How much does it cost to run a pool?
May 13th 2009, 6:52 am
#16
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Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
HTH
May 13th 2009, 7:18 am
#17
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 35,082
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
I forgot that Texas is only 6000 years old, too. That probably makes a difference.
karma for you, Bill.
May 13th 2009, 9:52 am
#18
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Location: Beautiful Dorset, UK
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Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
[QUOTE=meauxna;7568861] And I think I am the last hipster in town to not have chickens. QUOTE]
Yeah, keeping chickens is all the rage in the UK too these are really popular. My grandparents always kept chickens, but not in such trendy surroundings!
And bee hives - loads of peeps seem to be setting up hives in their back gardens.
Yeah, keeping chickens is all the rage in the UK too these are really popular. My grandparents always kept chickens, but not in such trendy surroundings!
And bee hives - loads of peeps seem to be setting up hives in their back gardens.
May 13th 2009, 10:04 am
#19
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 35,082
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
Yeah, keeping chickens is all the rage in the UK too these are really popular. My grandparents always kept chickens, but not in such trendy surroundings!
And bee hives - loads of peeps seem to be setting up hives in their back gardens.
And bee hives - loads of peeps seem to be setting up hives in their back gardens.
I confess, I've been eyeing the bee hives. We're currently just housing the mason bees, who do their own thing for the most part.
DH just yawned and told me he's BTDT with the chickens so if I'm going to be a backyard farmer, it will have to be worms.
May 13th 2009, 10:08 am
#20
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May 13th 2009, 4:31 pm
#22
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Joined: Jan 2004
Location: Plano, TX
Posts: 4,323
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
Lol!- I think the dead lawn and the cracked slab are separate effects! It's a condition of our lease that we use the sprinklers as dictated - here's how it was explained to us (bear in mind I'm not the scientist that dbj is!).
With the extreme high temps we get here the soil expands and contracts (technically I should imagine it's the air pockets in the soil). This can cause problems to foundations - the solution is to keep the soil moist which avoid the expansion / contraction. Hence the need to use the sprinklers.
Lawns still seem to be pretty popular round here - over where we lived in the UK they were being torn up all over the place (mostly to create off street parking), but not so much here.
With the extreme high temps we get here the soil expands and contracts (technically I should imagine it's the air pockets in the soil). This can cause problems to foundations - the solution is to keep the soil moist which avoid the expansion / contraction. Hence the need to use the sprinklers.
Lawns still seem to be pretty popular round here - over where we lived in the UK they were being torn up all over the place (mostly to create off street parking), but not so much here.
Here in Plano we have clay soils. They contract significantly when they dry out. When the drought got really bad two years ago (250+ days without rain, I think) our Red Oak tree in the front yard drank all the water we were allowed to sprinkle (stupidly, we stuck to the water restriction rules, unlike all our neighbors). The result was that the front yard dropped about 10" in height relative to the house, the lawn died and our foundation slab cracked.
Not that it's much of a big deal. Every home around here will require foundation repair at some point.
May 13th 2009, 4:35 pm
#23
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Joined: Jan 2004
Location: Plano, TX
Posts: 4,323
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
We are in MS, and I'm guessing that like gas, electricity costs vary in each state?
Anyway, we arrived in August last year, we have a 4 bed house, up and downstairs. We had AC running up and downstairs (2 units) 24 hours a day, until we got our first months bill, it was $550. That's with no pool........
Our average winter bill has been $160 per month, we would run the heat in the day and evenings (downstairs only) but not overnight.
Anyway, we arrived in August last year, we have a 4 bed house, up and downstairs. We had AC running up and downstairs (2 units) 24 hours a day, until we got our first months bill, it was $550. That's with no pool........
Our average winter bill has been $160 per month, we would run the heat in the day and evenings (downstairs only) but not overnight.
We have a 4 bedroom home too, but we set our AC to 80deg in the summer. When we set it to 75deg the first year, our bills were approaching $800. I have many friends and colleagues who set theirs to a chilly 71deg (or less!) and who regularly spend over $1000 on electricity alone in the summer.
Get used to wearing very little around the house, and have the windows open whenever you can.
...and to think that I now find it "pleasantly warm" when it's 90deg outside, and "heating up for the summer" when it hits 100deg!
May 13th 2009, 4:35 pm
#24
Lapine Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas in my own little world
Posts: 21,691
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
Costs me $500 in HOA dues to run our pool... well and do the landscaping. 
May 14th 2009, 1:24 am
#25
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Joined: Aug 2007
Location: Mississippi
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Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
It all depends on what temperature you set the AC to.
We have a 4 bedroom home too, but we set our AC to 80deg in the summer. When we set it to 75deg the first year, our bills were approaching $800. I have many friends and colleagues who set theirs to a chilly 71deg (or less!) and who regularly spend over $1000 on electricity alone in the summer.
Get used to wearing very little around the house, and have the windows open whenever you can.
...and to think that I now find it "pleasantly warm" when it's 90deg outside, and "heating up for the summer" when it hits 100deg!
We have a 4 bedroom home too, but we set our AC to 80deg in the summer. When we set it to 75deg the first year, our bills were approaching $800. I have many friends and colleagues who set theirs to a chilly 71deg (or less!) and who regularly spend over $1000 on electricity alone in the summer.
Get used to wearing very little around the house, and have the windows open whenever you can.
...and to think that I now find it "pleasantly warm" when it's 90deg outside, and "heating up for the summer" when it hits 100deg!
So far this year we've had the AC on for a couple of hours upstairs to cool it down a bit, and then I switch it off before bed.
We've been sleeping with just sheets for the last few weeks, the temp ovenight is usually about 25c, wich seemed intolerable at first but we've all got used to it.
May 14th 2009, 1:26 am
#26
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Location: Beautiful Dorset, UK
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Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
It all depends on what temperature you set the AC to.
We have a 4 bedroom home too, but we set our AC to 80deg in the summer. When we set it to 75deg the first year, our bills were approaching $800. I have many friends and colleagues who set theirs to a chilly 71deg (or less!) and who regularly spend over $1000 on electricity alone in the summer.
Get used to wearing very little around the house, and have the windows open whenever you can.
...and to think that I now find it "pleasantly warm" when it's 90deg outside, and "heating up for the summer" when it hits 100deg!
We have a 4 bedroom home too, but we set our AC to 80deg in the summer. When we set it to 75deg the first year, our bills were approaching $800. I have many friends and colleagues who set theirs to a chilly 71deg (or less!) and who regularly spend over $1000 on electricity alone in the summer.
Get used to wearing very little around the house, and have the windows open whenever you can.
...and to think that I now find it "pleasantly warm" when it's 90deg outside, and "heating up for the summer" when it hits 100deg!
We arrived last July with temps in the 100s and we were so stupid we initially had our AC set to 72deg
Our first monthly bill was approx $600! Not to mention, we were reaching for another layer of clothes indoors 
We've now got it set at 80deg - turning down a couple of degrees for a short while before my son goes to bed so he can get off to sleep easily.
I also keep an eye on the inside/outside temps during the day and whenever it's cooler outside I open up windows - with the ceiling fans on, that's quite effective.
Here's to lower bills this year
Apologies to the OP if we've got a bit side tracked from pools - but hopefully, this is useful stuff too!
May 14th 2009, 1:27 am
#27
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Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
May 14th 2009, 1:50 am
#28
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Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
It is! when we lived in London we often had very high temperatures inside our house (we had a south facing bedroom with a huge window) and it could be 28c or more overnight, with no AC or ceiling fan, it was horrible.
The difference was that if you waited a couple of days the temperature would usually drop, not likely here in July and August!
The difference was that if you waited a couple of days the temperature would usually drop, not likely here in July and August!
May 14th 2009, 3:27 am
#29
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Joined: Jun 2007
Location: Houston, Tx
Posts: 939
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
Ha! How true! When we first arrived in Houston I was freezing at night. OH would turn the AC to 70 and I froze. Ended up wearing 2 pairs of socks, leggings and jumpers, and then covered myself in as many blankets as I could find.
We've both acclimatised now and we have the AC set at 72/73 at night and 74/75 during the day.
PS. Reading this thread with interest as we're moving soon to a house without a pool. That little project will be on the agenda for next year!
We've both acclimatised now and we have the AC set at 72/73 at night and 74/75 during the day.
PS. Reading this thread with interest as we're moving soon to a house without a pool. That little project will be on the agenda for next year!
May 14th 2009, 11:39 am
#30
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Joined: Aug 2007
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 1,544
Re: How much does it cost to run a pool?
Just saw this story about a cow ending up in someones pool back in Blighty
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ming-pool.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ming-pool.html
