To think 3 hours a day isn't long enough?

[Holiday21woes]

To heat a pool, that is.

I'm currently on holiday in the UK.
Place cost the best part of £1500 for the week (expensive considering its outside school hols - hence I was expecting a premium experience).

The main reason for booking this particular place was that we have a pool to ourselves, no shared use etc. On the website pool is clearly stated as being heated from May onwards.

It is freezing. Weather has been pleasant here today, low 20s, pool still super cold. We have braved it twice but it's painful. Even my DC (over 16) who are pretty hardy and love swimming and being in water could only manage an hour tops.

Contacted the owner on the first day we used it (not our first day here as weather was poor and we didn't go in) and her response was to say it's on for 3 hours a day and she would move the timer to the time we're using it. However that's made no difference, if anything it's colder!

Our previous experience of renting a house and pool was that we had access to the controls ourselves and when it was too cold we turned it up - just like central heating! Not this controlling it remotely and allocating 3 hours a day which seems ridiculous given what I'm paying for the week.

I could have rented somewhere nice anywhere else for virtually half the cost, I've paid well over £500 extra simply in order to have a pool which we can't use.

AIBU to expect it actually to be heated for more than 3 hours?!

Message her stating what you've said here and ask her to heat it all day as that's what is expected for the price you've paid...

Tell her I paid a premium way over similar places because it had a pool. It needs to be heated for at least 6-8 hours or whatever you feel you need.

I wanted to get some views from here first before contacting the owner again, I think the heating situation is bloody ludicrous but I get the feeling from the owners messages that she considers the 3 hours to be completely acceptable and standard. I'm not sure how asking for more is going to go down! In my initial message I said the pool was extremely cold.

Not only that but one of our group also injured their foot getting into the pool as the step on the ladder broke. Luckily it's badly bruised rather than cut but that hasn't helped matters either.

They typically need to be heated for 4-6 hours a day so she's completely wrong on that! Complain and keep complaining.

Is her accommodation on a platform that allows reviews? She may be more likely to give in if she thinks u might leave a poor review. Not that it should matter. You've paid for a heated pool that doesn't mean a few hrs a day. It wld probably take 3hrs just to not feel ice cold.

It's quite a small shallow pool so when she said 3 hours I thought ok I'll go with it. But it's barely made any difference. You can get in it, but it isn't pleasant.

It's on one of the standard UK holiday accommodation websites, I don't think there are direct reviews but I will check. It looked nice in pictures but the reality of the pool is disappointing.

I'm not sure how to put it to the owner - it's still cold? I'm envisaging her saying she only heats it for 3 hours as standard. Even if she does suddenly whack it on for 8 hours it's still spoilt the first half of our hols. Especially as it sounds like she should know it needs longer than 3 hours to heat.

The number of hours it's on is irrelevant. It's the temperature of the water that matters. Without going into the physics, there's a hell of a lot of water in a pool, there's a hell of a lot of heat loss, and it takes a lot of energy even to shift the temperature up by one degree. If it's really cold it can take days to get it up to being comfortable. So having it on for three hours will make no discernable difference.

Do you know what the actual water temp is?

Are you able to tell her what temperature the water is to show 3 hours isn't sufficient?

Is it an outdoor pool?
In my experience heated outdoor pools rarely feel heated at all, as a pp out it takes so much energy to heat them.
So it normally just takes the edge off it (you’d probably tell the difference if it wasn’t heated at all) and is nothing like an indoor heated pool.

And yes is there a thermometer in it? Or maybe on the controls it will say what the temp is. Agree it doesn’t matter when the heating’s on so much as what temp she has set it to

We had a lovely spot in Cornwall with own pool and it was heated all day, the owner was super at making sure the pool was clean and ready for us. It was £850 in May and only.£1100 in height of summer! I think you have an owner problem!

And it felt lovely and warm even though it was outside.

We don't have a thermometer. There is an old one by the pool (just below the top of the water) it's at the shallowest, sunniest part of the pool and was showing as low- mid 20s C. It's firmly attached so I can't remove it and check the temp in the deeper parts.

If it's between 22 and 25 I think that probably qualifies as heated even if it's not as warm as you'd like, quite a bit warmer than the sea. It's the sort of temp you'll be fine if you're moving about but you're not going to be comfortable just lounging around in it.

It is an outdoor pool yes, but we had an outdoor one on our last holiday and were able to increase the heating ourselves. I completely admit that was never as warm as an indoor pool but it was a lot hotter than this one is.

Nothing on the controls about temperature because these are locked away and controlled remotely.

That temperature is the top of the pool though, where it's warmest. Anything below the first couple of cm is going to be colder.

If you move constantly it is just about bearable. But honestly I don't think 3 hours a day is enough. My partner despite being a keen swimmer has refused to get in because it is, in his words, unpleasantly cold.

Contact her and explain in simple words that the pool is so cold it is unusable and that she either
A. Turns it on and leaves it on
B. Gives you a partial refund as the main attraction of the property is unusable.

In my experience even if it is really low 20s C, that still feels really cold unless it’s a boiling hot day where you want to cool off. Also on a hot day assuming it’s got a thermal type of cover you’d get a lot of extra heat from the cover.

Not defending her by the way!

YANBU. You're paying for a heated pool and while 3 hours is probably more than enough on a warm summers day at the moment ours is going 8-10ish hours on the thermostat to maintain a comfortable high 20's temperature.

The issue I guess is that she is technically providing a heated pool, so it would be difficult to get a complaint held up through the booking agency.

At very least, have her move the heating earlier. It takes a long time to heat up so much water and you want to benefit from the pool at it's warmest point rather than getting in when it's just spent 21 hours cooling off.

I guess the question is what's reasonable isn't it - it wouldn't have occurred to me to check before booking how long the heating would be on for, and whether we'd have access to it. I assumed it would be 'on' and if we needed it hotter/ on for longer we could just turn it up ourselves.

I didn't expect a big brother type situation where the pool heater would be remotely turned on and off.

Too cold.
Low 20oC for a pool isn’t nice

@caffeinebuzz I tried to get in today 5 mins after the 3 hour timeslot ended and if anything it felt colder than a couple of days ago. If you get in when the heater is on, and sit by the jet, that corner is bearable, just.

Oh yes, don't get me wrong I'm definitely not standing up for her. Running a pool is expensive, but that's why you paid a premium to rent this place!