2nd thoughts about buying house with swimming pool next door

To be fair, if you like a dip in the summer this is a valid point!

My parents have a swimming pool and the neighbours all come round in the summer all the time, usually totally uninvited. My parents like it, but it doesn't go unnoticed they do not get reciprocal invitations and the spontaneous visits curiously stop in the winter...

To answer the OP's question about flooding. This is not an issue.
My parent's pool has had leaks a couple of times (they've been in the house 30 years and the pool was 10 years old at least when they moved in), but it's always just a slow drain that has absolutely no effect on the surrounding ground - we only notice if the pool level is going down faster than normal (it's normal for a bit of water loss in summer from evaporation as the wind / sun takes it off).
I can't imagine anything catastrophic happening at all. In the winter the level can get pretty high but even with my parents' pretty neglectful approach (they just leave it to it) the worst that could ever happen is the rain takes the level over the top which is no different to normal wet weather as the water from the pool stays in the pool due to, er, gravity...

The noise effect is worth considering - my parents are in the 70s but the primary users of the pool are their grandkids. Everyone behaves much more freely and noisily than you would a public pool.
Also as someone else noted, the heat pump & pool pump they have is pretty noisy. It's basically the same as people now have for houses though it's annoying as it's on in the summer when you're outside, whereas heat pumps for homes are on in the winter when you're inside.
Unfortunately it's the wrong time of year to be able to suss this out.
But maybe the property is far enough away it wouldn't be an issue- and in which case, flooding definitely isn't an issue either :)

Apparently we are not nice to object to that 😀

@Pickandmixmood I would be really worried about noise and a garden full of screamers, so I was surprised to see the objection was flood risk

Phew!

WE occasional get sudden torrential rain, and it causes problems because it doesn't soak in, it runs across the surface, gathering into streams according to slight differentials in surface height. In your situation, I would expect that the water from the higher level was following a route that took it across your neighbours garden and hence all into your garden.

If anything, the swimming pool may have improved matters, as there'd be a few cm of empty space at the top of the pool to hold rainwater.

No! I meant OP 😂

Agree pool pumps range from 60/80bd. Not in itself loud but when it’s constant really just too much ( older ones are worse)

However as Labour have now relaxed rules on the location of heat pumps (which can now be right on the boundary) which run at 60bd approx it seems it’s not just pool pumps that are going to be driving us all mad now.

Moi? Do you know me?

Actually what you should think about is where the pool pump is situated. I was driven insane (not literally obviously but it really bothered me) by my neighbours' noisy pool pump right on our boundary.

Also, I was there and saw the water pouring through the fence, over the garden like a river and over the retaining wall like a waterfall. And it didn’t happen all along the entire property. It was definitely just in that section in line with where their pool was. I tried to find something I could use to block the water coming under the door or divert it away from the house but really didn’t have anything that would work.

Are the houses in that area large / large gardens where pools are in-keeping with the area? If so probably wouldn’t put me off.

However if it’s one of those ones where someone has built a pool themselves and crammed it in to a tiny garden that would put me off.

My next door neighbour beside me (level to me) who also had retaining wall because of being built into a hill and also had a neighbouring property behind them (without a pool) didn’t flood. So, I logically concluded that the sudden deluge of rain coupled with the pool caused the flooding. I live in Australia. I’ve heard that it rains a lot in England but I don’t know if you get the same kind of sudden torrential rain that we do.

However, I fully accept that there could have been other contributing factors as to why my property became a waterfall and next door neighbour’s didn’t. Perhaps the water was diverted by other structures.

I live in a hot country and most of our houses have pools.

I wouldn't think twice about a neighbors overflowing.

If there is a lot of rain and it's getting pretty full, then a backwash to pump water out is all it takes. The backwash pipe is most likely plumbed into waste somewhere.

My kids played in the pool all summer long, so I'm not going to begrudge my neighbours kids having fun either. (That is for the pp who mentioned screaming brats.) ..

Surely if the houses are big enough to have an in ground pool they are going to have large gardens ,it's not like an estate where the gardens are back to back ?
Noisy kids enjoying the pool wouldn't bother me though.

We have a pool, and it’s barely used. Occasionally on the l
odd summers day. Our climate is not conducive with multiple weeks in the garden swimming! It most certainly wouldn’t put me off, no. The chance of it flooding is zero.

Wouldn't you have had the same problem without the pool? It would be the same amount of rain on the garden, and in a "deluge" it wouldn't soak into the soil.

I am having second thoughts incase the pool floods How do you envisage it flooding?

Are you able to make some kind of discreet enquiries in the neighbourhood - do the neighbours have loud parties, or are they lovely friendly people who will invite you round to use the pool in the summer?

Are the two properties on level ground? I rented a property where the neighbour to the back of the property had a swimming pool. However, they were a little uphill. The property I lived in had raised garden along the back that was level with their property, and a retaining wall. So the house I lived in was lower than their property.

We had a deluge of rain and their pool flooded into my property and poured over the retaining wall into my house. It carried mud from the garden into my house. It was awful, caused quite a lot of damage and I had to move out.

Despite this I wouldn’t have a problem living next to a pool if both properties were level or if the property with a pool was lower.

Shrieking kids all summer would put me right off.

Not in our bit of Yorkshire. We put a pool in our garden and used it every day for around a couple of months……and it’s not heated. Plenty of sunshine to warm it up each day, we plopped in for an hour late afternoon, lovely.

Ground level pools don’t flood. They have a closed circulation system totally controlled by the user, and a good owner will check and maintain at least every couple of days. So, worrying about one flooding is sort of the far end of anxiety, needless in all but a very very rare occurrence that would be entirely man made, ie after backwashing, the fill up is left on too long. I managed 15 huge public pools, in all my 25 years, we only had one pool tip over the edge after a backwash, and that took all night! I’d check for subsidence though🤣

If you've got children, they might want to use the pool. They might nag you, nag the neighbours, and drive everybody up the wall

My parents have a pool, a proper big tiled type one with steps etc. It has never flooded or leaked, it was professionally installed etc...i don't know how common leaks are?

Biggest concern for neighbours would probably be noise in the summer, we are there most days when not at the beach and while my kids are well behaved, 3 kids in a pool with however many friends at different points will inevitably be noisy.

Our neighbours have one. It’s never been an issue.

How would also below ground swimming pool flood? Even if it developed a leak, it would just seep away into the ground?

With regards noise, if you live next door to a house with noisy kids there will be noise, swimming pool or not!