To think an indoor pool is going to cost a fortune?

[Mercial]

DH all in favour of buying a house with an indoor pool. I'm more skeptical of the running costs. I'm not even sure where to begin with who is right. We would use it but at what cost!?

Kasho5 Sorry to slightly derail but I'm interested in using economy 7 for the air source heat pump. I vaguely recollect something about our previous heat pump only being efficient if the ambient air temperature was above 13 degrees. From what you say, that may not be the case and running it through the night is a great idea.

I was also told that water meters are compulsory if you have a pool so we're stuck with one of those too. Not that we really use that much water topping it up but it took a week to fill (we did get some abatement for not realising it to waste water). Sounds like you have your pool far better set up than ours, I'm going to take notes!

Releasing not realising...

We moved about 9 years ago, my husband kept suggesting houses with swimming pools and thought it would be a nice idea. I soon convinced him it wasn't for me. I have friends that have pools too, they wish they didn't. One is moving, she isn't having a pool in the new house.

I run a baby swimming franchise and we’re always looking for pools to hire. There’s a lot to consider (parking, insurance, changing etc) but we’d help you navigate that and it could easily pay for itself and make cash for you too? Pm me if I can help?

When we were looking for a new house, I viewed 10 hours in 1 day. 7 of them had outdoor pools. Not sure why, as we live in the not very sunny Home Counties. Honestly, a pool just seemed like a hazard and hassle with kids under 13. It would need constant vigilance even with covers and fences etc.

I think an indoor pool would be even less attractive due to the additional maintenance requirements. Definitely ask to see their utility bills (water, gas, electric).

Are you quite well off? If yes - knock yourself out. If not, forget it. Costs a lot to run.

If you do go for it, you could perhaps consider having Ann ozone’s pool rather than a chlorinated one? A few houses where we used to live had these, and rented them out to baby swimming classes. So much nicer than chlorinated pools (which we couldn’t use for lessons as they triggered DD’s eczema).

Ah metres is very different,,😂

Pools cost around £10 a day

The agent should have the physical cost of running the pool available. If not, a reputable dealer will have them. What's going to kill you is your liability insurance. God forbid a neighborhood child were to drown in that pool.

@Ratherberightthanhappy

Pools cost around £10 a day

No they don't! Mine costs a lot less than that, and others will cost much more.

Our pool is undercover but still an outside pool, it's got an efficient heater (air source heat pump) and only costs a couple of hundred maybe to heat April-October. I'd imagine an indoor pool would be cheaper as it would be warmer. The upkeep is a fair bit but it was a godsend in lockdown, the first one anyway!

Nope, get a hot tub, still expensive to run but cheaper than a pool.

@Mamanyt From what I can find the liability insurance would be about £200 per year so not a huge cost. Is yours very expensive?

I’ve got an I text overground pool which we put up in the summer (we are not I’m based) it’s up for less than six months and it’s a pain in the arse. Running the filter, chemicals, fiddling with the levels of this or that, then it turns green and fills with algae. Such a hassle.

We have summer temperature of above 35 degrees so it’s sort of a necessity but it fills me with dread when we get the thing out each year.

I dread the think of the Costa for heating it - luckily the sun does that for us!

If the running cost wasn't an issue, I'd still rather not as the thought of having another time consuming house chore to manage would be more than enough to make me run in the other direction! Unless you employ some kind of house manager in which case you probably have lots of money and don't need to worry about costs!

We have an indoor pool. It is expensive to run but with 6 young DDs, we definitely get our moneys worth. DH swims daily and DDs swim most days.

I would also be wary of thinking an air source heat pump and or solar panels are a cheap way of obtaining electricity. I have both and for a 3 bed barn conversion, my electric bills have been £170 a month - no pool. I have no other source of energy. My neighbours are the same, but there are two of them. Over the winter their bills have been £200/month plus. Perhaps ours are under-spec, I don’t know - I just know I cringe when I watch programmes like Homes Under The Hammer and people say they are going to install air source heat pumps as it will be cheaper. For the record, I never have my heating above 18 degrees, and in my previous house (similar size) my bills were about £50-60/month. Using a heat pump to heat a pool may not work out cheaply at all.

@dcb2 Yes our understanding is that air source heat pumps are only any good over 10 degrees - we have economy 7 as we also have an electric Aga which is heated overnight. Running the heat pump overnight maintains the temperature rather than increases it but we benefit from the solar gain during the day as the pool is in a sunny spot. It means the bills aren’t ridiculously expensive.

The owners of the house were lucky when the pool was put in as you do have to have a water meter, but no-one seems to know where our external stop cock is (including the water company) and there wasn’t room in the cupboard to fit one internally.

We have a pool a very similar size in an outbuilding separate from the main house. Not something we put in, we moved here a year ago and it was in a state of disrepair so it did take a fair amount to get it back to a usable state, new boiler, new humidifier, new liner etc. It seemed like such a extravagant thing that we left it for a few months but we decided to do it just after the first lockdown as thought it would be a good time to have it up and running being at home so much. I can definitely say we haven’t regretted it the kids LOVE it and use it pretty much daily. We often have their friends round (restrictions allowing!) who love to play in the pool too but like a previous poster said I’d make sure either their parents are around or that they are very confident in the water as it can feel like such a huge responsibility to watch other people’s children in the pool.

Throughout the winter we heated it to 30 odd degrees and that cost is probably £100 a week. But obviously you don’t have to do this. DH maintains it which isn’t much bother just a bit of chlorine and testing the water.
Summer costs are a lot lower as we don’t heat it to such a high temp and the water actually holds its temp a lot through the summer when the ground temp is higher. So costs are at least halved those months.

If you feel you and your family would use it it’s definitely worth it but I can see how it would be a ‘waste’ of money if you were heating it and no one was using it. I now feel like I wouldn’t want to move to a house without a pool as we would really miss it.

Kasho5 thank you! I think I'll give nighttime running a go this summer

@Mercial Hideously. Liability is always very high here. Now, insuring the actual pool against damage is not expensive, but protecting yourself against liability if someone were to drown IN that pool...well, in some states as much as $200-$400 a MONTH...and that's USD. People over here are lawsuit happy. We've had burglars sue for damages (AND WIN!!!!) because they tripped and broke their legs inside someone's home!

@dcb2 our DD is a swimmer so we bought her a 'cheap' above ground pool last summer. We've been looking at air source heat pumps.

Most on the market are designed to work at above 15 degrees (but might manage to wrk at 8-10 degrees), there are "extended/all season" pumps that can work down to minus 10 degrees. There is a Facebook Group called "Above Ground Pools UK Tips & Advice" where there is/was lots of discussion about what sort of pump for what size pool.

As well as that, insulation will make a massive difference to running costs. A really good thermal cover will (used whenever the pool is not in use) will make a big difference.

Finally DEFINITELY definitely get decent insurance. There is a local farm near us that USED to be used by private renters and teachers. They faced a hefty lawsuit from a client who slipped.

Can I ask, do those of you with outdoor pools heat them all the time ? We put our heating on for a couple of hours or so before we swim in it, it gets to around 28, but we don’t heat it 24/7. I’m wondering if that is why ours is so much cheaper. It’s run from a gas boiler (electric for the filters).

I have four children and they love it, as do their friends. I’ve also never thought to get somebody in to open and close it each year, we’ve been here for five years and it’s only a hassle for a day setting it up at the start of the season (the initial jet wash, shocking it, hoovering the algae ‘to waste’ and leaving the filters to run for a couple of days). Last year we opened it at the start of April, it’s definitely not warm enough yet !!

Can I ask, do those of you with outdoor pools heat them all the time ?

I live in a hot country and our 18m by 9m outdoor pool is heated in the winter and cooled in the summer by way of a heat exchanger. It runs about 12 hours a day and it heated to about 32 degrees in the winter. I’m summer we have it down to about 27. In a few months our house will run entirely on solar energy to make up for it.