inground swimming pool ?s

B

BernOrange

500+ Posts
I'm getting conflicting info from different pool builders (or at least their salesmen). Any thoughts on the following:Sanitation
Regular chlorine system - burns the eyes

Salt system - steadier chlroine levels, but corrosive and long term maintenance problems

ozonation/chlorine system - less chlorine in the pool, but expensive and may mask problems (cracks/leaks) in water circulation system

Plaster/pool lining
the last builder I spoke with told me that the base plaster (without granite or other additives) is the best finish (ie. smoothest) and the others are commonly just sold to increase profit margins and make defects in the lining harder to see (less warranty claims).

~~~

Any other advice you care to share would be appreciated.
 
My best advice: Don't build the pool. Save your money and buy a car... Or a deck... Or anything else.

As far as the chlorinators go, I've had regular chlorinators in all the pools during my life and never really had a huge eye burning problem. Maybe its b/c I don't know the difference but if the regular ones are the cheapest solution by a large amount, I don't think you would be amiss to go with it.

I assume by "regular" you mean you drop tablets into a cyclindrical feeder and you control the water flow through the feeder to control the amount of chlorine in your pool.
 
No to pools! Pools are awful wastes of time and money. Unless your kids are 8-14, they won't use it. Younger than that they can fall in and die (7.5x more likely than handgun deaths). Older kids are too cool for it. There is a sweet spot where they'd love it, but its really not necessary. Just have em make friends with a kid who does, or go to the public pool.

A good portion of buyers prefer no pool. Its debatable whether its a selling point. I didn't put an offer on my house until I got a quote to remove it. I'm glad every day that I don't have to check on stuff on the pool.
 
Um, I love my pool. I know a lot of people loathe them or think they are too much work or they are a waste of money, but I love it. Now, I did buy it in a house that already had one, so I didn't pay up too much for it. But I'm not exactly sure how my backyard would get used from the months of May through September in constant 90 to 100 degree temps unless I had one.
 
I would love to have a pool and am going to likely get an above ground small'ish one. But I won't be in it much. But the dog will be in it just about every single day. She adores swimming and I cannot get her to Bull Creek or Redbud as much as I would like to.

All I want a pool for is the dog.
 
My lab spends more time in the pool spring, summer, fall and winter than all of my family and friends combined. Sometimes I'm not sure if he is otter or lab...
 
I wish my house didn't have a pool (see waste of money discussion above), but with that said:

1. We use chlorine tablets. I've never had a problem with them and the chlorine doesn't seem to bother my kids. My pool guy keps telling me I should upgrade to a saltwater system, but I don't want to spend the money. I have heard really good things about saltwater systems, but have never actually seen a pool with one.

2. We replatered our pool about 2 years ago, which I have to admit was a good investment. The guy used a smooth plaster, which has made a big difference not only on our feet, but has also cut down a bunch on algae.

One thing I would stress is to not cheap out on the filter. Get the biggest/best filter you can. Makes a huge diference. Also, depending on how big your pool is, look at getting a solar cover rather than using the pool heater. If you heat with the pool heater like my wife, your gas bill might rival your mortgage payment.

Good luck... and don't get pool (sorry, just had to throw that in).
 
Standard White is smoother. If you get this have them add (Meta Max) to it. It will make it a little smoother, Harder and a little more Chemical resistant.
I actually make more money on white plaster than I do on color.

Salt systems are good, it should cost you about $1200 to have installed. I the long run it will pay for it selve. Them are long term maintanace problems with both Chlorine and salt.
 
Thanks everyone for the responses.

We had a cheapy above ground pool last year and the family got a ton of mileage out of it. There is no neighborhood pool where we live (and the city pool is far away and uses too much chlorine).

The biggest problems I had with the aboveground pool was that our back yard is not very level and so we couldn't fill the pool all the way to the top. The pool leaned to a side and could be collapsed if someone fell on the low side during horseplay.

Also, even after upgrading to a commercial pump, it had poor circulation and all the debris from our messy trees was a maintenance nightmare with algae.

I'm with SynTex on the issue of to have or not to have.

@DieUCLA98, yes, the chlorine systems all use those pucks. Home pools aren't as bad a community pools (which use a higher chlorine level because they have more people using them), but they still burn my eyes after an hour or so in the water.

@KS1866, do you have any more details (brand name, type) on the "smooth plaster" that was used on the replastering job? We are planning on going with the best pump & filter we can buy. We learned our lesson on the maintenance nightmare of an inadequate system with the above ground pool.

I'll keep the solar cover in mind, but I don't envision us using the pool in the winter. When I was a teenager, my parents had an inground pool (not heated) in this general area and it was just fine (too hot at times in the summer in fact).

@LH-Pools, thanks for the feedback. Is Meta Max one of those granite additives? Do you have any experience/opinion with the ozonation systems (add-ons to a chlorine system)? We're leaning away from a salt system right now as we've heard they are harsh on natural stone/flagstone decks/coping/landscaping.
 
Dont have much to add, but my in laws have a salt water pool, and it is the nicest pool I have ever been in. I have issues with chlorine and feel nasty after swimming in normal pools. I actually feel clean after using there pool. Based on that alone I would recommend salt water. They also say maintenance is easy.
 
I didn't grow up with a home pool and was reluctant to do it when the wife and kids (ages 7 & 12) begged for years. I didn't want the cost or maintenance headaches. However, we put in a salt water system pool 2 years ago and I'm glad we did it.

I actually use my backyard now and enjoy time at home on the weekends, chilling with a brew and grilling some food.

Maintenance is low with salt water systems. Just skimming out leaves and adding a few chemicals about once a week.

We also have a hot tub (about $6-8K) which gets a lot of year round use. Don't cut costs there. Also, get a remote keypad for changing valves, lights, water effects, filter, cleaner, etc...
 
I have an inground fiberglass pool. Its not the most beautiful thing in the world, but its been in my backyard since 1978. It still works just fine, I even replaced the concrete pool deck around it two summers ago, it lasted longer than the deck did. It gets a leak around the jets about every 5 years or so, takes three hours and 15 bucks to replace the jet, with digging and everything. I am pretty much sold on the durability of the things, they are pretty much bulletproof. I have added a DE filter over the years to replace the old cartrige one, but that was an upgrade, not necessary.
I have a chlorine system, I don't really knock myself out watching my chemicals too closely, but it doesnt have algae problems, and dont swim much , just like the way it looks mostly.
 
Realize that if you put in a pool and then sell your house later you've cut your potential pool of buyers (pardon the pun) in half.
 
You can always put a pool in but its a ***** to take one out.

People who don't want a pool are automatically out, like us when we went to buy a house. And I seldom talk to anyone who really really loves their pool and all the trouble that goes with it. People who want a pool wont necessarily cross off a property because it doesn't have one because they know they can add one.
 
I've been told that it's not difficult to remove a pool at all. The cost isn't all that much compared to a house (< $10K). You basically cap the plumbing, terminate the electrical, jackhammer the crap out of the gunnite, and fill it in with dirt. (I'm sure that's an oversimplification of the process, but not by much.)

The problem is that few buyers who don't want a pool are willing to even consider the idea of "risking" problems down the line, or might not even think it's possible in the first place.
 
Thing is, you may have to list in your sellers disclosures that you had a pool removed. I don't think that would be a big deal, provided it was done properly. I think I paid $4k, but I do need a couple more yards of dirt since its still settling (the dry winter hasn't helped finish the process). Heck, if the next owners wants to put in a pool, I bet digging the whole will be way faster. But still, its an issue.
 
We went through the pricing thing last year and came to the conclusion that if we got a pool:
1 - No built in hot tub - looks great but in most designs heating them is really inefficient - get a separate hot tub
2 - We wanted smooth plaster but tinted
3 - We would get chlorine with ozination - we would have limestone hardscaping and did not want to erode it.
4. get a textured cool decking material with natural stone accents - too expensive for the full stone treatment.
 
pulque,
How much more cleaning has to be done because you let your dog into it? When we were looking for our present house, generally we downgraded any houses which had built-in pools. One of the reasons is we had a Golden Retriever/Black Lab mix (had the long hair of the golden) who loved to swim. Figured all that hair would clog the circulating pump.

OP, sorry I can't be of help. I'm in the no pool camp - seems like too much hassle for not much reward.
 
I JUST removed a pool from my backyard. $6k. I think the whole limiting your universe of buyers is way overblown i think as it is only a $6k problem to make it go away.

Dont expect to get a dime for it when you resell though, in fact the opposite if you sell to a person who doesnt want it.
 
So the trick is if you are buying a house and there is a pool there, tell them you don't like the thought of a pool and you would buy the house if it were not there. Then let them toss out a figure, lower it and then voila, you get a cool house AND a pool. Brillitant.

I am prepared to clean the hell out of my pool when I get it since the dog will be in it nearly every day if not daily. I hope to make it salt water too. There will be a cover over it to minimize the leaves and branches cut back.

I don't need a really large one, maybe 12 feet diameter, 4 foot deep. LH turned me on to a good idea but I cannot find any that he suggested. But to save time and traffic to get to Redbud (avoiding the busy times there) would pay for itself in one year alone.

I could have friends over that have dogs and the dogs can swim and tire themselves out. Oh the joy of being able to have my dog tire herself out before I head out. Ahhhh.
 
100p - Send me a pm and let me know what I had suggested and I will try and help you with it.

I am more than willing to help my Longhorn brothers out.
 
When we sold our house with the pool. We sold it for at least $20,000 more because we had a pool. The buyers wanted a house with a pool in our neighborhood and if they would have bought a house without a pool it would have cost them over $35,000 to put one in. And as far as having a dog goes, mine swam in ours every couple of hours in the summer. It is not a big deal for the filter to handle it.
 
Awesome, thanks for that. I was prepared to clean as much as I had to if it was extra. She is a Rottweiler and short haired. I comb/brush her enough to where it would not have been a problem. I just need to keep it heated in the winter when she can't swim. It's great for their joints and muscles...and my peace and quiet.
 
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