How much fuss is a home pool?

We have a vinyl liner pool in our backyard. The only town pool is the YMCA/Rec center where I swim. (Indoors) Then we have the ocean. (No open water swimming for me.) I do the pool maintenance. We do pay someone to do the start-up and do a power vacuuming at the beginning of the season and to close it (about $600 total.) I take care of all chemicals and vacuuming. It's not hard. And I'm in New York, and refuse to heat the pool. You can put a solar cover on it. My girlfriend in Cleveland does that and her pool stays warm in the summer. I do not have problems with frogs, only the occasional mole. Just scoop them out.

I live in TX and can use mine May through Sep. At first it practically took care of itself. Now the neighborhood trees have grown so leaf cleanup is a problem. Aging equipment fails. My work schedule changed so I am out of the house longer on workdays and doing other things on weekends during daylight. I ended up getting a pool service so that when I had time to enjoy the pool, it was ready to enjoy without spending an hour or more trying to get things back under control. Still, if there is a big storm I will need to put some time in cleaning debris out. Pool service and chemicals is almost $200/month. I've spent about $1K this year on equipment repairs. The homeowner loan payment is $300/month. Electricity to run the pumps is close to $100. I don't heat the pool but if I do use the hottub, the propane costs about $10/session. My water bill went up - probably $20/month in the summer. I also have to have neighbors check on the pool if I am on travel to make sure water levels don't drop too much. I know some parents who do not work at a "real day job" and they will teach private swim lessons during the summer and also have kids who enjoy the pool a lot. In those situations having their own pool makes more sense. I had always wanted to have my own pool. I have enjoyed some great pool parties at private residences, relaxing in my hottub late weekend nights, ability for a relaxing peaceful float mid-afternoon and other things you can't do at a public facility overrun with noisy kids. Enjoying leisurely Sunday breakfasts or happy hour or supper poolside is also very mood-enhancing. If I moved to a new house, would it be into a place with a pool ? Probably not.

My bro has a 35,000 gallon pool at his house in Phoenix and he loves it and this one requires almost zero maintenance. It's enormous for a home pool. Yeah this decision has so much to do with location. Having a pool in the greater Phoenix area is quite easy both because of the environment and because there's a huge & cheap "pool services" support infrastructure if you don't want to manage your pool yourself. I'm seriously contemplating putting in a 2 lane, 25 meter pool in my backyard. I bought this house 5 years ago with an old play pool already in it, but a big empty patch of sand behind it. The play pool's at the state where it needs a significant overhaul (probably 15 to 20 years old), so I'm investigating costs to put the lap pool in and outfit it with solar heating. Ripple, I get up to Alberta every year to visit my wife's family. I don't think it would ever make sense to put in a pool there unless you're rolling in enough excess dough to put it indoors. Plus, at least my experience, the public pool access seems quite good up in the great white north.

So you were still swimming in an outside unheated pool a few weeks ago when it snowed in Charlotte? No one swims in their outside pools in Charlotte in the late Fall, Winter or early Spring. You don't need a heater here to keep it from freezing, same as you probably. My bro has a 35,000 gallon pool at his house in Phoenix and he loves it and this one requires almost zero maintenance. It's enormous for a home pool.

When you have your husband clean the pool it's no problem at all! Seriously, we do have one of those creepy pool cleaners and it keeps the pool really clean. We empty the skimmer and add chemicals, but other than that not too much maintenance. And solar is the way to go! Without it on though we can still swim April/May-October/November : ) It's great! We put in a pool 2-3 years ago (it's a blur) when we said we wouldn't have a pool again. Our last house had one and we used it occasionally. Now, with kids, it's our best investment. We've used stretch cordz in it when we couldn't get to workout. Kind of making our own endless pool! (I would not depend on our backyard pool for competitive swim training. Noodling, yes.)

You don't need to heat your pool in the South at all. So you were still swimming in an outside unheated pool a few weeks ago when it snowed in Charlotte? Here in AZ, I use my backyard pool from mid-May through late Sep. If I push it, I've gone in as early as late March, and as late as early November. I really don't understand where people are getting all these costs. If you keep the pool maintained on a regular basis, the actual routine maintenance costs are small. I buy chlorine (shock and tabs) at Costco, put in some algaecide every now and then, and really not much more. Sure I do have to drain it every 2 years or so, but the cost for that isn't that high either. We do brush, but in peak season maybe 2-3 times a week, and that is only for maybe 3-4 weeks. This pool has in-floor cleaning system (pop-up heads), which basically take care of itself. The pumps have gone, and those can run $600 or more to replace. Personally I like having the backyard pool. It isn't big enough to do a real workout in, but it is nice for lounging, or for cool-down after a run. The waterfall makes it very inviting and relaxing in the backyard.

Okay, thanks for the feedback everyone. It seems to be more trouble than it's worth for most people, unless they have kids (I don't). I'll still look at the house as it's such a terrific location. Not only can I walk to work, it's less than a mile from a 50m public pool. :D I've always wanted a koi pond ... maybe it could be filled in halfway and have partial decking built over top. Frogs would then be welcome to visit.

...Ripple, I get up to Alberta every year to visit my wife's family. I don't think it would ever make sense to put in a pool there unless you're rolling in enough excess dough to put it indoors. Plus, at least my experience, the public pool access seems quite good up in the great white north. I'd never install an outdoor pool up here either. This one comes with the house (in Saskatoon) and I think it has a great future as a garden water feature/koi pond. And yes, Saskatoon is loaded with recreational facilities, including pools. It's how the local government keeps people from killing each other during bouts of cabin fever in the winter.

We never would have put in a pool in a million years, but when we moved here my husband fell in love with the house and neighborhood,so we took the pool as part of the deal. It's not that great of a hassle or expense...a couple of hundred dollars in chems every year. We do the opening (icky) and closing ourselves. I do all the vacuuming and husband does all the heavy overhauling of filter and what-not. Vacuuming takes about 20 minutes about 3 times a week. Not much "fuss" if you ask me. But when things go wrong - they can really go wrong. When we bought the place we said that we'd keep the pool going until the first thing went wrong with it, and when that happened we'd fill it in. A few years in, the wall (gunnite) developed a crack and we looked into having the pool filled in. Thousands of dollars. It was actually cheaper to fix it (fiberglass) and keep it running so that's what we did. And I LOVED being the "hangout" when the kids were in high school. Sometimes it was a pain to have kids here all the time but at least we knew where our kids were and who they were hanging out with. But I never ever thought of it as a fitness investment...purely recreational. And we never put in a heater - if it's hot enough to swim, it's hot enough to be in a 70 degree pool. It usually gets up to 80 by the beginning of August and stays there through the beginning of September - after that it's pretty brisk. I'm glad we took the plunge!

Another reason for not having a pool in the backyard: safety for kids. Not only kids. Here is a recent news.