Question for the pool owners....

The best pool = no pool

I wish I could give you mine.

The first 5-7 years it's a lot of fun and everything is new. Then things start breaking. I have a 16000 gallon gunite. Salt cell had to be replaced every 3 years so I switched to chlorine. Been through 3 pumps, 2 booster pumps for Polaris, changed multiport valve, on the third Polaris, had it resurfaced a year and a half ago. Everytime it rains the chemicals need to be rebalanced. It just goes on and on.

It's just the kind of thing that you will be putting money into forever so keep that in mind. And the older it gets, the more costly it is. Your initial investment is just the beginning.

Kid is grown and we still use it but not a lot. You will get tired of it one day so keep that in mind as well.

It's not a lot of work besides keeping up with the chemical balance, brushing it down every week, and backwashing every week. Make sure you get a Polaris or something similar so you won't have to manually vacuum.

It's just something I wish I didn't have to be bothered with anymore and something that isn't easy to get rid of.

Next major thing that has to be repaired or replaced I will probably fill it in.

I have a vinyl lined pool. My liner has been in for 10 years and probably has 2-3 left in it. My neighbor has a salt water pool and the first year was hell on him. Take a previous poster's advice and just forget about the pool. It will be more of a hinder than a pleasure.

I -live on a lake and have an inground pool (I wanted lake, wife wanted pool). Now my wife doesn't even swim in it, she takes the boat out in the lake and swims. My pool is 16x32-9 ft deep end. It's in direct sunlight so it eats up some chlorine. It cost's about $25 a week for chemicals, not to mention time to vaccuum and such.

Sounds like a membership at a country club is a better choice

I have a salt water pool and love it. I add muriatic acid about once a week and have to replenish the salt maybe twice a year. Get a Polaris so you don't have to vacuum it yourself. My pool looks great and I really don't do much with it. The only other maintenance is adding salt about twice a year and I have a cartridge filter which has to be cleaned about 3 times a year - just remove the cartridges and hose em down.

get a pool.. hire someone to maintain it for you..

I have a concrete pool with pebble tech surface. I have an automatic chlorine system that uses the 3" tabs. It works fine. I have swam in salt pools and the water does feel really nice. I think the problem is electronic failures occasionally.

I have a concrete deck with the cool deck on it. I hate it. I really wish I had had pavers used for the decking.

I added solar heating two years ago which is fantastic. We can swim at water above 80 degrees 9 months of the year.

Overall, I enjoy the hell out of my pool as does my family. It was well worth the investment.

I havd a 20 x 40 gunnite pool. When Rita trashed it I had it resurfaced and went with a salt water system. Having trouble now with black algae(never had it before I resurfaced it) so I have a guy come by twice a week to service it($200 a month). I used to do all the work on it my self and it wasn't too bad. I have had some friends who have built gunnite pools recently and spent nearly 75k. My advice is to not be afraid of buying a house with a pool, but building one is an expensive proposition with very little chance of recouping your money when you sell the house.

Thanks....I really appreciate all the replies...as you can tell just in this thread you get lots of different opinons....will be next Spring before I do anything so I have alot of time to research and check things out...