass”, as you put it.

Haha this may be the most negative post I’ve ever read here... and that’s saying a lot.

I’ve never built a pool but growing up we had one and the first house I owned had one.

They do not add that much to the electric bill. Maybe $50 to $75 during the summer months. You don’t need to run the pump that often during the winter (or at all).

I’ve only had chlorine and would probably stick to that because I know how to take care of it and I hear bad stories of salt water pools long term. People who talk about how much time you spend “maintaining” have never had a pool. If you buy the Polaris cleaner, it will keep it clean. And if you go chlorine, buy the auto feeder and you’ll only have to refill that once or twice a month. You’ll spend about 15 to 30 minutes a week working on the pool. That mostly involves scooping stuff off the top, shocking the pool and adjusting the PH if you get a big rain. It’s not hard work.

My one advice would be to add some fountains to the outside of the pool. Nothing extravagant just something to pump the water in the air and back in the pool. During the summer, this will help cool the pool water down by about 5 degrees.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Haha this may be the most negative post I’ve ever read here... and that’s saying a lot.

Did you read OP’s original post? He said “talk me out of it”. I’d assume that means to tell him the possible negatives to installing a pool. I certainly have many positives about mine, for all of the negatives. But let’s be real. There are drawbacks to installing one. I’m not trying to sell him one, so I told him the negatives about mine, to answer his post.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

We bought a house with a small saltwater pool 5 years ago. So far the biggest problem has been pool pumps. They’re made really ****** Chinese made now. I’ve had to replace one and I repaired one myself along with some minor repairs to the saltwater system itself. We put a fiberglass pool fence to keep the kids out with a gate that always latches for peace of mind.

In most cases a pool adds zero value to your house as was the case with this one we bought. Has an outdoor patio kitchen setup and a small “pool house”. All that added nothing on appraisal.

With all that being said, i would probably never build a pool and just buy a house with one already built.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Damn... You must hate your pool.

More like $75.00 a month for electricity... When you are running it.. if you are paying more time to upgrade to a variable speed pump.

.

Say a prayer each night that you aren’t on Mississippi Power. Our rates got jacked up over Haley Barbour’s money grab. Also known as the Mississippi Power Kemper Project.

And yeah, we have some water features that add to pump run costs.

 

[ronpolk]

Did you read OP’s original post? He said “talk me out of it”. I’d assume that means to tell him the possible negatives to installing a pool. I certainly have many positives about mine, for all of the negatives. But let’s be real. There are drawbacks to installing one. I’m not trying to sell him one, so I told him the negatives about mine, to answer his post.

Fair point...

 

[rem101]

A coworker of mine put one in about 3 years ago. Cost him around $35k up front. Plus maintenance cost each month. His teenage son was going to be the one in charge of cleaning the pool - yeah right. I went by right before summer and it was green, he had just bought all the chemicals to get it back right again.

I pay $100/month for a tennis club with a pool. It'll take me a 29 years to catch up to his $35k. Only way I would put a pool in is when I first bought/built a house so you could wrap the cost into mortgage (assuming they let you do that).

 

[cedog]

1. SALTWATER VS. CONVENTIONAL - Go with conventional. Saltwater is a little cheaper and easier for the first 5-7 years, but then when you have to start replacing everything that's corroded, you'll wish you didn't have a saltwater pool.

2. AVERAGE COSTS - During the summer, figure about $50-$75 for the pool pump depending on pump size and how much you need to run it. My pool is a little over 30,000 gallons and the pumps a little undersized so we run it about 16-20 hrs per day during the summer. Figure another $100-$200 per month during the summer depending on pool size and how well you maintain the pool chemistry for chlorine, stabilizer, and other chemicals as needed. One thing we recently got was a Dolphin Robotic Pool Cleaner. Think a roomba for the pool. Thing works amazingly well and we love it, but it cost $200. It keeps me from having to clean the bottom of the pool though so I think it's worth it.

3. Concrete vs liner - I've got a liner and like it. Gonna have to get it redone in a couple years, but I've heard too many people complain about their concrete pool to want concrete.

4. Resell value - Don't know, I bought this house and it had a pool and I haven't tried to resell it yet.

5. Upkeep/maintenance costs - See #2 for the summer months, during the winter, if you'll winterize the pool and keep it from turning green, figure $25-$30 during each of the winter months. If you don't, prepare to pay the price!

6. Someone talk me out of it - Can't. We love our pool.

 

[The Peeper]

It also may keep it from selling. When we bought 2 years ago the questionnaire our agent used asked if we would consider a home w/ a pool and for us it was a definite no so we didn't even look at any that had one.

 

[Seinfeld]

You only live once, man. If your family wants one and you can afford it, I say go for it

Plus, I’m thinking about putting one in at some point during the next 2-3 years, so I’ll be interested in your story!

 

[Dawgbite]

We have had a fiberglass patio pool for 20 yrs, 13 x 30 and 3-5 feet deep, I run the pump 24-7 while its open and it cost me about $75 per month. Saltwater is less water maintenance but is hell on the surrounding area such as patio furniture and electrical stuff. Maintenance and chemicals are considerably less on fiberglass than liner or gunnite. We may spend 15 minutes per week vacuuming and scrubbing, wife does 90% of it. I suggest that you invest in a good cover, one of the safety covers for the off season like you see in the adds with the elephant on it. It will keep the leaves and dirt out of it during the off season and makes start up much easier. Word of warning, an elephant can stand on it and a deer can walk across it but the hooves of a running deer will cut right through it, I can send pictures. My wife loves it so we probably will always have one as long as we are able. Insurance is no more either. Search Catalina Pools in Memphis. In 20 years, my pool has never been green. They key to a clean clear pool is making sure guest do not wear the same suit in your pool that they wore to the lake or the beach last week regardless if it has been washed. Pool suits stay in the pool house and beach/lake suits stay in the house.

 

[Yossarian39]

I am a partner in a landscape architecture firm that specializes in the design & construction of high end swimming pools. We consult on and design pools all over the United States and we build mostly in central Texas. I also built my own custom gunite swimming pool 3 years ago.

The biggest thing to remember with installing a swimming pool is that you get what you pay for. A typical residential swimming pool can run $35,000 - $500,000 or more. I wouldn't recommend anything other than a gunite (concrete) swimming pool. With fiberglass or vinyl liner you are very limited in design and they have a much shorter overall lifespan. A well constructed gunite pool will last forever and it can be customized to your individual taste and to the architectural style of the home. Additionally, you will see a much higher return on investment.

Do your research on sanitation options. A saltwater pool has just as much chlorine as a traditional chlorine pool. It just delivers the chlorine in a different way. The salt is a water softener and it increases buoyancy. Some people really like the way salt water feels, but it is very corrosive. It will limit your choices for materials (no limestone coping or decking, no cast aluminum or steel furniture). It will also shorten the life span of your circulation & filtration equipment. For most residential pools, I recommend a simple chlorine tablet feeder in conjunction with an AOP ozone generator (Dell AOP). This will significantly reduce the amount of chlorine you need to sanitize your pool and will give the water a clean fresh smell.

We work with a lot of real estate agents and custom home builders. Based on their input and my experience, I would tell you to expect an overall return on investment in all outdoor improvements up to 20% of the home value. This includes planting, irrigation, pools, outdoor kitchens, shade structures, etc. So if you live in a $350,000 home, you can expect to get up to $70,000 back in increased property value on outdoor improvements.

If a pool is designed and built properly it can be easy to care for and it will not be overly expensive to maintain. Hydraulic design is very important. Maintaining water velocities below 6 feet / second will allow the pumps to run very quietly, efficiently and it will help to reduce any risk of suction entrapment. Beware any contractor that specifies all 1 1/2" or even all 2" plumbing. For instance, when in filtration mode (In-floor cleaning system / water features not running) I am burning 160 watts, which is less than 2 light bulbs. If you hire a weekly maintenance service, they will bill you in the neighborhood of $200 - $400 / month including chems. If your contractor uses a quality equipment brand (Jandy or Pentair) you will get a 3 year warranty on all of the circulation / filtration equipment.

If you do build a pool, make sure that you have a qualified contractor. There are some great builders out there, but there are some very bad ones as well. At the very least make sure that you hire an APSP certified building professional. Genesis certification is even better, but there are fewer builders who have this. Ask for references, and call to speak with previous clients to hear about their experience before signing a contract.

 

[Shamoan]

ive never had one, but im pretty sure you are better off burning your money.

 

[tired]

I've got a 20k gal. They can be a pain at times, but it's worth it to see my kids & family enjoy it. Around here you can have it maintained for $200/month. I'm not sure what it cost in electricity. To me the good times out weigh the work involved. Look into gunite and see if that's for you.

 

[turkish]

We love our pool and I don’t think my maintenance costs are anywhere close to some of what’s quoted here. With that said, I doubt I would fork out the money to have one built. We basically feel like we got ours for free when we bought the house. So, with that in mind, I’d say it’s resale value is not more than $0.

 

[ronpolk]

ive never had one, but im pretty sure you are better off burning your money.

If you look at it from a pure investment standpoint, no doubt it’s a waste. But most things in life are, I have not realized one ounce of return money wise from all the money I’ve poured in to supporting MSU but my family and I enjoy the games and have fun. I also have never seen a return money wise from any vacation I’ve been on but I’ve had a lot of fun and made a lot of memories that I would not trade for money.

What it boils down to is do you want a feature at your house that you and your family can enjoy together for years to come. It’s expensive and you won’t see most of the money back but it’s a lot of fun. Some of my best memories from high school was several of my friends being at my house swimming and grilling.

 

[hatfieldms]

He had a valid question. How would you resell a pool?

 

[RutherfordBHayes]

With most insurance companies, your homeowners insurance won’t increase at all if you have a fence with a self-latching gate and no diving board or slide. But you should consider higher liability limits. I’ve seen where a young kid wandered over, uninvited, unbenknownst to parents or homeowners, fell in, and drowned. Courts awarded $1 Million, maybe more.

On a resale in Mississippi, you can expect to get $8,000 to $10,000 more for a house with a $50,000+ pool, nice landscaping, and a nice back deck area. But it will take longer to sale because your market is smaller; lots of people don’t want a pool.

 

[Seinfeld]

My thoughts exactly. I don't know why, but for some reason I have this weird suspicion that some of the same folks making negative comments about the investment of a backyard pool are also driving $55K King Ranches around town. There are some expenses in life that are purely for the enjoyment of life, and as long as you're good with that along with a little upkeep, I don't see anything wrong with putting a pool in the backyard.

 

[PineGroveBully]

My parents put in an inground pool when I was 14 in '97. I had siblings of 10, 8, and 4 so for the next 15 years it was basically the community hang out. So it's a great way to know where your kids are and who they're hanging out with. After a 5-10 year lull the grandkids are getting a lot of fun out of it. Definitely go with the conventional, more and more ppl are regretting the salt water. Biggest gripe I've heard is it corrodes anything metal around it.

as far as talking you out of it, and I'm speaking from experience, it's a great place for your kids to have sex. But hey, maybe they won't be as good at sneaking around as I was.

 

[Imadick]

Just completed a fiberglass pool not salt water. Between electrical, concrete decking, sod, heated and cooled and variable speed drive pump have just over $50K out of pocket so far. The pump is programmable so I have speed set to draw only about 250 watts( about 1800 rpm) for 12 hours a day this summer. That seems to be enough to keep the water absolutely clear. Haven't got amount for added electrical since house A/C is busy with all the heat this summer. We hope to extend our use with the heat pump option. It's a really big heat pump so heating or cooling will be a significant cost when used.

 

[TNT.sixpack]

Average costs and pros and cons?
Concrete vs liner, saltwater vs conventional ?
Resell value ?
Upkeep/maintenance costs?
After this summer I’m thinking about it more and more.
Someone talk me out of it.

I'm on my second home with a pool. As someone else said, we used it a lot when kids were young. Here's my take as kids get older (I have 2 boys). The boys will go to wherever the girls are. Not vice versa. So my boys 100% quit using our pool at age 14 because they were going to the girls' houses to their pools. Oddly enough, both are in college and this is the first year in over 7 years, we've used the pool regularly. We're in it every day. My wife and and I are enjoying it this year more than we ever have. I think it's just where we are in our lives. We've got older kids so we're not tied down w/ them and running them to school and sports functions and we no longer have constant home improvement projects going on. We're relaxed, we've slowed down and just in a good place now where we feel like we can finally enjoy it. And strangely enough, our college aged kids are seeing us in it and guess what? They're using it now more than they ever have. So while I would have given it away the past 7- 8 years, I wouldnt take anything for it now. Like a boat or anything else, you have to have the time to enjoy it. As for costs of maintenance and upkeep, there is none. It's salt and we have to replace the salt cell every 2 years at a cost of $400. Insurance and utilities increase is negligible. Our is 12 years old and we paid about $26K for it. Todays dollars would prob about $32-35K.

 

[AssEndDawg]

I've had a pool for a while and take care of it myself. There are some REALLY cool tools out now that make doing this much easier than in the past.

I have a gunite pool and I wouldn't go any other direction. A liner pool can not handle the same powerful shock that gunite can and thus has worse problems with algae. I would recommend using a conventional chlorine pool versus saltwater. Saltwater came into vogue back when a chlorine pool was really hard to take care of and it was worth the trade off. Salt is caustic so you are essentially reducing the life of your pool equipment ($$$) for the convenience (time) of routine maintenance. I just wouldn't do it these days.

Forupkeep and maintenance you can generally count on it costing you about $150/month. Less in the winter and more in the summer. Something will break about every other year or so (a pump, a timer, a pipe, etc.). With a new pool you will probably get a good few years without an issue though.

I use a pHin to help: https://www.phin.co/. It works well and constantly monitors the sanitizer (chlorine), PH levels and temperature. I use their yearly plan which covers about 80% of the chemicals that you need as well. I now only have to take a water sample in once or twice a year and that's usually just to check and make sure I'm good on conditioner.

Another must have is a good pump controller. I use this: https://www.smarthome.com/intermatic-pe653rc-multiwave-z-wave-wireless-pool-spa-control-system.html which really allows me to control the filter and booster pumps and turn on the fountains remotely. It's not perfect, there is no perfect solution that will never break when it comes to a pool, but I keep my pool open year around so it really helps money-wise having something that can drop the pump usage to a few hours a day in the winter while still making sure the pipes don't freeze.

I probably put a total of about a hour a week into maintaining the pool in the summer. About an hour a month in the winter. It is not nearly as bad as every acts like it is. It just really sucks when something breaks. If you are a handy man, it gets a lot easier. I replaced the booster pump myself at a cost of $240 instead of a cool grand to have it done by someone else. I had some pipes break this winter (because of some stupid **** I did) but it is just PVC so I got some pipe and glue and fixed it up in about an hour for a cost of less than $25.

All of this said, my kids live in the pool all summer. They have more friends because of the pool. My wife and I are in the pool at least a couple of times a week. We have pool parties. Even when not using the pool it is a nice water feature in your back yard. We use the crap out of the pool and I'm extremely glad we have it. But when the kids are gone and we downsize I won't have one.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Maybe it's different in Texas, but a pool adds value to a home.. point blank. You may not always understand why a house is priced where it is, because it's not line itemed by acreage, finishes, condition, pool, etc in most paperwork. The one place it is shown is the appraisal. Attached you will see where my house I just purchased got dinged $30k against two other comp houses for the lack of a pool. Those were 15-20 year old pools as well.. Those pools probably cost around $35-40k at the time they were put in as well. If anyone bought a house recently with a pool in Mississippi, I would be interested to see if there truly is no value for a pool.

View attachment 10777

 

[ckDOG]

Thanks for the tips

Definitely checking out the pHin product. I'm new to the pool world -didn't realize a service like this was out there...

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Thank you Faust.
17 YOU Uncle Remus!
So many **** posters on here think they are comedians or internet bad asses!

View attachment 10779

 

[aTotal360]

It may add value, but most people don't want one for a variety of reasons. IMO, adding a pool is like buying a custom paint job for your Harley.