[MediocreButArrogant]

Originally Posted by robojester

That sure would open up our search.
Seems like the logistics could be tough.
Any idea on the cost of adding a pool?

Around $40k including everything for a typical 15,000 gallon pool. You can skimp and save as much as $10k off that.

You only get back a fraction of the cost of building a pool when you sell a house. That's why it's much cheaper to buy a house with an existing pool than add one to a house w/o a pool. If your only consideration is cost, go with the house with an existing pool, as long as it's in decent shape. OTOH, if you have a vision of a backyard paradise that you want to create, cost no object, then of course you should build.

[robojester]

We are looking for a retirement place.
Ill stick with built then .
Can always work with the landscaping.

Thanks.

[xafpilot]

The short pool season, mid May to mid September and 2nd is the springtime winds that blow all the leaves into the pool on an almost daily basis.

[boboluv]

i bought a home with pool, hot tub, waterfall, and gas heater in henderson and live in los angeles so the pool guy takes care of it while we're away. the pool guy comes once each week for $110 per month. he provides all chemicals. our electricty bill with no one at the house is around $120 per month. i estimate about $90 of that is the pool pump motor which runs 6 hours per day every day. we intend to buy a variable speed pump for $1100 installed from leslie's which should lower the expense to under 20 per month.

the pump returns to the pool and the hot tub so we can heat one, the other or both. it takes about an hour to go from 80 or so degrees up to 104. maintaining the pool and messing with it is very relaxing and theraputic. shining lights into the water to reflect against the walls and house at night is uber.

[qingguy]

Originally Posted by robojester

That sure would open up our search.
Seems like the logistics could be tough.
Any idea on the cost of adding a pool?

Ball park of course....it would depend on size to some extent.
Also landscaping.

We saw a house with an indoor pool.

Seems that would defeat the point of moving to someplace so sunny.
I can swim indoors here year round .

So after reading this thread the only downsides are very small children and danger they may face? I'm currently trying to make the decision whether or not to proceed with a pool or not (I think I'm 90% committed to moving forward). However, then I'll speak with a neighbor and he'll say, "now that our kids are older (17/19) we never use our pool" and I'm wondering, will we be in that boat in a couple of years (we have a 13 year old). Quotes I'm getting are between $40,000 and $50,000 for what we want. That's a lot of cabbage to say what my neighbor is saying in a couple of years.

I also read someone else say it can be difficult to sell a home with a pool. Living in a desert with this heat, I find this one difficult to believe, especially with the limited inventory we have.

Maybe I should make a deal with my neighbor to use his pool LOL.

[MollieW]

When we were looking for a home we would only look at homes with a pool. Too hot here to not have one.

If you enjoy swimming - or just floating around on a raft, you will enjoy having a pool - kids or not.

[WestieJeff]

I never use my pool. I would be happy to get rid of it.

The problem is once you have a pool, you're committed to keeping it up forever. Realistically, if you no longer want to use your pool, you cannot drain it for years and leave it. The plaster gets damaged in an empty pool and it's not safe to have a large empty concrete pit in your backyard.

So, in my view, having a pool means committing to the expense and time of taking care of a pool, for years.

I would have my pool removed, but the fact my yard is largely built around the pool design wise makes it unrealistic cost wise to pay the expense of removing the pool and the expense of redoing the remainder of my backyard to "work".

So, I pay $8,000 to have pebble tec redone, $2,000 to have tile redone, $2,500 to have kooldeck re-done, $1,000 for new filter, $1,000 for new variable speed pump, $1,000 for salt chlorinator. In another 15 years, I will repeat this process and those numbers aren't made up, those are the big items I've spent money on in the last five years. That's for my 15k gallon pool with no spa.

Don't forget the monthly labor (or expense) of maintaining the pool itself. Can't neglect that either, otherwise you end up with a swamp that is difficult to remediate.

If I ever built my own pool (I wouldn't), I would definitely build a single elevation rectangular pool (aka: totally boring). No waterfall, no decorative rocks, no elevated spa that waterfalls into the pool. The reason why is I would have an electric cover installed as well. The electric cover would reduce cleaning and chemical usage greatly since 99% of the time the pool would be covered.

Originally Posted by qingguy

So after reading this thread the only downsides are very small children and danger they may face? I'm currently trying to make the decision whether or not to proceed with a pool or not (I think I'm 90% committed to moving forward). However, then I'll speak with a neighbor and he'll say, "now that our kids are older (17/19) we never use our pool" and I'm wondering, will we be in that boat in a couple of years (we have a 13 year old). Quotes I'm getting are between $40,000 and $50,000 for what we want. That's a lot of cabbage to say what my neighbor is saying in a couple of years.

I also read someone else say it can be difficult to sell a home with a pool. Living in a desert with this heat, I find this one difficult to believe, especially with the limited inventory we have.

Maybe I should make a deal with my neighbor to use his pool LOL.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by qingguy

So after reading this thread the only downsides are very small children and danger they may face? I'm currently trying to make the decision whether or not to proceed with a pool or not (I think I'm 90% committed to moving forward). However, then I'll speak with a neighbor and he'll say, "now that our kids are older (17/19) we never use our pool" and I'm wondering, will we be in that boat in a couple of years (we have a 13 year old). Quotes I'm getting are between $40,000 and $50,000 for what we want. That's a lot of cabbage to say what my neighbor is saying in a couple of years.

I also read someone else say it can be difficult to sell a home with a pool. Living in a desert with this heat, I find this one difficult to believe, especially with the limited inventory we have.

Maybe I should make a deal with my neighbor to use his pool LOL.

The only down side to a pool is that you won't get any more than 15K back for having spent $50K.

Makes the house much easier to sell. Kids require extreme care and drown proofing or both.

@WestieJeff...My pool is rectangular and has a very nice electric cover. They work very well. I run my filter about an hour a day simply to run the pool vac. Chem use is very low. The pool stays clean pretty much all the time. Do get some build up of crud over the winter but one session in the spring fixes that.

Down side is over 2 grand every fourth or fifth year for a new cover. They don't really fail...they shrink too much to work after that.

[NLVgal]

Originally Posted by orca17

I advise against buying a roof-mounted solar system to heat the pool. During the summer it stays shut off, and most of the time you would use it, the water in the pool is fine as it is. The sun breaks them down and they leak, and it costs several hundred dollars to get them repaired. I finally just had my pool service cut the line to mine and cap it off.

I've got rooftop solar. The sun did eat up the plastic tubing, but the company (Natural Energy) honored their ten year warranty with no problems.

[NLVgal]

Originally Posted by qingguy

So after reading this thread the only downsides are very small children and danger they may face? I'm currently trying to make the decision whether or not to proceed with a pool or not (I think I'm 90% committed to moving forward). However, then I'll speak with a neighbor and he'll say, "now that our kids are older (17/19) we never use our pool" and I'm wondering, will we be in that boat in a couple of years (we have a 13 year old). Quotes I'm getting are between $40,000 and $50,000 for what we want. That's a lot of cabbage to say what my neighbor is saying in a couple of years.

I also read someone else say it can be difficult to sell a home with a pool. Living in a desert with this heat, I find this one difficult to believe, especially with the limited inventory we have.

Maybe I should make a deal with my neighbor to use his pool LOL.

The money and little kids are absolutely NOT the only downsides. I've got to say though, that the small child thing makes me very nervous. I've got a large dog, thus a large doggie door, and I hate it when friends who have small kids come over. It would be way too easy for a little one to slip out.

Pools are a lot of work. It's windy in Vegas, so you constantly have to vacuum the debris out of them. The water here is very hard and tends to clog up things like fountains or waterfalls, and God help you if your pump goes out in summer. That pool will be green before you know it.

Also, what no one at the new pool place will tell you is that they recommend you drain the pool every year or so and fill it with fresh water because the build up of the salts and other chemicals makes the water "dead".

I know that's a ridiculous term, but I've heard the same thing from many people. It essentially means that the water evaporates, but the salts that result from the breakdown of the chlorine do not, so it requires draining the pool, even though you are constantly refilling it.

If you decide to get a pool, line up a good pool guy right away because you do NOT want to maintain that sucker yourself. (BTW, I consider mine the 40k hole in the backyard). It's pretty, but I wish I had never done it.