Moving and a few N. Ca. properties have home pools, so wondering:
1-- can a home pool be about as good as a community pool?
2-- is there a minimum size that is needed?
3-- other than the approx $100/mo in maintenance costs, anything else I need to know?
Thanks
From an n=1 perspective:
We have a home pool. Full-size, two-lane, 25-yard pool. We LOVE it. To answer your questions:
Also, my pool is always open – no lap times, no closures for deck resurfacing or swim meets, no pool not open because the lifeguard was too hungover to show up at 6am (true story). Swimming at night with the pool lights on, the moon and palm tree overhead, and the Catalina mountains in the distance is breathtaking.Good luck,
Sharon
If it’s not at least 60 feet long, you want to have some sort of endless pool set-up. If that won’t work either, don’t regard it as a possible workout venue. Consider it to be a place to cool off a bit after a hard summer workout.
Anything shorter than 20 yards, you’re just never going to have a chance to really get up to speed and maintain speed properly. Given how few proper lap pools are in private homes, chances are you’ll end up at the Y or community center even if you get a pool house.
Interesting. I almost included in questions, does salt water, or converting to salt water make sense.
I know we want either concrete, or fiberglass, but not vinyl. Hoping for a property that either has a pool or is cheap enough
we can add a pool. It’s mostly the convenience and usage thing.
I thought even fresh water switched to cloramine instead of chlorine.
I’m thinking in the sacramento valley, we’ll have an equally long swimming season. Again, thanks.
Not a good idea if you have young kids.
Drowning in a home pool is the number one cause of accidental kid deaths. If only takes a minute of not watching them, or not knowing they snuck outside, and that is it, game over.
Youngest is in 30’s, and understand the fear. Bet that is why mom insisted that all us learn to swim as soon as we moved to CA.
The two youngest are fish and may deem it advisable to visit the oldies, just for the free swimming.
Sounds like Doc has a sweet set-up. It’s nice to have a pool when it’s hot out. There’s overhead with doing it though.
We installed one back in '06. It’s a messy project. Did the spa overflow into the pool using a heat pump versus gas. We use the spa almost nightly. Great family time and wind-down from a day of grinding. The electric costs are high but I think it’s worth it for what it brings.
Couple years later I added the Fastlane from Endless Pools. A great friend gave it to me when he moved away - yea I know. Great person.
It’s like running on a treadmill. Very convenient but only tolerable for less than 30 mins (I’m type-A, maybe better for others).
Last thought, it is very convenient in the winter to wade into the pool waist high post long run to recover and chill your muscles. Very therapeutic in that way.
Also, my pool is always open – no lap times, no closures for deck resurfacing or swim meets, no pool not open because the lifeguard was too hungover to show up at 6am (true story). Swimming at night with the pool lights on, the moon and palm tree overhead, and the Catalina mountains in the distance is breathtaking.
My dream!
Moving and a few N. Ca. properties have home pools, so wondering:
1-- can a home pool be about as good as a community pool?
2-- is there a minimum size that is needed?
3-- other than the approx $100/mo in maintenance costs, anything else I need to know?
Thanks
I bought my house approximately 3 years ago in Nor Cal (bay area to be specific) and got it with a pool. My mother warned me about the headaches of a pool but I kind of ignored her and went for it. So in the three years that I have had the pool.
A year into it, a leak sprung in the piping between my filter and the pump. I’m pretty handy so I was able to do that myself. I have to tell you that that would have cost me plenty to get someone out to fix that if I didn’t know how to run PVC pipe. The next year the heater crapped out. Bought a new one for 3K. Then last year my plaster began to delaminate. Got a couple of quotes, unfortunately I have to replace the entire plaster because it is such a large delamination. Cost: 10-15K. My electric pool cover crapped out this summer and I had to replace that… 1K just for the cover. Thank god the cover motor didn’t crap out.
I looked into filling in my pool and jackhammering the concrete… 25K. Unless you have solar, also remember the natural gas cost for heating your pool. You get my drift? If you are okay with constantly having to invest in your pool then go for it, otherwise I would pass.
So I sheepishly joke with all my friends that the pool is an awesome money pit. It’s great for my friends that come over to chill in the hot tub section while leaving me to pay all the bills. Honestly, I do all my swim training at Stanford where I can use the 50 meter. I didn’t use the home pool at all last year. We do open it up to look at the water which is kind of peaceful in a meditative sort of way though…
I do occasionally throw the dog in…it’s to teach him how to swim to the stairs so he won’t drown…that would really bum me out:( He hates the pool!
Moving and a few N. Ca. properties have home pools, so wondering:
1-- can a home pool be about as good as a community pool?
2-- is there a minimum size that is needed?
3-- other than the approx $100/mo in maintenance costs, anything else I need to know?
Thanks
My parents have a pool, relatively new, cost about $60k with all the bells and whistles. Pretty sure my dad spends nearly as much time maintaining it as I do training… Maybe salt reduces that, but I’ve always been of the thought that it’s better to know someone with boats and pools (really anything to do with water…) then to own your own…
Most house pools aren’t really large enough to do much of a work out in. I can manage to do some drills and deep water running in my pool but thats about it. With that said it is great to have if you have a family (the kids can swim in it all summer). It is also great for post training cool downs.
My pool is a gunite pool with a salt chlorinator. Each summer I have to put 3-4 bags of salt in the pool (@ like $6 a bag). I rarely put anything else in it. My chlorinator just died though (after 7 years) and it will be over $1k to replace, The Salt water is actually pretty rough on the plaster and machinery and I am not sure that they are that reliable long term. I am thinking about moving on to a UV system instead, not sure yet though.
Pools are fun to have but they are not a great investment. If you want one then I would recommend that you try to find a house with one already there. It is very expensive to have one put in (trust me I know). Also be sure to have the pool and equipment inspected seperately from the house inspection. Pool problems can be quite expensive (replastering a gunite pool will cost thousands of dollars).
Thank you all for the comments. Very helpful. We’re currently looking at two properties: one with a pool and one without and the pool does not seem to add anything to the property value.
Also, my pool is always open – no lap times, no closures for deck resurfacing or swim meets, no pool not open because the lifeguard was too hungover to show up at 6am (true story). Swimming at night with the pool lights on, the moon and palm tree overhead, and the Catalina mountains in the distance is breathtaking.
My dream!
Awesome. And no “please don’t splash my hairdo” fat people lane walking up and down the pool at .004 miles per hour.
we had a home pool growing up, 30 ft long. It was useful for training when we were only 4ft tall… not so much at 6ft, pushoff, two strokes, and turn…
I don’t recall that it was particularly expensive though, it was put in new (gunite) and there weren’t any extraordinary maintenance costs until the house was sold ten years later. My brother and I did the pool maintenance (chlorine, acid, filter cleaning, pool cleaning) for most of that time, again don’t recall that it was particularly onerous.
Just do it caveman-style,
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Lifestyle/The_pool_of_Conrad_Stoltz_1614.html
Live in a condo. 25scy pool with two usable lanes on the outside
I live in a 16 unit condo building. We have a small pool in the courtyard. What about those waist contraptions that let you swim in place? Is there good benefit to swim training with one of those on?
I have a pool and a swim harness, from swimpro. I love it, although my swim is atrocious. (IM swim 1:14) I began swimming 15 months ago, and feel my incompetence in the water is more related to poor technique and newness to sport than a result of the harness. It was only about $200
Here is my 2 cents
I have an on-ground pool. You can have install it above ground, in ground or anywhere in between. It 32x16, heated and has a vinyl liner. I also installed a salt chlorinator.
Cost to install was around 15k and that includes everything. Every year, I buy a few bags of salt and when in season, the pumps runs 4.5 hours a day. If I spend $50 a year on chemicals, that is a lot. I’ve had the pool for 5 years and no problems, liner is not faded. Next season, I will need to replace the sand in the filter or I might just spring for a cartridge filter.
I am by no means a great swimmer, but I use a swimbelt. It helps because I can continuously swim for X amount of time without stopping, kicking off a wall, etc.
We had a pool installed when we built a new house back in 2005. It was nice for lounging around in on hot days but it wasnt large enough to get a real swim workout in. And its quite expensive to maintain, more so in time than the cost of chemicals and electricity, although though those are pretty costly as well. They are good if you have teens,they enjoyed being able to invite friends over. Everytime we had heavy winds or rain I could expect an hour cleaning out the leaves and junk from nearby trees. Bottom line, we sold that house and would not consider a pool in the future.
Not a good idea if you have young kids.
Drowning in a home pool is the number one cause of accidental kid deaths. If only takes a minute of not watching them, or not knowing they snuck outside, and that is it, game over.
Not true, IMO, if you follow some common sense and spend the $$ it takes to prevent accidents.
When my kids were young and in the pool, it was a priority to protect them. We were on full time life guard duty, we learned CPR and set strict rules. My kids knew the rules and followed them. If you’re afraid your kids won’t listen to you, that’s a parent problem, not a kid problem. We spent at over $1000 on swimming lessons so by the time they were 3, and we had a pool, they could swim safely to the side. We added an extra $10,000 on safety equipment in the pool as well as out of the pool to insure safety. Overkill…uh, not for my kids lives. http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html
To the OP:
Buy a home with a pre-existing pool. Building new isn’t cheap. You’ll be getting a pool for $0.50 on the dollar.
Lap swimming is OK as long as it’s 20 yards - but that is hard to find.
Salt water. 100%. Cost to convert is worth the headache of maintenence.