Do you have a pool?

rach10782

If so do you enjoy it?  If not are you glad you don't?  The majority of the homes my husband and I have been looking at have pools.  We both really want one but also want to make sure there is grass for our son and dog.  We realize there will be the added expense of gating it off but we think it's worth it.  

lukaface

We have a pool and love it. It is hot where we live and we use it all summer long.  We also installed a gate when we moved in.  We choose to maintain it ourselves which can be a pain but you can also hire someone to do it for about $25 per week in our area.  

Structenggal

My MIL has a pool.  We had her install a gate when DS1 was born.  I've never had a pool and in a few years we'll be moving to her house.  The maintenance required for the pool kind of scares me.  And not having had a pool growing up, I don't know how often we'll really use it.  I kind of fear that it will be like a novelty - we'll use it tons at first and then never again.  

pink.dutch.tulips

its more than than the expense of gating it off and maintenance .. there's also the electricity costs involved. running a pool can be EEKpensive !! pumps and filters run on electricity and you have to run them so the pool stays in good working order (obviously less in the fall/winter than spring/summer). i know who have had $500+ pg&e bills b/c of their pools !

we don't have a pool and i'm not interested in having one either. that said my aunt/uncle in-law own their own pool service company.

Celyn

We have an above ground pool that we got to test out how much we really want to invest in having a pool.  We decided that it's definitely worth it for us.

tonic

My previous house had a pool and we plan to put one in at our new house soon.

First, its not $500 a month to run a pool unless you have ancient equipment and if you are heating it via electricity. You mainly have to run the filter in the summer which is where your primary electricity costs come from. We had new equipment (which we bought to upgrade and make it more energy efficient), so its hard to say how much more it will add to your electricity. It depends on how big the pool is too.

Your cost breakdown is mostly:

- Electricity to run the filter/cleaner.

- Gas to heat the pool OR if you use solar.. electricity to pump it to the solar panels.

- Chemicals to keep the pool clean and the water properly balanced.

- Water to fill the pool. 

I think a pool is most useful if its warm enough to use. So unless it has solar attached to it, its not going to be super fun unless its really hot out. You aren't going to want to heat 20,000 gallons of water and pay to heat it via gas. Adding solar should be figured into your costs.

If you have a salt water pool, its easier to maintain. I've also gone through remodeling a pool and its an easy process.. just costs money. Plaster pools have to be re-plastered every ~7-10 years depending upon how well you take care of it.

Let me know if you have any specific questions I can answer. 

jsugrin

We don't have a pool but I think that if we had we would get a ton of use out of it.  As it is we use our hot tub as a pool in the summer time, we just turn the heater off and let the kids have at it.  It's been perfect for little ones since we started it out very shallow and made it deeper as they've gotten bigger.

I will say that I wouldn't rely on a fence alone.  A few years ago I read an awful blog post about a 3 year old whom wiggled under the gate.  His mom left his napping on the living room floor and went to put the younger one down for his nap.  The kiddo has managed to push the corner of the gate up just enough for him to squish under it.  Never would have occurred to me a kid could manage that.  I did a lot of research after that and decide if we had a pool that I would get chimes on the doors that go off when the door opens plus a water based alarm, they go in the water and when something falls in the water it sets of the alarm ( you adjust it so that leaves ect don't set it off).

I think that how much use you'd get depends on if you want to spend the money to heat it most of the year, how hot it has to be both outside and water temp for you to want to swim ect.  In your area you only have real hot water for a few months so you will need to comfortable swimming in medium temps to really make it worth it (IMO).

https://www.amazon.com/Pool-Protector-Inground-Alarm/dp/B004DEUSD8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320439363&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/45117-Deluxe-Wireless-Door-Alarm/dp/B0014A4JWU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320439404&sr=8-1

Meritage

I guess I'm in the minority, but I have zero interest in a pool - regardless of cost.  When we were looking at houses, it was a dealbreaker for us if the house had a pool.  Maybe I'm ultra conservative, but I would never want the liability of a pool.  Not for my own kids or for any other kids that come over to play.

That said, my kids love to swim and we swim a lot in the summer.  I just think there are plenty of other opportunities to swim that aren't in my backyard.

fjaril

we are looking to have one put in next year (originally in the spring, but with baby due in march, not sure that's happening).

I was uber ticked off we didn't find a house with a pool already there. I love being in water as does the current munchkin. A pool would rock for us. We found it hard to find some where over the summer to go play/swim at. 

We're also installing solar panels which we'll use for the pool. It will be gated and secure so that other kids/our kids won't be able to just get in there unsupervised. 

A friend back in Texas would hire a lifeguard for the day for any parties where people might want to get in the pool. I loved that idea  

ashleyhuney

I grew up with a pool and LOVED it. We were in the pool all day every day in the summer. My parents were strict about it though, we could rarely have friends over to swim and never more than a few. We also had a tall, strong gate. My parents didn't like the expense or liability issues and moved not too long after I moved out. Pools scare the bejeez out of me personally. My good friend bought a house with a pool and we actually paid for a pool fence ourselves. Even then I check the fence whenever we come over just in case, I've read that 3 year old boys in California are the most likely to die in a pool, yikes. I would think long and hard before getting a house with a pool. We set up an above ground pool here which was fun and only is put out during pool season. The whole backyard is gated off and doors to the backyard are secured.

MrsCali_Bride

Meritage:

I guess I'm in the minority, but I have zero interest in a pool - regardless of cost.  When we were looking at houses, it was a dealbreaker for us if the house had a pool.  Maybe I'm ultra conservative, but I would never want the liability of a pool.  Not for my own kids or for any other kids that come over to play.

This. We're looking at houses right now and it automatically goes onto my no list if it has a pool. I don't mind if there is a community pool but I don't want one on my property. I want to be able to let my kids run around and play in the backyard while I'm making dinner without having to worry about them getting into a pool. Fwiw - we have pools available to us at our apt complex but rarely have a chance to use them with the H's schedule and me being outnumbered during the day.

tri_bride05

Meritage:

I guess I'm in the minority, but I have zero interest in a pool - regardless of cost.  When we were looking at houses, it was a dealbreaker for us if the house had a pool.  Maybe I'm ultra conservative, but I would never want the liability of a pool.  Not for my own kids or for any other kids that come over to play.

That said, my kids love to swim and we swim a lot in the summer.  I just think there are plenty of other opportunities to swim that aren't in my backyard.

I agree! We didn't even look at places with a pool when we were house-hunting.

StefandTodd

My H had a pool growing up, so he was pretty against it.  The amount of work and expense surpasses the amount of joy and use we'd get out of it.  When looking at homes though, about 3/5 of the houses we looked at had a pool (our agent knew we didn't want one, but said in our area excluding them from a search wasn't smart - it gets super hot in Sac, so a lot of homes have pools).  In the end, we bought a home without a pool.  We bought an 8' diameter pool with an inflatable rim for $50 this last Summer...it comes with a filter and chlorination system.  It was nice to have while I was super pregnant in the heat, and enough for us to cool off but be able to pack it away when it got cooler.

Celyn

I grew up with a pool and we currently have an above ground pool.  Many people have said it's too much work.  I'm curious what I'm missing in the work load.  Ours is salt water.  We test it periodically, but it's not daily and it doesn't take more than a second.  The balance was only off once last summer, and that took just a minute or two to fix.  We don't have trees overhanging it, so skimming and vacuuming aren't necessary very often (which is a big difference from the pool I had as a kid, which was overhung by enormous pine trees).  And thankfully, its also far enough from our property fence that the crazy neighbor kid who loves to throw his broken toys in our yard has not yet made a direct hit on the pool. 

Conversely, the kids were in it every day and our bubble cover occasionally made it too warm, amazingly.

It also cut down on the lawn space in the backyard, the weeding and care of which is truly a time suck

NorcalLinds

at this point, with two small boys no. But if we do buy out here, its on our list, we would love to have a pool