How much to put in a lap lane in your backyard

I never got a bid - but I have thought about this several times. I wanted a 25 yard pool, about 1 1/2 lanes wide so I could have two lane ropes for one low turbulence lane. Here in Austin with a very hard (limestone-ish) ground people regularly spend $40-50K for an inground backyard pool. Pools here cost more than in many areas because of excavation costs. I just guessed that my desired pool would cost about $75K. Many backyard pools have fancier decks and related items than I would put in for my lap pool.

that is a truly remarkable paragraph!!! :applaud::applaud::applaud::applaud::applaud: Woops, I mieant ex-girlfriend of Hefner. Duh!!!!

Wow, that is gorgeous! I have always wanted to put a building around mine. If I hit the lottery I will do it first thing! Can 2 people swim together in there okay? What's the depth?

The 16-yard 1-lane money pit in my backyard was $40K almost 10 years ago. $10K of that was so I could have a buried propane tank and gas lines to heat the attached spa since my neighborhood has no gas service and electrically heating the pool/spa is really expensive. It costs about $10/hour to run the heater so I only run it to use the spa and if we get temps a lot below freezing (as well as running the pumps 24/7 to prevent them from icing up and bursting.) I also had to have electric, phone, and cable lines moved. Some had to be hand-dug. Probably $3K for all that. The builder told me that the perimeter of the pool was the way they ballparked the cost estimates. Not the square/cubic feet. So an L shape pool would cost about the same as a rectangular pool with the same base and height dimensions. The pool bottom is cheaper than the walls, which are more heavily-reinforced. If you don't take good care of the pool it can be quite expensive replacing busted filter parts and buying extra chemicals to kill algae. I finally gave up and hired a pool dude. All the chemicals I was dumping in during sporadic tiger team efforts were pretty harsh on the plaster finish. Electricity to run the pump adds to the cost too, and if the pool gets out of control you end up running the pumps longer during the cleanup stages. It also uses more water and DE to backwash the filters a few extra times during rehab. My pool is not long enough to be great exercise (yet) but it's OK for drills and would be PERFECT for teaching private/semi-private swim lessons to new swimmers -- if I found myself otherwise unemployed with the time to do that. I also had it fitted with deck anchors for water volleyball posts (just galvanized fence posts cut in half) and it works fine for its primary use just floating and relaxing or having something calming to look at while enjoying weekend morning coffee. Probably when I am elderly it will be plenty long enough for me to lap swim in. It was as big as I could fit into my tiny little backyard. By keeping it shallow I didn't have to get the bedrock blasted out (I think that adds $1K) like my neighbors did. The pool only increased the property market value about $5K so it would be very painful financially if I needed to sell the house. The loans were 2nd mortgages and interest is tax-deductible. I had a few tense moments at work regarding transfers where I would need to sell the house in a sour market, so I am feeling very pinned down. On the positive side, it is nice enjoying those late-night "dips" thanks to one neighbor who is legally blind and having good landscaping and fences blocking the view from other neighbors (who don't spend any time outdoors anyhow). :D Would I do it again ? The jury's out.

Ours goes 4 feet, 6 feet in the middle, 4 feet. We wanted both a part that would be over my head, and then, a part where kids could stand. We have a sophisticated system where we drop an old Martha Stewart deck chair in one end for shorter kids. It ain't pretty, but it works.

Sorry for the hijack, but something's been on my mind during this thread which I wanted to ask about. I live in Evanston, IL near lake Michigan. Evanston has no city pools, the explanation as I understand it being, "we have Lake Michigan." At the beaches they provide a swim area which extends about 25 yards from shore and is about 70 yards wide. Heaven help you if you happen to swim outside the lines. There is no marked open water course either. I was thinking it would be kind of cool to have some sort of "floating" pool in the lake. The lifeguard(s) could kayak or swim out to it (it wouldn't be far offshore) and the people who wanted to swim there could just swim out. In my mind's eye I see a structure several lanes wide, 25-50 meters long, with just enough structure to provide walls for flip turns, anchors for lane lines and enough of a deck for the lifeguards to walk around on. No real sides or bottom. I know about Sydney's rock pools. I'm thinking something much less permanent but still with an obvious connection to the lake that a real pool wouldn't have. It should be a whole lot cheaper to build than a real pool as well. I know in Naperville they swim in a quarry during the summer. Has anybody seen such a thing? Skip My coach from Australia said that he has been to a 50 Meter floating pool on the Pacific. That would be really cool to do. A pool in a quarry, neat!

Most of the teams in my kids summer league swim in lakes. Docks secure the lanes (50m) which run roughly parallel to shore. In a couple of lakes, the docks at both ends are attached to shore. But at other lakes one or both ends are floating docks. (Makes logistics of running a meet a lot of fun when you have to boat timers, officials, and/or swimmers out to the docks). The league mainly swims 50s with occasional 100s, so there are few turns. Usually the end opposite the start end has plywood or something that extends down a few feet to facilitate finishes and turns, but open turns and above the water finishes are very common.

Sorry for the hijack, but something's been on my mind during this thread which I wanted to ask about. I live in Evanston, IL near lake Michigan. Evanston has no city pools, the explanation as I understand it being, "we have Lake Michigan." At the beaches they provide a swim area which extends about 25 yards from shore and is about 70 yards wide. Heaven help you if you happen to swim outside the lines. There is no marked open water course either. I was thinking it would be kind of cool to have some sort of "floating" pool in the lake. The lifeguard(s) could kayak or swim out to it (it wouldn't be far offshore) and the people who wanted to swim there could just swim out. In my mind's eye I see a structure several lanes wide, 25-50 meters long, with just enough structure to provide walls for flip turns, anchors for lane lines and enough of a deck for the lifeguards to walk around on. No real sides or bottom. I know about Sydney's rock pools. I'm thinking something much less permanent but still with an obvious connection to the lake that a real pool wouldn't have. It should be a whole lot cheaper to build than a real pool as well. I know in Naperville they swim in a quarry during the summer. Has anybody seen such a thing? Skip

A few years ago I was asked to boat coach a 50 and over team paddling in the Molokai Channel canoe race. We spent the night before the race at house belonging to one of the paddlers friends, way out in the country at the north end of Molokai. The house not only had a private airstrip with 2 planes and a small helicopter but an above ground two lane 50 meter pool complete with lights, lane lines, starting blocks, and pace clock! The owner wasn't there at the time but evidently was a pretty good swimmer in his day and had his priorities straight when it came to toys. And yes, I went for a workout that evening.