Today has bought my designs forward on getting a nice 30ft pool for the rear garden. I'm told pools are a real pain to maintain for the limited use we get them over here, but the desire to plunge into a pool for a swim after a hard day at work is very appealing.

So just how much hassle are they?

PS, for the rest of the mods this is'nt DIY as I won't DIY it, i'll get someone else to do the hard work :p

[Edited by Neil Smalley - 8/6/2003 6:20:57 PM]

This is were my dad's pool came from http://www.fi-clor.co.uk/source/dealers/notts1.htm, you got to be prapared to fish dead frogs and headghogs out if it's an outdoor pool though, personaly I would buy a season ticket at your local swiming pool, a lot less hassel. You could always get one of these just for jumping in to cool down
http://www.toysrus.co.uk/products/tr...14_x_large.jpg

Darren

[Edited by daz748 - 8/7/2003 1:28:08 PM]

There was can article on home pools in the Daily Torygraph last week. Said they are very expensive and time consuming to maintain.Cost likely to be around £30-40k for a decent pro job.

Work out the cost of the pool over say a 10 year period by adding the build cost, annual cleaning,heating,filtering,chlorinating etc then divide it by the estimated No of times youll use it. Youll finf ot works out at quite a few £££s per swim. Also you may find the novelty will wear off.

On the plus side youll gain a lot more friends with kids but even this will add to the cost as theyll want feeding and watering as well.

Chip.

why not get a sliding roof conservatory over the top of the pool then its an all year jobbie

No problem in 35 degree heat, maybe not so appealing in more typical British weather?

The idea of just jumping in after work may sound great, especially in this weather, but it may not be quite so appealing if it takes you an hour removing leaves and rubbish before the water's habitable...

Why not build a lake instead? Perfect for a Scoob owner :D

what about a hot tub instead ??

Gordo

Just fished out the telegraph article. cheers

Any sites to look at :)

Sounds Interesting?
Si

We had an overground pool about that size. Oval job. Not for serious Olympic training but enough to cool down. I loved it and used it quite a bit. Ugly but around £6k all in as opposed to the £20 - £30k for an in-the-ground job. Decent filter meant it was easy to keep clean once you got the hang of adding the right mix of chemicals. Took 2 lads 2 days to assemble. Pal had a similar size but added some insulation bewteen the liner and steel rim and had it heated (off peak electric); this extended swimming season for 4-5 weeks and about a ton a month to heat in that period. Could possibly dig out where I got it from (near Met Police rugby ground Kingston way) if you are interested. Well worth it IMHO. Will be sold out now though :D :D David

Something you might want to look into is an alternative for clorine. In my Dads pool the water is pumped from the pool to two boxes with copper and silver plates that have an electric current accross them (low volts obviously ;) ), then after filtering, back to the pool.

It's realy great not having to use clorine. Not sure about the cost or where you get them.

David

I'll second the idea about the hot tub - ours arrives in a couple of weeks :D

The great thing about it is that it's usable all year round; the water is kept permanently hot, so even in the depths of winter you can hop in and be nice and warm while you stare at the snow. (I've done this in a geothermally heated pool in Iceland - it's great!).

Running costs are (supposed to be) manageable too, since it's quite a small volume of water and the insulation is very thick. Some companies even offer to take it away and refund your money if it turns out to cost more than they say it will to run. Of course, I'll know one way or the other in a couple of months!

A.

Holiday place we stayed at this year in Norfolk had its own indoor pool in a wooden "shed" with huge sliding doors. Perfect.

The people who owned the holiday house actually lived next door and had their own outdoor pool. Turns out it was their business, fitting pools.

Their pool was heated had an automatic insulated cover (single button press to open/close) and a pool cleaning robot that runs up and down the walls and bottom sucking up dirt. Zero clorine system as well which was great.

Their pool cost them er, nothing, but the pool we had (28 x 12 feet) with building and heating etc. would have cost ~22k. The building even had a toilet and small changing room. The place was bliss and we used it everyday even when chucking it down outside.

Cheers

Ian

How much are these hot-tubs?

Chip.

http://www.endlesspools.com/index.html

:D

My in laws have a pool, its lovely (outdoor), great for popping round on the way home from work after sitting marinading in an old Golf GTI on the M56. I think it must involve quite a bit of work and its always needing work, new lining, heater, filter, diving board, must cost a fortune to kepp 30,000 gallons of water at a temp that wont kill you.

Nice thing is to swim starkers having first checked the in laws are out, near the airport so do backstroke to alarm air traffic.

Wouldnt agree with the hot-tub, my friends other half has one in her garden, great in the cool weather but why would you want to jump into the equivalent of a large warm bath with the current weather we have? Great in sub-zero though, but you obviously have to keep it permanently heated.

Gary

In this weather there is nothing better, i get DEATH looks from people at work when it's time to go home and they know i'm going for a swim!!

They are a bit of a pain but well worth it, we have a 'dome' which permantly sits over our pool which is just big plastic bubble held up by an air pump which has to be kept on permantly. They are great, a bit of an eyesore but once you have the water heated up to temperature they more or less keep it there, we only turn on the heater if the weather really turns bad, they also keep it clean.

Other thing we have is an automatic pool cleaner 'bug' attach him to the filter system drop him in the pool and he just skoots around the bottom picking up all the algae. Affectionly known as Bob for some reason.

I'd say if you have the room and can afford the initial outlay go for it!!!! The day to day costs aren't too bad.

A pool of some sort is a must in this weather.:D

Some years ago (maybe 10) me and my old man built a 24ft x 12ft one in the back garden, Fortunately there was already a drop from the patio to the grass so not too much digging out.
The overall cost for building it was around 2.5k (dont forget this was 10 years ago) excluding the filtration system.

The maintenance costs are fairly minimal unless you have it heated of course, then the cheapest method is a heat exchange pump, these start at about 2.5k and go up from there.

Cholorine is quite expensive in comaprison to a salt chlorination system. Although i personally hate salt water its about 1 tenth of the salt content in the sea.

Although some people say its a hassle to maintain, belive me, its well worth it when the weathers like this :)

The other thing to bear in mind, if you ever wanted to sell your house, there will be lots of people that are put off straight away if they have young kids, quite rightly they are terrified that thier kids could fall in the pool and drown.
I dont know if this still is a major issue to buyers, but it was when my parents sold thier house.

Cheers

Chris

You wanted cons

how about fishing turds outta the pool when some wee bastid takes a sh1te in it.

cheers

sinky

Surely won't be a problem unless Neil and family/friends are incontinent? ;)

In the summer go out on a hot friday night to a hot club with some mates, chat to a few lovely ladies about sport and leisure, casualy pull out the pictures of his parents huge pool and jacuzzi and mention its available tonight if they are interested, they start grinning and soon drop their linen :D it works great for us lads and usually have a clutch of babes swimming in their birthday suits by 3 am, it's a hard life!

Michael Barrymore's got one up in Exchange & Mart - cheap ;)

Big cost & hassle versus amount of use it would get - bit like our £100 juicer machine really!

I'm lucky to be able to use a friends now and again - we're all in pissed (even the dog) after 9 playing boys v girls! Top laff - she pays; best way :)

D

Pain in the arse I tell you get board of the up keep but you have to keep it maintained and its bast@rd for the use you get!
Still nice when its sunny tho!
The vacuum robots are quite good tho!

cold shower - does the same and costs virtually nothing!