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!?

We had a pool years ago, it was outdoor and not that big though. We used it loads in the first summer, then it dwindled off. Neighbours and family pestered us more to use it.
Only heated it in spring and late summer, cost a fair bit to heat and keep clean.
We moved and sold house with the pool, but if we stayed, we were going to fill it in.

People who teach baby swimming lessons are always on the lookout for suitable pools. Most public pools are too cold. So you might be able to make a bit of income from it?

Mumtofour when we first turn the pool heater on for the summer, we have it running around 12 hours a day. Once it gets up to 28 degrees or so, we try to reduce it to 9 hours or so. Our pool is quite large by volume (11 metres by 6 metres and I struggle to dive down and touch the bottom at the deep end).

Your set up sounds far better than ours and makes me wonder whether the air source heat pump sales pitch is based on some rather dubious calculations. I'm sure we were told it cost 25% of the cost of a traditional boiler heating system in fuel costs but yours suggests otherwise.

This has been such an interesting thread. I had no idea there was so much to consider. It's put me off having an indoor pool

@Mumtofourandnomore

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 !!

How big is it? My friends one you couldn’t just heat it for 2 hours before, it takes a week to heat up at the beginning of the season! It’s probably about 6m by 12m and about 7ft in the deep end. It’s on a thermostat I think and is heated with an electric heater and filtered overnight, they’ve got an economy 7 metre but I know she finds electricity in the day is then more expensive. Wintertime it’s still filtered and on a thermostat to stop it freezing I think

Air source heat pumps have a maximum Coefficient of Performance (COP) value of 3.

Ie for every 1kw you put in you get 3 Kw out.
This makes them much cheaper than using a a standard electric heater. However they are more expensive than using mains gas which is around 5 times cheaper than electricity per unit.
Also many don't run anywhere near a cop of 3, it’s probably closer to 2.
As bit of FYI ground source pumps have a cop of around 4 and water source around 5.

Our pool is smaller than that, I can just about stand in the deep end, I think it’s around 5ft 5ish at the deep end, it’s about 24ft by 10ftish. It does sound like electricity is much more expensive than gas which makes sense. We have a pool shed with a Certikin pool boiler and the pump and big sand filter in, at the start of the season to heat it probably takes 4-5hours ish, but after that it only takes a couple of hours to get to a reasonable temperature. I find the chemicals easy to manage myself, and we have a poolwonder rechargable vacuum which is really handy for vacuuming and much easier than using the vacuum line in the pool. It was about £100 so much cheaper than a robot.

I can see that when the kids are older it might be less appealing but it’s nice to sit on our decking next to it - at the moment the kids would be horrified if we filled it in. We are quite a sporty family generally though, it suits our lifestyle.

I suspect the combination of ours being a bit smaller and run with gas makes it cheaper, but genuinely our summer energy bills are less than our winter ones even with the filters running and heating etc. Once I’ve balanced the chemicals at the start of the season, as long as I top up the chlorine weekly it’s easy to look after.

I do appreciate that many people view pools as being a pain in the butt but I can definitely recommend it.

We stayed at a friends home who have a pool. It is kept heated all year long and They keep a cover over it when not in 8se to keep the heat in. Their gas bills are about £700 per month.

Unless you are seasoned swimmers, a pool in your house is a novelty and a money pit.

@Thehop

God I’d sell an arm to have a year round pool. Imagine what you’ll save on kids parties!

Can you ask the vendors if you can see bills for running costs?

How many kids have you got that it necessitates a whole pool being built rather than a £120 quid at Splashworld

@Wheresthetimegone

We stayed at a friends home who have a pool. It is kept heated all year long and They keep a cover over it when not in 8se to keep the heat in. Their gas bills are about £700 per month.

That's bonkers. We're going to open our outdoor pool in SW France at the beginning of June. It will cost about €40 per month for the pump. We don't heat it.

@Thehop

God I’d sell an arm to have a year round pool. Imagine what you’ll save on kids parties!

Can you ask the vendors if you can see bills for running costs?

If you did sell an arm to get a pool you would end up just swimming round in circles.