Pool?

[Cabot]

When we moved back to Houston I refused to look at houses that did not have a pool. We never used the back garden before when we lived here, no fun just sitting outside sweating fighting mosquitoes. It is a choice that I am really pleased I insisted on. I use the pool just about every day in season and my husband when possible and we love it. I do the maintenance, it is easy and with a variable speed pump not expensive at all. We do have someone clean the filters when needed and check everything, $100 a time and well worth it in my opinion.

[Schumacher713]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

To each his own...but after renting a house with a brand-new, fairly large pool and having to spend 1+ hours a week maintaining it (despite the landlord hiring a pool service that made weekly visits), I told my wife that we're not getting a house with a pool until we can afford to hire someone to do the maintenance. Additionally, the brand-new pool was built incorrectly, and cracked and started leaking within six months or so. When I left, the landlord still hadn't resolved the issue with the pool contractor and was threatening to sue. All in all, a considerable headache that I was grateful to leave behind when we moved.

On the other hand, not many cities have a longer pool season than Houston. If you and your kids would find yourselves using the pool at least once or twice a week during the summer, you mind find it worthwhile.

More than likely the cracking was the owners fault. You must water the gunite twice a day very well or it will crack. My guess is they slacked off one day.

[abbybaby]

A pool was a must for us because of the heat. We pay $120 a month to have it maintained. My husband spends maybe 10 minutes a day with the net to get anything floating in it.

It did not affect our insurance prices. As far as electric bill goes I don't know on that. We are paying basically the same each month as we did in Dallas when we didn't have a pool. Some people say it is $100 more a month but I think that is on the very high end. Our pool heater is on gas so it is super cheap for us to heat it in the winter. We regularly heat the entire pool which is 8 ft deep and swim year around.

We couldn't handle the summers here without the pool!!

[Cabot]

I too would be very surprised at $100 a month extra in electricity. Even with our old very inefficient pump it wasn't that.

Any idea how much extra it cost you in gas during the winter to heat the pool? We keep going backwards and forwards on getting one.

[abbybaby]

Originally Posted by Cabot

I too would be very surprised at $100 a month extra in electricity. Even with our old very inefficient pump it wasn't that.

Any idea how much extra it cost you in gas during the winter to heat the pool? We keep going backwards and forwards on getting one.

One month we heated it about six times and our bill went up about $50. We heated it to 98 degrees each time.

Now a friend of ours heated theirs one time and it cost over $200 but theirs was electric. So definitely go gas on it.

[BFFMaya]

Could not enjoy the Houston summers without a pool. We had a PCC2000 self-cleaning system installed, works like a charm, an energy-star intelliflo pump for the pool and an energy-star whispeflo for the waterfall. Pool requires very little maintenance.

[PedroMartinez]

Originally Posted by Cabot

I too would be very surprised at $100 a month extra in electricity. Even with our old very inefficient pump it wasn't that.

Any idea how much extra it cost you in gas during the winter to heat the pool? We keep going backwards and forwards on getting one.

We heated our pool (gas) twice in April to warm and bumped it up a few degrees twice and used the hot tub about 10 times. My gas bill went up about about $25 or so. I thought that maybe they didn't actually read the bill but just estimated. I just received the last bill for May, and it was essentially unchanged. This leads me to believe they did read it for April and it just doesn't cost much to heat when you use gas. We have a "sports" pool with no deep end. 3.5 - 5 - 3.5.