Mrs. texascoder and I are thinking about having a new house built and a pool is on our wish list. But, I've never had a pool. I realize there's a certain amount of maintenance associated with it, and I'm not sure whether the negatives outweigh the positives. We would definitely enjoy using it for relaxing and entertaining friends, etc. Any pool owners out there with any advice? Are you glad you have a pool, or is it too much of a pain in the ***? Even though we're in the Austin area, should we plan on a heated pool? I know this is a dumb question while the temps are in triple digits, but we'd like to be able to use the pool in the spring and fall too. How much in monthly costs should we expect for maintenance? Any recommendations on who to hire to build the damn thing? Is the idea of owning a pool sort of like owning a boat where the two best days are when you buy it and when you sell it?
In my experience, people whose daily lifestyle revolves around their pool are the happiest with them. For those who use their pool less frequently, it can quickly become a headache they regret purchasing. I've known both types of folks--those who can't imagine a home without one and those who will never get another one. Therefore, it all depends on you and your family's lifestyle, and your tolerance for regular pool chores and nontrivial maintenance costs. Of course, if you get one and change your mind, there's no easy way out.
We had a house built almost exactly a year ago, with a pool. We don't use it every day, but we enjoy it very much. I have always wanted a backyard pool, and am not disappointed in the least. Maintenance isn't very difficult or expensive for that matter, so if you're a water person, go for it. As for heated...get a hot tub, don't heat the entire pool. Heating a pool in the winter time would be insanely expensive to do. If you are in the Austin area and need a recommendation, I wholeheartedly recommend our pool builder, Lakeside Custom pools. They came with an idea that we thought sounded weird (diagonally directed pool, rather than left to right in our backyard), but we went them, and it looks excellent. Also, the way they laid out the deck was very cool.
Burntorng could not have said it better. I have a kid who went to State in both swimming and water polo and hasn't been wet at our home in years and neither has anything other than one of my cell phones and me (while trying to pull a branch out) and I ******* HATE the pool. I probably spend well over a grand or two and who knows how many hours every year just trying to keep it from being a mosquito factory. If my family enjoyed it and it was the cheese in a "mousetrap", I would not hate the thing at all.
I use to work for Randy at Lakeside custom pools and I wouldn't have a pool built by any other builder. He will take care of you.
Thanks for all the comments so far everyone... much appreciated. I think Mrs Texascoder would pretty much live in the pool if we had one, plus I was thinking that it would be a great draw for the grandkids when they come along (none yet but you never know). Sounds like I need to talk with Lakeside Custom pools if we decide to build one "The Eyes of Texas", with regard to maintenance you mentioned that it wasn't all that expensive. How much $$$ are we talking? $100 a month or less?
Maintenance is pretty easy and inexpensive. I don't remember exactly but if was under $50 for us. Our pool was under $100 counting electricty. If you get a spa it will be set up to heat your pool as well
You know this, of course, but I'll mention it anyway. If you get the pool and eventually have grandkids, do everything you can to kid-proof it until they learn to swim. Nothing is sadder than a little kid drowning in a pool that was intended for family enjoyment.
Get what you want. It is harder to add to pool area after the pool is finished. Most of the time customers tell me they wished they had gotten more deck area. If you are thinking about a Salt system, please do some checking before you have one installed. Salt does damage to area around pool and also can kill plants and trees.
Wife and I bought a house with a pool a few months ago and I had many of the same questions. This pool is 27 years old (with new plaster) with some old equipment, but the general idea and pros/cons are the same. We have loved having the pool and get in almost everyday right now. We also work from home, have a 17mo old that loves to get in the water, and have many friends with and without kids that come enjoy it. Thus, the work hasn't seemed bad because we are using it a lot. I am sure when we aren't using it in the winter I won't be as jazzed about it. I've been doing the maintenance myself and it's had some ups and downs. Overall the pool looks great and has been fine, but I'm learning every week/month that the pool store people are well-meaning but don't really know what they are doing. And if you get a service that comes weekly you have to realize that they add enough chemicals to last all week....so your chemistry will swing a little more than with manual daily testing/chemical adding. That's probably fine for many people but I didn't want to spend the money on a service and I kind of enjoy testing the water and messing with it (but again, I've been here only 4 months....) We had a fence installed not too long after moving in and I would recommend these guys if you want to go this route. Pool Guard Texas It's fully removable (ours takes about 2 minutes to fully take down, probably 5 to put back up) and can take some abuse. If you don't get a fence you should get a childproof cover (once kids are a concern). The fencing isn't cheap, but there's NO option to not have a fence/cover if there will be kids playing, and the money is well worth it to be able to let the kids run around the yard without having to worry about anyone falling in the pool. We almost never take ours down and swim with it up everyday.
in reply to your question, less than $100/month, and probably less than $50. We have the system that uses chlorine pucks, and a bucket of those costs somewhere around $70....the pool builders left us with one. We've had the pool about a year, and I've only bought one additional. You need some muriatic acid, but not much. I bought 4 gallons and have used a total of about 3. We have a DE filter, so we have to put some of that in whenever we backwash, but that costs about $17 for a bag, and we've only used about 1 bag in the yr we've had the pool. Don't get a salt system....people who say it's salt water don't know what they're talking about...it is a system that chlorinates the water by separating the chorline ion from salt...the water is slightly salty just because it isn't 100% efficient....the equipment wears down, and the water erodes any stone surface you might have, like a spillover from your spa to your pool...
One thing to keep in mind - if you miss a few days mowing your lawn, the only upshot is long grass that is corrected as soon as you mow. If you miss a few days servicing your pool (perhaps being out on business travel?), you may have a real algae problem, and that doesn't go away as easily as mowing grass. The way to avoid that is a pool service. I have a pool service - costs me $115/month, and they take care of everything. My only other out-of-pocket is buying leaf bags for that stupid Polaris! HHD
Even with a pool service you have to unload the polaris and skimmer yourself during peak leaf periods. At my house that is every day. Sometimes three times.
If you are getting one built, I'd recommend looking hard at going for a saltwater system. Using the normal pucks builds up CYA (stabilizer) and causes you to have to maintain a higher and higher level of chlorine to be effective. This is why people have to drain their pool eventually when shocking it doesn't work anymore. Having a chlorine generator in a saltwater pool gets around this. You can use pucks to get your stabilizer up to about 30ppm and then have it produce all the chlorine. And you use a low level of salt that should tasteless and will just feel a little softer (which isn't a bad thing).able to tell it's saltwater. Money wise it's a wash but it does make it easier to maintain.
Saltwater is the way to go...we cnoverted this spring and LOVE it. It has drastically reduced/eliminated our chemical costs, and the pool is so much more pleasant
Just to keep it from being easy, I'm going to argue against a salt system. We had a pool put in about 5 years ago and, at the builder's recommendation, put in a salt system. It is actually as saltwater pool. You keep the salt percentage in a certain range and a chlorine generator breaks the NaCl atom down into sodium and chlorine. Initially, we loved it, but had some problems with the generator and had trouble keeping the chlorine level up. Also, if you have native rock as part of the decking or pool outline, the salt breaks down the rock, clogging your filter. A couple of years after our pool was put in, our pool builder told me he had converted his pool from saltwater to a direct chlorine system. I'm going to convert mine this winter.
We almost pulled the trigger on a new pool. However, here in the San Angelo area they think we have less than 2 years of water on hand, barring a major uptick in rainfall. So, we'll wait until that's sorted out What do you all think of Fiberglass vs. Gunite, other than the obvious limitations in Fiberglass designs?
