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Has anyone done this, had a pool put in?

Any advice or pitfalls to avoid?

We're looking into getting a pool put in our yard, are well aware that it isn't going to recover its cost if/when we sell. Given that we both love to be in the pool during summer and plan on staying at this house for a decent period of time, we're willing to accept the cost and enjoy not having to go to my wife's parents to use their pool all summer (not that we mind being at thier house it would just be nice to not have to jump in the car every time we want to go in the pool).

Anyone with experience within Houston would be awesome...!

thinbrit

I am a neighbor to and work with a couple of people who recently installed salt water pools.
They claim that is the way to go. I have no personal experience, other than swimming in my neighbors pool

Bink

See that sounds like the perfect solution. Neighbour pays, and we use!

sir_eccles

When we bought our house we converted the existing pool to salt water. So much nicer to swim in. Easier to maintain. The only pain is cleaning the chlorinator occasionally. I do it all myself rather than shell out $100 a month for some lacky to come in and do it.

Jerseygirl

We had a thread about this a few years ago...seems salt water was the way to go.

Sally Redux

Pool companies seem to be the equivalent of drive tarmacers. My neighbour had a protracted battle to get hers finished. The men running the company pretended to be 9/11 survivors or some such crap and led them a merry dance. So just be really careful.

SanDiegogirl

I have an in-ground, concrete plastered fresh water pool in California.

Make absolutely sure your contractor is licensed and insured.
Check the Licensing board for any outstanding complaints, liens etc
Check with Better Business Bureau
Get copy of the accounts if possible.
Go and see and get references from other customers.

Make sure the quote covers everything, the dig out, the shell creation, the plastering, the tiling, the filling, the pipework, the pumps etc etc. Check on pump size in relation to amount of water in pool. Too small a pump will mean that the water does not get filtered completely within pump cycle.

Have nice easy steps or ledges to get in. Steep steps are so difficult. Have more than one area to get in and out.

Keep the equipment area away from the house/or the pool area, unless its sound proofed. The pump will be on for 6 hours minimum (longer in the summer) and is noisy.

Try NOT to lay the pipework from pool to equipment area under concrete paths, hardscape. So much easier for repairs.

I have cartridge filters rather than a DE filter system. I have always found it very efficient and easy to keep clean.

We kept our pool pretty simple: no slides, rocks, fountains etc which makes it easier to keep clean and brush. The more complicated the pool the more likely you are to need a guy to come in and look after it. We clean/maintain ours ourselves.

The pool can be the most expensive item you have with regards electricity. Mine costs about 60cents an hour to run. So that means in the summer running at 8 hours a day = approx $140 a month. Electricity might be cheaper in your area.

I have a plaster pool. Some people have said that having a tiled pool lessens the amount of algae one can get.

Even with the maintenance we do LOVE our pool.!

sunnysideup

Yes but. For a salt water pool to function, its chlorinator needs to run many hours a day which can only happen while your pump is running. How expensive is the electricity in your area? For me, I run my pump just 2 hours a day and have a chlorine floater. Very cost effective.

SATX John

Sand filter is the way to go, IMO. We have a (diatemous filter) in this house and it is a pain. Looked at salt water etc... not worth the expense to change it. When it goes, I will go with a sand filter.

In the industry salt water pools are starting to fall out of favor, from what I hear. (In Texas)

Best advice for home buyers is buy one with a pool, the comp on the house is usually very low compared to the cost of installing one.

sunnysideup

Most folks here use cartridge filters. Remove, hose down, reinstall. Easy. Replace mine about every 4 years. Diatomaceous filters are banned in some states (CA I think and others). Sand filters can be effective and were the only choice many many years ago (and are still used in commerical applications), but cartridge filters are so simple they should be most peoples first choice for home pools IMO.

md95065

Don't forget to factor the increased cost of your homeowner's insurance into the ongoing running costs of the pool.

To be safe you want to make sure that you have the "what if a neighbor's kid drowns in my pool" coverage ...

Yorkieabroad

Whereabouts in Houston are you? We built ours out in Katy 3 years ago, so happy to compare notes on specific companies if you are in the same area and interested.

I expected to install a salt system as that was what everyone was recommending the few years previously. When we eventually got round to it, all of the pool companies we saw (about 8 in all) had moved on from salt and were recommending ozone and chlorine, a recommendation that was amplified for people installing a natural coping, particularly any type of flagstone. We went with the chlorine/ozone and its been fine, and easy to look after. We run a very low level of chlorine (about 1ppm or slightly less) and the ozone does the rest. The wheel has obviously turned again, as a few neighbours are building at the moment, and they are all going with straight chlorine systems.

Brother in law up in Austin avoided the problem totally - he got a fliter on, but no sanitation system at all. Every night he goes out and checks his water, and manually adds acid/baking soda/bleach as required. Definitely some OCD going on there....

A few things to watch out for....

Where the lights are! It is the one thing I would change on our pool....if we have the lights on when we're not in the pool (which is rare), you can see them from the house. I wish we'd had them a few feet further round the walls so that you could see the glow, but not the actual light unit itself.

Plan on safety/access. A lot of HOA's insist on a breezeway fence so you can't walk directly from the street up the drive and through to the pool without encountering a barrier. Then make sure your gates are always locked.Get a pool safety fence or net if you've got little kids. And make sure you are insured properly in case the worst should happen. There are multiple cases in the papers every single swim season

Stick to your guns on your design...we wanted the spa in the back corner away from the house. Some of the companies simply refused to put it there
Hold on, I'm the customer, thats where I want it!
No you don't, you won't like it!
Well, guess what, thats where I wanted it, thats where I got it and I love it!

When you're working your design, remember that most of the excavation contractors charge based on perimeter and depth. Going over 120' perimeter ( I think) ratcheted the cost up quite considerably. Our original design was about 5' over the limit, and just by squeezing it a bit we knocked over 5k off, without significantly changing the design. We put an 8' deep end in as well - there was an additional payment for every 6" over 5'6", but we wanted the kids to be able to dive without cracking skullls.
Watch the payment schedule - they all (obviously) try to front end as much of the payment as possible. It is negotiable, so try to tie it in with the big chunks of cost/progress a bit more, just in case.... That being said, there will be a few days in the middle when you feel like you're signing a check every day because there are a few major milestones close together.

If you're not into the water features, sheer descents and the like, don't do them. They give them the hard sell, because there's a big markup and an extra pump etc. We put the spa at the back, installed 4 outfalls from it that run all the time the pool is on, so only have the pool pump (Pentair Intelliflo VS3050) and an auxiliary cleaner pump.

Go with someone who knows what a theodolite is and offers to shoot the levels on your yard (rather than being asked to). Half the companies that we spoke to just eyeballed the yard and said it was fine to build it "flat" with no raised beam at the back. The other half surveyed the yard properly and deemed we needed an 18" raised beam at the back. The latter half were correct. If we had built without, we'd have backwashed landscaping into the pool with every rain.

If you want them to do the landscaping, get their pricing up front. They tried to bury it in the early stages, and once they showed their hand, it was clear why - totally outrageous costs from all of them, and I ended up doing it myself for a fraction of the cost.

Make sure you discuss the method of access for the digger. I just assumed they'd come up the drive, but on the day of the dig they announced they were taking the fence down and coming in the side. No problem with that, and they put everything back together fine, and resodded etc. But some neighbours didn't have room to do that, so they had to use the drive and their concrete got pretty badly cracked. They got in a big argument over who's problem it was and all building stopped for a couple of weeks. In the end, the pool company picked up the tab, but that would have been a lot easier to sort out if discussed in advance.

Double and triple check their plans...we had a dispute over the outfall from the pool overflow...the contract said something along the lines of "150' drains to front of house per HOA requirements" which we discussed and I was told that meant drained to street. They installed a drain that ran towards the front of the house, but stopped 50' short of the kerb. It gave me a massive muddy patch whenever it rained or we used the pool. It took a while (as I didnt pick it up till we started swimming) but in the end I persuaded them to install it properly all the way to the street.

Check location of things like any spaside valves etc, and the in wall cleaner connection. A friend can only reach his from actually in the water as it is located in the pool wall below a 2' raised side!

Err, sorry, long brain dump there.....pm me if you want any info on Katy pool cos we spoke to.

sir_eccles

Yes, check local regulations. You will likely not get a permit unless your plan also includes proper height fencing around the pool and/or your yard, sprung gates facing the correct way etc etc.

lisa67

We had a salt water pool put in 4 years ago and love it.
Sorry, can't help you with the specifics but the guys were great.
We had extra cost, which we knew we would, because we sit on a lot of rock and they had to jack hammer some of that out so make sure you know what they may be digging in to.
We do pay a guy to come in as my husband works away 2 or 3 weeks a month and I don't need the hassle
I think our pump runs for about 3 or 4 hours a day. Best thing we ever did was put a pool in.

Yorkieabroad

Are you guys up in Austin? One of the neighbours used to run a pool company and he was amazed at how cheap pools were down here (Houston area) because of the lack of bedrock to deal with. Brother in law in Austin bought on a lot that slopes away from the house quite severely so that he could build the pool "up" using the natural slope, rather than dig down. He reckons it was cheaper, but they had to use one heck of a lot of concrete, and now he's left with a manmade "cliff" on the downward side of the slope.