Enclosed pools in Florida

[Mangosteen]

I was watching House Hunters and they were in FL with a couple who were looking for a home with a pool.

All three houses had pools that had some kind of enclosure completely around and above the pools.

Is this to extend the pool "season" by keeping out winds that might blow in during the relatively cool winter months or do the enclosures keep bugs out during the hot humid summers or?

[Johnny L.A.]

Not having seen what you describe, my guess would be to help keep mosquitos out.

[Bijou Drains]

I always hear it's to keep bugs out. They are screens so they don't keep the weather out.

[Harmonious Discord]

Some shade from the sun doesn't hurt when your in Florida either.

[UncleFred]

Many houses in Florida (at least where I've gone) have a large, attached area enclosed usually with screening and sometimes walls+screening. It may or may not include a pool.

It is sometimes called a 'Florida Room' and yes its purpose is to provide an outdoor sitting or activity area free of insects.

They seem to be more prevalent on newer or upscale houses. I've seen some Florida Rooms almost as large as the main house footprint.

[ShibbOleth]

Originally Posted by Mangosteen

Is this to extend the pool "season" by keeping out winds that might blow in during the relatively cool winter months or do the enclosures keep bugs out during the hot humid summers or?

It's to keep bugs out. It does not extend the pool season, they actually reduce it since the pool will take a little longer to warm up. The screen has a small effect of keeping the pool cooler, although that's not it's intended purpose. Same as having a shade tree nearby.

Most of the concern if for mosquitoes, although we have plenty of other big, scary bugs that you also wouldn't want to be swimming with. Consider that most Floridians have jobs*, so if they want to swim after work that's prime skeeter feeding time.


*We're not down here on holiday.

A screened in porch or pool area is not necessarily a "Florida room". A Florida room would be more like an interior room in terms of flooring, etc, than a back porch. Some of the places UncleFred has seen would be Florida rooms, some aren't. The term is not ubiquitously used here, and probably used more by real estate agents and transient residents (snowbirds).

[rbroome]

Originally Posted by Mangosteen

I was watching House Hunters and they were in FL with a couple who were looking for a home with a pool.

All three houses had pools that had some kind of enclosure completely around and above the pools.

Is this to extend the pool "season" by keeping out winds that might blow in during the relatively cool winter months or do the enclosures keep bugs out during the hot humid summers or?

insect screens are popular. fully enclosed pools not so much.

[Philster]

Pic of screened-in pool in Florida.

http://www.lorianneking.com/Portals/...%20Resized.jpg

[Hypno-Toad]

A commonly used term down here is Lenai. It refers to a screened in porch which is all about keeping out the bugs and complaining about the damage from hurricanes and cats' claws. In some homes, the lenai extends out to a covered pool area as well.

But yes, it's all about bugs.

[Lanzy]

I put one up mainly for the insects. It does make it nice for parties outside.
Mine is about 2000 sq ft.

[billfish678]

Insects, snakes, leaves, possums, racoons, rats, little kids, airborne organic debris. It helps to keep em all out. And as someone mentioned, the little bit of shade is often nice too.

[lieu]

We looked at a house recently with an enclosed pool. It does three things, all of which may or may not be intentional. One, it prevents leaves, pine needles and to a lesser degree airborne soils from getting in the pool. True, they accumulate instead on the screen panels but they can be blown away with a leaf blower or hose. Two, they provide a mosquito and gnat free environment. In humid environs like ours and Florida this is HUGE. Three, they're an additional safety barrier preventing uninvited kids from entering and potentially drowning in your pool. It's easy enough to pass though or over many fences. A screened in pool with locking door: not so much.

[robby]

Probably not relevant to residential pools, but I'll mention it anyway...

I like to swim laps for exercise. When I lived in Orlando, Florida, every public swimming pool was an outdoor pool. I don't think I got through one workout without being kicked out of the pool due to lightning warnings. (Florida is the lightning capital of the world.)

I would much rather have had at least one public pool that was enclosed so I could work out without always being kicked out. When I moved to New England, I was able to consistently work out because there are a lot more public pools that are enclosed.

P.S. On reflection, it might have just been the overly conservative approach to lightning safety at the navy base in Orlando. They had a lightning detector that would detect lightning within 50 miles or so. If lightning was detected within 20 miles, they would shut the base pool down. A day did not go by without the pool being shut down at least once.

[Bijou Drains]

Much of the SE gets a lot of lightning with afternoon thunderstorms. The difference is Florida gets it almost year round.

[Polycarp]

Originally Posted by Hypno-Toad

A commonly used term down here is Lenai. It refers to a screened in porch which is all about keeping out the bugs and complaining about the damage from hurricanes and cats' claws. In some homes, the lenai extends out to a covered pool area as well.

But yes, it's all about bugs.

Nitpick: The term, when used, is"Lanai", as in the island in Hawai'i, where apocryphally it was first put into use.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by lieu

We looked at a house recently with an enclosed pool. It does three things, all of which may or may not be intentional. One, it prevents leaves, pine needles and to a lesser degree airborne soils from getting in the pool. True, they accumulate instead on the screen panels but they can be blown away with a leaf blower or hose. Two, they provide a mosquito and gnat free environment. In humid environs like ours and Florida this is HUGE. Three, they're an additional safety barrier preventing uninvited kids from entering and potentially drowning in your pool. It's easy enough to pass though or over many fences. A screened in pool with locking door: not so much.

The last reason is actually a big one here. It's called an attractive nuisance and you have to take steps to keep kids out. Usually fencing isn't enough, you have to have something that locks. It may be a statewide law or at least a local one but most localities would have laws covering this because pools are so common here. Also, I'd imagine it would be hard getting insurance if you don't have something to keep kids out. Because if some kid trespasses on your property and dies or is injured you can bet the parents will sue your ass off.

[Bijou Drains]

I always heard insurance requires a locked fence around a pool at a house. Here in NC they have a quirky law about public pools - the fence gate must be at the shallow end of the pool, not the deep end.

[JoelUpchurch]

Originally Posted by robby

Probably not relevant to residential pools, but I'll mention it anyway...

I like to swim laps for exercise. When I lived in Orlando, Florida, every public swimming pool was an outdoor pool. I don't think I got through one workout without being kicked out of the pool due to lightning warnings. (Florida is the lightning capital of the world.)

You must have been swimming in the afternoon. Morning thunderstorms are quite rare in Orlando, while afternoon Thunderstorms during the summer are very common.

[Tastes of Chocolate]

Originally Posted by Bijou Drains

I always heard insurance requires a locked fence around a pool at a house.

I'd always heard that too, but apparently it's not universal. 13 years ago, we bought a house in Illinois that had an above ground pool. There was a raised deck that wrapped half way around the pool, with a wide open stairway to the ground. We asked our insurance agent if we needed to have a fence and lock, and he said it wouldn't affect our home insurance rate either way.

[Foxy40]

Originally Posted by Philster

Pic of screened-in pool in Florida.

http://www.lorianneking.com/Portals/...%20Resized.jpg

Exactly what I have. Point is to keep the bugs, leaves, frogs and lizards out of the pool. Very few people in my area have pools without them being screened in.

[Sigmagirl]

Originally Posted by UncleFred

Many houses in Florida (at least where I've gone) have a large, attached area enclosed usually with screening and sometimes walls+screening. It may or may not include a pool.

It is sometimes called a 'Florida Room' and yes its purpose is to provide an outdoor sitting or activity area free of insects.

They seem to be more prevalent on newer or upscale houses. I've seen some Florida Rooms almost as large as the main house footprint.

My aunt and uncle had a room they called a Florida Room in their suburban Cleveland house. Other than a big skylight and sliding glass doors to the patio, there was nothing to differentiate it from any other room in the house. It was used year-round as a den/dining/entertainment room, and it didn't have any sort of tropical decor. I'm pretty sure they didn't make up the name. I think was called that because it just had a lot of light.

[lieu]

Originally Posted by Wile E

The last reason is actually a big one here. It's called an attractive nuisance...

Ah, sounds like someone I used to date.

Foxy40, how often if ever do you have to replace the screens? Are they the same material and do they wear about the same as those on home windows?

[Dinsdale]

Funny that none of these Floridians are willing to admit the true purpose of their Gator-Guards!

[billfish678]

Originally Posted by Dinsdale

Funny that none of these Floridians are willing to admit the true purpose of their Gator-Guards!

Actually its a snow bird barrier.

[CannyDan]

Not offered as a statement of fact, just of my own observation having grown up in south Florida:

Florida Room (TM) seems to have come into usage about the same time as air conditioning. Originally Florida houses were designed to allow air movement throughout, meaning no completely interior rooms (all or almost all rooms have at least one outside wall) and lots of openable windows. Houses also typically had porches, sometimes screened, sometimes not, or both in different locations around the house. Porches were not then much different from interior rooms, except that they were exposed to blowing rain.

The advent of air conditioning, popularized after WW2, helped to cause the Florida land boom of the 1950s. There was a market for housing within the budget of GIs making their first homes, meaning smaller tract homes of the cookie cutter style. A/C was a much desired but expensive amenity, and there was an economic impetus to limiting its application. And so developed the Florida ranch style house with a spread out floor plan allowing every room to have its own windows, so ventilation could be achieved and the A/C shut off whenever conditions allowed.

But this larger footprint mitigated against the original model of wrap-around porches, as this would add significant expense. So these tract houses were built with a simple porch, usually in the rear effectively sticking out around the back door, and these porches were often screened to be acceptable living area given Florida's bugs.

However, unlike a wrap-around porch where a person could move around to occupy the lee side and be protected from the rain, a single porch stuck on the back of a building is open to the rain on three of its four sides, meaning that it cannot be occupied in the rain at all. So many homeowners made their first home improvement project the enclosing of their screen porch. This usually meant a low wall, perhaps 30 inches or so, and crank open windows (especially jalousie windows) up to the ceiling. But since the installed A/C unit could never handle the additional load, this now-room was not ducted into the A/C system. It remained a porch-like area during good weather, with the ability to be closed up during inclement weather.

This area was no longer simply a porch or patio. It likely contained casual furniture suitable for outdoors or poolside, as differentiated from typical interior house furniture. The room didn't have a specific use. And being at first primarily an impromptu creation, it didn't have a name either. It was rather unique to Florida.

I suspect that the appelation "Florida Room" was the creation of a marketing department of some home development firm, offering pre-built versions of what other people had retrofitted for themselves. And maintaining the smaller A/C system, for economic reasons, as well. The Florida Room was basically an upgraded but unairconditioned screen porch.

[lieu]

Do these "Florida Rooms" count in the square footage assessment of a house?

[billfish678]

Having been living in Florida for decades and having seen many a home that was built shortly after WW2 into say the 70s' I'd say Cannydan's explanation of what a "Florida" room is (or was) and how the name came about is probably spot on.

[CannyDan]

Originally Posted by lieu

Do these "Florida Rooms" count in the square footage assessment of a house?

Depends.

Some tax assessors use "livable space" or "space under roof". Others (more recent) use "air conditioned space" which would not count, say, a garage or a Florida room. Some even count A/C space at one value, and "discount" other roofed area at some percentage value, say 1/2 of the value of A/C space.

I've even now been in some houses where the Florida Room is built as an integral part, not an afterthought, and is insulated and ducted into the main HVAC system. In these cases, the Florida Room is treated as another room with bigger windows and a different interior decor. It does though usually maintain the open-on-two-or-three-sides style, as if it was attached to the back of the house rather than integrated into its architectural design. But then, fascinating as this seems, outside the Florida Room often appears a patio, which is itself screened like an old fashiioned porch. Full circle.

To the OP though, a Florida Room will not have a pool. The common garden variety of pool has a screen room built around it, as bug deflector, as illustrated upthread.

I have though seen pools with a wall or walls partly surrounding them, and a screen frame making up the rest of a full enclosure. These walls are usually intended as privacy screens, when small lot sizes put your pool almost in your neighbor's back yard.

The House Hunters you refer to might have seen any of these styles.

(thanks billfish!)

[Mangosteen]

The ones on the program looked almost like giant clear geodesic domes over the pools. I couldn't see the screens.

I'd hate to see what they look like when even a CAT 1 blows through the area.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by Philster

Pic of screened-in pool in Florida.

http://www.lorianneking.com/Portals/...%20Resized.jpg

Just last month I was at a house in that exact neighbourhood. With the same enclosure, same pool, same everything. I recognize that house; it backed onto the golf course.

The enclosure is solely for keeping out bugs, based on my observation that it keeps out nothing else; wind blows right through it and although it looks shady, it really doesn't cut the sun much at all.

[CannyDan]

Originally Posted by RickJay

Just last month I was at a house in that exact neighbourhood. With the same enclosure, same pool, same everything. I recognize that house; it backed onto the golf course.....

Everybody in Florida recognizes that house. It is the predominant style in countless subdivisions.