I'm thinking of putting a pool in my back yard, its going to cost roughly 35k, not exactly a bargain but yeah, do you have one? should I do it?
Inground Pool - Should I Do It?
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I know, right. Although for just $80K, one wonders about the kind of impressions he could make with a higher yielding investment pool
Just do it! Awesome $35,000 high yield investment pool
Big cost, high upkeep costs, why not get a spa for like 10 grand and soak your pool dreams away? Get a deck made for it, a small bar area. Should still have change from 35k lol
not into spa.
Lol mates got a spa not cheep to run them also. :/
Got figures? I have an outdoor spa with gas heating, use it on average a couple of times per week for an hour or three, always around 36degC. I reckon it costs me about $2 per use in gas and electricity. Chemicals limited to $15 of chlorine part year. Change 2kl if water every couple of months.
@stussy:
LOVE “lol spell checker” and then in the very next sentence “has A outdoor heated” just pure Internet forum gold right here mate…
We have one.
Its Great with young kids. When they get old they want to go to the beach with their mates.
Also the 35K is just the start Ours is a saltwater pool , that creates the Chlorine from adding salt. That cost about $7 a bag and takes 2 or so bags a month. Then there is the pump, it consumes about $1.50 a day to run. ($500 a year). Then add water costs of toping it up after evaporation.
If you are in a leafy area that also means cleaning, which can be automated, at further cost.
Then ongoing maintenance, pump each 10 years etc etc. Fencing needs to be kept up to date, and some councils require certification.
If no kids 3-12 then is this worth it. When ours are no longer using it, we will consider removing it. - of course added cost there.
My kids are young, aged 2 and 4.
I'm thinking mineral, not chlorine or salt.
Go for it.
Pools are great.
Used to actually enjoy coming home from work and maintaining the pool. Not that difficult.
Both parents were dead.
Fiance was on the other side of Melbourne Monday to Thursday at the time.We almost purchased a house with a swimming pool.
Sister in the country,brother in outer Sydney.
Someone in the share house had to do it and I've always enjoyed the water.More fun than training laps.
Many people tell you what an (profanity) you are or do they just shun you.
@JimmyF: how does what he does with his family/friends/pool concern you anyway?! all he said was he likes to clean the pool and you, out of the blue, get judgmental when it's got nothing to do with you.
Man… you should've just apologised after the first ill-advised comment. But instead, you've doubled down out of pride and just made yourself look silly in the process.
You made a bad first assumption. Ok, mistakes happen. But the follow ups show a complete lack of understanding on what's happened here. Maybe it's not "everyone else here"?
I own a pool. And maybe you don't get it, but looking after one (whilst sometimes frustrating), can also be quite relaxing. Scooping leaves, vacuuming, just watching the crystal clear water after a job well done…. it CAN be very relaxing, and has nothing to do with "hating your family". That's what you aren't getting here.
@UFO: Yep. It's good fun.
Much better than ……
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disor…
Wow, don't worry I saw the humour in your comment. Maybe delivery could have been a bit better, but these guys are taking it way too hard.
Guess the OZBargain hivemind only likes references to Broden and high yield investment cars.
Man of my own idea I find it relaxing.
Only ever cleaned an above ground (temporary, although pretty large). You only really make the mistake of not wearing bad clothes once. After you drop some chlorine in and it splashes on your pants, causing discolouration, you won't do it again.
My kids are now 7 and 13.
Before we moved we did not have a pool and my older was over at the neighbours more than he was home, because they had a pool.
We soaked in a shitty inflatable pool.We moved 5 years ago, and my kids are in the pool whenever they can.
Initially one of the adult had to be in the pool with/for the little one, now we can just watch from the outdoor area when the 2 are in there together.I love a quick plunge in the water before I go to sleep.
Go for it if you are a water person.
I’m 22 still at home and constantly have mates over to my pool for a few beers. You can’t do that at the beach.
Look at swimming pool business buildings and their glossy magazines: they mainly feature small children playing in the pool. Under 13s is where the target market is. Above that age the children will be too ashamed to have their friends over with the severely uncool parents hanging around.
Spend $400 on a pool cover and roller to save from leaves and evaporation. Also saves on the amount of salt you need to add as the chlorine isn't destroyed by the sun as much when not in use. I'm able to get away with 1 bag/month in a 35-40k liter pool and NEVER have to top up.
When I moved into our place, the guy from the pool shop said don't worry about a cover. They are more hassle than they save. Although after pumping in the litres this summer (no rain) I'm beginning to question it.
Sounds like a tosser, worth looking into IMO.
We got a cover after 12 months, have not had to add water to the pool all this summer!
Definitly question it. In WA and without the cover there is visible a visible drop of water level per day. I would approximate 5mm over 25m^2.
So losing 100-150 liters per day I would say.
With the cover theres basically no loss as far as i can tell. Maybe 10 liters per day? Probably maintained by rainfall.
As for temperature; the cover gives great flexibility. Our pool was at 38degrees last week， take the cover off for 2 days and its dropped to 30 degrees. I couldn`t belive it changed so much in such a short timeframe.
I would imagine the pool cover will give a month or so extra usage when the temp starts to drop off.
out of curiosity, why are you dumping 2 salt bags per month into your pool? do you not cover the pool an it evaps out? even then you shouldn't be needing that much salt…
I've got an 8x4 and maybe add 1 bag in a year, 2 tops… I even get it checked at the start of every summer by the pool shop and its always been perfectly levelled…
sorry for waffling on and on but I'm just baffled by this to be honest..
Agreed - 2 bags a month is insane
My pool is small and it only took 5 bags of salt when we initially commissioned it. I'm only putting 1 or 2 bags of salt a year. Evaporation doesn't remove salt (notice that rain is not salty?) I only lose salt through backwashing the filter and that was so overrated that I only need to do that every couple of months.
Also depends on how much use it gets. In summer you're gonna be dumping more in than winter
If you're considering it, assume you can afford it.
Nothing better in the backyard on a hot summer day.
Like a new car its a poor financial investment, best if you've no plans to move home for ages. So base decision on how much you will use and enjoy it.
I dont think you can compare it to a car. lol
Ah yeah you can. Both are completely unnecessary (note coopdawg said 'new'), require a big initial outlay with significant maintenance and ongoing costs, and are mostly a lifestyle decision.
I have one and freakin love it. Summer is THE BEST.
plus one. It's a lifestyle decision, not an investment.
I understand where you guys are coming from but in some suberbs/areas it can also be called an investment as it will impact, hopefully positively, on the total value of your home.
No I don't have a pool either but like eXtremist am looking into one too.
Extremist did you go to the Pool & Spa expo at the Convention Centre this weekend (in Mlbn) - I was there today and had some very good ideas from the various vendors. If you are after a pool then the larger spa's may also fit the bill?
I think it's a good idea with little kids as they'll love it - I'm getting it for the same reason but with more of a feature planned for outside living too. All the best.
A nice pool for 35K is not a bad investment. Little no depreciation and solid price increase.
I've noticed that same type house, in similar location, fetch about 100K more if there's a pool.
35 k?
wow so cheap put one in the front and back yard yo!
$35,000…plus the $1,000 or so each year cleaning, running and maintenance costs.
or $20 for a family to visit the local heated pool each week.
I'd go with the local pool.
public pools, its like a piss and shit bath
That's my fetish !
They're cleaner than most home pools. Constantly filtered, properly monitored and heated. Unless you want a cold pool.
You could dump liters of urine into a public swimming pool and it would still be contaminated in the parts per million range.
When you go to the beach near a city or town do you consider the treated sewerage you're swimming in? It's not biologically or chemically inert.
I once got really sick from a public pool. I doubt they regulate it like you think. Fresh piss in a pool with around 100 kids doesnt get filtered as fast as you think and the amount of chlorine they use is insane, makes your eyes go blood shot red.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, the userbase of this site..
I've also picked up a very nasty bug from swimming in a public pool.
Although it is not the chlorine that makes your eyes go red, it's all the piss.https://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/red-eyes-from-swimming…
@eXtremist: Guess what, you can get the same from a private pool as well. The only diffrence is that the poop that everyone puts into a pool is family poop, but poop all the time. Unless you tell everyone to shower before entering the pool and you install a bidet by your toilet. Yep you even add a small amount of poop to your pool as wiping your butt still leaves a small residue behind
@eXtremist: Urine in a pool probably isn't an issue, assuming the person it originated from is in good health, it'll be sterile. Faeces in public pools are the big issue, chlorine is not match for faeces and thus gastro outbreaks are often catalysed by things like public pools.
@RockyRaccoon: What? Pretty sure if one of the members of your family has gastro, you'd know about it and hopefully prevent them getting into the pool. What are you going to do, request the health record of every person in the community pool to see who has gastro? There are outbreaks of gastro linked to public pools every year. Not really much you can do about getting in a pool that contains faecal matter, but when someone is unwell and has swam in the pool you're in, faecal-oral route pathogen transfer is a very real threat.
@Dont Care: Plenty of articles that explain that there are risks associated with getting sick from public pools. http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/swimmers-with-diarrhoe…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-08/concerns-about-gastro-…
https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/news/dont-swim-in-pools-unti…
Was at the Sydney Olympic park pool, and saw a poop floating by, and more smaller sheep style poops on the bottom.
Needless to say that that was my last visit there.Did you complain to authorities? Did they take some action?
@virhlpool: They took the bigger pieces out, but did not close the pool. There were still some smaller parts on the ground, but nobody did anything bout it. And I am no policeman. I have now my own pool and we have a lot of fun in it, we only need to worry about bird ( ducks ) and reptile ( Water-dragon ) poos.
Rubbish.
$20 to the local pool sucks compared to having your own pool, being able to fo swimming when you want, having mates over to your house when it’s 30 degrees.
Not to mention the public pools are never that heated.
As your kids get older, show them what to do to keep the pool running. As they get older they’ll have more friends over and use it.
Not to mention the one of the most important reasons for having one which is teaching your kids to swim. We live in Australia and it’s utrerly ridiculous how so many people don’t know how to swim or more importantly how to keep themselves floating if they get in trouble.
I’m not talking about tourists, I’m taking people who have lived here for 10 or 15 years.
we live in Australia
You know you're on Ozbargain right?
Lol don't no about you but went to homebush Olympic pools the other day and dam they where heated whats the story with them these days what happen to the good old cool down pools. :(
Maybe, but it's not the same.
You could get a taxi every time you travel instead of having your own car - it would be cheaper. The same? No.
Having a pool at home is nothing like going to a public pool (except the wet bit).
Something to read
https://www.realestate.com.au/lifestyle/know-putting-pool/
I grew up in Geelong. When I was a kid we just had above ground Clarke pools, which were fine by us. If we wanted to swim we went to the local pool or we went to Eastern beach of down the surf coast. Nowdays any pool will need a fence and, I bet, you will spend a lot of the time worrying where the kids are when you can't see them. Personally I wouldn't buy a pool I would put in a bunch of play equipment and then let them run under the sprinkler system if they were hot, maybe rig up some plastic slides across the lawn with water running down them.
I think you might be over estimating the level of urine and faeces in public pools; I would be more concerned about contaminated food and money.
With pools there is a lot of upkeep and a lot of downtime in winter, unless you want to join the iceberg club.
Save the money and invest it for your kids.
Good point, invest the $35k and give it to them when they're adults. I'm sure they'll forgive the lack of pool then!
Huh? Invest = get a ROI. If people couldn't do better than inflation how would anyone ever make money?
Should you buy a pool? Well, it's your money. If it's what you want and can afford the purchase and upkeep, go for it.
We bought a house with a pool a couple of years ago. We didn't actively look for a house with a pool, but the right house happened to have a pool as well. It's been great for the kids, youngest was 3 when we moved in. The oldest is getting to an age where he is starting to go out with his mates a bit more, but we've still got plenty of years left keeping the youngest swimming. It's been great to improve water confidence, but it's a play space. Don't think you'll be in there doing laps as it'll be too small.
I find the upkeep not too bad, but we don't get a lot of leaf litter as there aren't many trees near the pool. Get the water tested every now and then, chuck in some salt or whatever else they recommend. Power consumption is a fair bit, but we've offset that with solar.
If you like to swim, you live where it's hot and you've got the funds I'd say go for it. If you are doing it to improve the value of your property, it's a waste.
If you live in country Victoria a swimming pool has the bonus of providing fire authorities with the means to potentially save your house.
This vid of a chopper lifting a tank of water is from USA, but it happens here if the access and egress is OK, and there's no kids playing Marco Polo in it : https://youtu.be/7fEU6K7bams
Incidentally, & on a more serious Ozbargain note, Victorians can get their hands on a form that will replace water taken from a dam or pool where the CFA has 'borrowed' it.
Ours is 8m x 4m, with glass tiles and cost $68,000. Landscaping was an extra $30,000. Poolcover $2,000 and solar $4,500. Robotic tool cleaner $1,400
Filter pump is about $1.20 a day in summer and half that in winter. Solar, which raises the temperature by around 6 degrees costs about 50c a day (avge)
Pool is a magnesium based system so softer on skin.
Bugger all maintenance effort.
Family loves the pool.
You skipped over the extra salt/magnesium mix which is around $200 per year plus all the other chemicals and water testing needed.
Water testing is free just take a bottle to your local pool shop
Thanks for supplying that information Ocker - appreciated for those of us who need some breakdown of costs.
Assuming the above also includes the fencing?
We did a 11.5x4.5 fiberglass. Cost considerably less than 35k!
Built our own pool fence which was complaint at the time.. pool fence laws changed though.
We asked sparkie to run 2x circuits to pool area, they ran 1.You definitely want solar heating. Extends the months of use by a few.
Budget on it costing $1000 pa, and some time in maintaining it.
Midnight swim on a hot night..cloths optional..Will not boost you property value heaps but the use is great.
Never had a pool & bought a new house 7mths ago with salt water with solar heating. Yep there's a bit of maint, but nothing better then a quick dip to cool off, especially this summer. If you can afford it, I say go for it. livinng in the western burbs of Syd theres no easy way to get to a beach quickly so it perfect.
pools and boats, two massive money pits.
But so much fun!
tuzii is a fun pit
you wish i was littletinyasianman
When my boss purchased a boat for about $60k one of his employees said:
'The two happiest days of your life are when you buy the boat, and when you sell it'
He ended up selling the boat a couple of years later as the storage, insurance, and preparation costs started to bite. Anyway, he didn't use the boat anywhere near as much as he thought he would.
There's something about boats and orthodontists that draws them together.
What does BOAT stand for? Bring out another thousand.
The old saying of "if it flies, floats or f**ks, rent it" often rings true.
Just do it, because if you don't you will keep thinking about it.
I actually converted my inground pool to lawn. No regret there, because we do way more gardening than swimming.
you should go for an underground pool.
With altomic tiles
35k? it must be a very small pool with the hole already half dug.
Try about 55-70k for a reasonably sized pool when completed.I'd second this, I just had a pool put in. Cost was about $30k for the pool, fencing is another $9k, coping another $3.5k, landscaping and everything else I had to do around it is making it pretty expensive. You can double the initial cost pretty quickly
Pools are great with young children.
if you have the house long enough you may out grow it but will be worth it imo.
I have had pools in houses for the last 20 years, my youngest child is now 21+
the pool still gets used but not like it used to.
i watch the cricket with a cold beverage while in the pool after work.
if its in the budget get an outside toilet as well, best investment ever for the children and the adults.35k is dirt cheap. The excavation of the pool at my house alone was 56k (I saw the receipts when I bought the house)
Running costs really depend on what sort of pool you have. Ours was a heated, self cleaning pool. The first three months we lived there our electricity bill was 1100, that was with Solar panels (22 panels, 5kw system i think). Turns out the heater uses upto 43Kw a day, was drawing all the solar generation and then some.
I enjoy my pool. Maintenance is very small. The filter is automated, it has infloor jets for cleaning. I hose out the filter once every two weeks, and make sure the leaf baskets are empty.
I havent had to top it up with many chemicals since moving in. It is expensive to run, but not overly (if you dont have electric heater)
A family member was so excited to buy a home which had a large pool out back, six months later was a different story. He was sick and tired of all the cost and effort in maintaining it.
$35K is ridiculously cheap!
Here's the costing for my 20,000 litre pool (very very small) + 2,000 litre spa.
basic pool/spa shell $70,000 - concrete, incl all engineering and equipment and full automation (via phone). When I say "basic" that did not include the top of pool stonework and edge tiling which was a further $25,000 as part of our landscaping package. Add a further $2500 for solar heating for the pool (fortunately the pool builder built this in as part of the basic build so no replumbing required). Add a further $1000 for electrician work which is never included in a pool quote. Add god-knows-what for a pool fence - most of my fence was good condition boundary fencing with some additional fencing as part of the landscaping package (approx $2-3000 worth) and then I was quoted $4000 for 4.6m of glass fencing including gate which seemed stupid at almost $1000 per metre of fencing! So I did it myself for $1400. Fortunately the pool builder's quote will include the fence inspection fee BUT ONLY THE FIRST ONE…if they need to come back to recheck any deficiencies that you have to fix - you have to pay for additional inspections beyond the first.
We paid a further $80,000 on top of the pool for a landscaping package for the entire property - this sounds stupid, but I'm so glad I did. Chucking a pool in your backyard without doing this will mean that your pool most likely will not add any value to your property - getting a proper landscape design done that ties the pool together with entertaining areas and the house will make the whole place feel like a resort. Trust me when I say that peoples' jaws drop when they visit.A fiberglass pool will be marginally cheaper…but not much.
A Clark Rubber pool is great if you're on a very tight budget and plan to decommission it before you sell your house as it will probably reduce your property value (unless done really well).
Ongoing costs…I have Solar PV on the roof and all the automation kicks in when I've got free power, so I do not see any impacts to my power bills. I have salt chlorination and I throw one $9 bag of salt in per year. I got through one $20 bottle of pool acid a year and some other basic chemicals to keep everything balanced which comes to under $100 in total for the year. But you have to keep on top of things as it could get expensive if you neglect your pool and the chemistry starts stuffing up all your expensive equipment. Oh…pool robot…add another $1800 for that…well worth it!!!
And my property doesn't have gas. Gas heaters are around $2000 for a small one. I just paid $10,000 for a 45kW heat pump and a further $2500 in electrician fees to wire it up to 3-phase power. So I estimate this whole thing has cost me nearly $200,000! But I feel totally worth it!
yep, we're looking at $140ish by the time we are finished. plus a few extra for mulch, plants, watering, lawn etc
12m (52000 litre) fibreglass with solar
100 lineal metres of retaining (3 tiers)
50m tube fence, 16m glass
150sqm stone pavingbut we're not planning on moving for a loooooooong time
Dont you find the heat pump just uses to much electricity. Mine was using more than my solar panels could generate?
I bought a massive heat pump (45kW) which should consume around 7-8kW input power which I'll use to heat the spa. Hopefully it should heat the spa in under an hour (2000 litre) so at current prices that would be around $2 per heat. Don't plan on heating the pool with it as that would be quite a lot more - that's what the solar heating is for. But it's big enough that if I did want to heat the pool up in the middle of winter that it's an option.
I have a heater, granted it was heating the pool. Every time it was running, it was drawing more power than more solar panels were generating. But yeah if its limited to the spa I can see how that would work much better.
I stopped using my heater
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35? waaaay cheap