I’m slightly hesitant to make this post because there are things that can still go wrong and I’m a worrywart, but whatever.
Me and Mrs. Cups have defied the odds and signed a contract on a home, and lucky me it has a pool. The only problem with that is I’ve never had a pool before. Since I have a month or so before I need to move in, I want to reach out to my (now fellow!) pool dopers for their help and advice. I don’t know what the pool surface is made out of, but it was recently resurfaced. It’s a below-ground (underground?) pool that’s screened in. (I’m especially happy about that one because that’ll decrease the amount of crap that’ll find it’s way in the pool). It’s a chlorine pool. More or less that’s about all I know. Here are some questions I have:
Are there any accessories that you would recommend I buy?
What’s the most efficient way to test and maintain the water?
How much can I do myself versus what do I need to bring in a pool company for?
I’m looking forward to being a future pool owner and I can’t wait for ya’lls advice
While it might seem a little overwhelming, there’s really nothing you can do to a pool that can’t be undone. You don’t need to know everything all at once.
Keep it safe: make sure there’s a fence with a latching gate to keep the little ones out.
Keep it clean: this is alot easier (but, yes, time consuming) than it seems at first.
Have fun: remember, it’s supposed to be fun!
Unless the below grade pool store you are temporarily running receives a transport truck’s load of Chatty Cathy dolls for Christmas. The next morning you walk in to work and there are hundreds of drowned Chatty Cathies.
Oh, one more thing that I learned the hard way at another pool store. If it happens that the pools are beside a zucchini field that is beside a high school, be prepared to spend a lot of time netting them out – they are more bulky than the occasional leaf.
If it’s screened in, that solves a lot of the issues mentioned above (e.g. zucchini fields, truckloads of Chatty Cathy dolls etc.). We had a rental house for a week or so in Florida which had a screened pool; chatting with the friends we were sharing with, we decided it was either to keep alligators out, or flying insects out, but ultimately its purpose was to exclude the flying alligators.
That screen will also serve the purpose of preventing people from sneaking into your pool - see “attracitive nuisance” . Assuming it has an exterior door as well, make sure that’s lockable.
If there’s any chance of young kids having access (visitors, grandkids or whatever) make sure you’ve got a pool alarm.
If the part of the house just inside the door to the pool area has tile or other slippery surface, make sure you’ve got mats etc. - as people WILL come inside still dripping and will slip and fall.
Oh, and of course lots of beer - you’ll find you’re suddenly very popular with your non-pool-owning friends!
Hah! Friends of ours (DC suburb) bought a house with a pool. They weren’t too excited about that feature and considered filling it in. Someone told them “do that, and your kids will never forgive you!”.
They decided to leave it, and have enjoyed it for 20+ years. And as noted, their place is often the focus of gatherings!
I would suggest that for the first season you hire a pool company to open it up for you. When they come down, follow them around and see what they do, ask them to explain everything if possible, and also ask them which things are feasible for homeowners to do and which are more complex and require a professional.
Then for next year, you may or may not require their services and if you do, may require less of it.
When we bought our house and moved-in in August, and tried sitting out on the back patio, roasting and sweating, we thought what else are we going to do in this back yard for 5 months of the year. So, we built an in-ground pool. Some thoughts:
Sure, it’s great on those hot days, but there are the winter and shoulder months where the water is too cold (and it costs too much to heat). And the pool is there year-round, needing chemicals and electricity to run the pump, every day, even when you are not using it. We have used solar blankets, but the chemicals deteriorate them after a couple of seasons and then you need to a) dispose of the old one, and b) acquire and custom-fit a new one.
Yes, it is great when the kids are young and want to use it all the time, but they eventually get older and are less into swim parties, and the pool is still there. As my daughter became a lifeguard at our community pool, using the one in our backyard was not something she wanted to do in her spare time. Ultimately, they will move out, and yet you still have that pool!
I recommend at a minimum hiring a pool person to handle the chemicals. We tried for years doing it ourselves but at times the water seemed “off”, or we’d be battling algae, or some other issue. I still handle other chores like skimming the pool after a storm, cleaning the baskets, cleaning the filter cartridges, keeping the vacuum working, etc. We resurfaced the pool about 3 seasons ago and the guy who started-up the pool (treating raw hose-water used to refill it) was great so we hired him to come weekly - money well spent as we no longer have the chemicals sitting around, and the water is treated properly and consistently.
You may want to check to see if the pool has an automatic filler - ours has that and it keeps the level constant, even in summer when there is more evaporation. Likewise, check to see if there is an auto-drain, where if the water reaches a certain level it will start to drain into a storm pipe. You do not want the water too low or high. Without these features you will be filling/draining manually (e.g. with a garden hose).
Depending on the age of the pool and the filter equipment, there may be some maintenance on the horizon, such as replacing the pump, replacing the heater (if it has one), replacing tiles, fixing the pool light, resurfacing, new filter cartridges - all are fairly spendy.
Overall, I am sort-of mixed on the pool thing now. Sure, it was great with the young family, but these days I am the main user, and I do not use it that often - maybe 3-4 times a week during summer. But it uses up resources and time each and every day of the year. If you already have the pool, make the most of it and enjoy it, but if someone were to ask me about building a pool, I would try and talk them out of it. I am not sure it is worth it now and into the future, but there it is.
Having a pool was never really in the cards in house hunting, the home we liked just happened to have one. I feel we’re at a bit of an advantage living in Florida because we’ll be able to use it more often than, say, my grandparents in Wisconsin who had a pool, so that’s good. We’re pregnant right now with our first, so I actually doubt we’ll be in the house long enough for our kid to really grow with it…but who knows.
Thanks for the advice (to those who actually gave it to me). I’m definitely reading a lot of “Beginners guide to pools” articles and really loved the one @mikecurtis sent me, so thanks for that.
I’m hoping to avoid relying too heavily on a pool person every week, but if that’s what needs to be done then I’m ok with it and understand it. I like the idea of having a pool guy for the first handful of months and following around and asking questions…hopefully he can be an every-other-week kind of guy.
Yeah, I don’t get all the party pooping…
We moved to a house with a pool in the burbs when I was 7 (a million years ago!) Dad took care of it for the first couple years, but it quickly became one of my and my sister’s chores. So, if 10yo’s can do it how hard is it really. We never had a pool guy, and it was never heated. Sure, as we got older we used it less, but those couple of times each summer made it all good.
You’ll figure it out! It’ll be great!
For some people a pool is fantastic. They’ll use it as much of the year as possible, they’ll love having it, and won’t mind the time and money involved with maintenance. Other people will feel that way for just a while and then get tired of the effort and use the pool less and less often and come to realize they made a mistake. There are very few of the first type who feel that way for more than a few years so you’ll hear a lot of complaints.
There are people that live in pool zones like SoCal. In those locations a pools is a standard accessory with a home, even if you don’t use the pool you just consider it to be a standard expense for maintaining your property.
This, absolutely. As a privileged expatriate, I lived in homes with swimming pools (and staff to manage them) for years. As far as I can tell, they are a lot of work, at least until you’ve got the routine down.
When things get out of balance, the results are decidedly gross. Nothing like a broken pump or inaccurately calibrated chemicals to turn your sparkling, refreshing pool into a fetid swamp of algae and who knows what.
But once you have the hang of it, I gather it’s not too hard to manage. Just make sure you don’t run out of chemicals and that you are diligent in upkeep.
It absolutely is not hard to maintain a pool. You check the chemicals every day or two, you clean the pump every couple of weeks, and if it goes out you have a couple weeks to get it fixed before the water begins to turn. That’s all that’s necessary, the rest is optional. I would say that it’s easier than the rest of the yard to take care of: you have to mow, and water and rake and etc, etc…
It’s understandable if a pool is not your thing. But to whine about how hard it is is just ridiculous. It’s not any harder or more expensive than any other part of home ownership.
Accessories: a good net, a brush attachment and a floaty chlorine tab dispenser
Testing: In summer i use the test strips every other day
I do everything myself its pretty straight foreward.
Stay on top of the pH and get that back in line before anything else.
I use a Polaris cleaning robot, about 800 bucks and it keeps the pool pretty clean if I run it every other day, buy the one with the anti tangle cable system’s i didn’t and regret it.
I dump a big scoop of chlorine granuals in once a week and twice a week in the height of summer, plus occasional scoop of dry acid to keep ph in line.
For the granules I use calcium hypo chlorite, which does not have stabiliser in it.
You can get trichlor-s-triazinetrione (aka triclor) which claims to be better but has the stabiliser ( cyanuric acid) which is good , but I found , as did my brother in law, the stabiliser levels build up to un healthy levels and you end up having to dump water . So I use triclor in the tablets in the floaty thing and calcium hypo for the weekly dump of chlorine.
I keep a tub of non chlorinating shock handy for after a heavy useage session.
I keep a bottle on ‘perfect weekly’ which is supposed to keep the phosphorus down which helps prevent algae, I do t like the idea of dropping algaecide in the pool.
During open season stay on top of leaves and using the robot to keep the bottom of the pool clean and run the skimmer for several hours to keep the pollen and stuff off the top, the less organic matter in the pool the easier it is for the chemicals to stay in balance, I like a crystal clear pool so I may be a little fastidious ymmv.
During winter I’ll once a week clean out the leaves and run the robot.
