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?!

My hot tub takes longer than 3 hours to heat.

I'm going to send another message and say it's still rather cold. And await a reply.

Oh, so British! You need to be assertive. "I'm afraid three hours isn't enough to heat the pool to a usable temperature. Please heat it throughout the day from 8am to 5pm [or whatever]."

Keep complaining OP until you get the right result.

A few years ago we rented a cottage in Scotland in October. Then plan was to motorbike through the day, then back to the cottage for food, bath, and to thaw out in the evening.
The tight owner had control of the heating settings, and only had them set to come on at 8pm -10pm. Absolutely no good to us as we were arriving back at around 5-6pm , as when you've been out on a bike all day, you can get pretty cold. So to come back to a cold house was awful.

Lucky for us out cottage was on the owners farm, so after the first night we knocked on her door an insisted it was set to come on at 3pm to warm the place up for when we got back, and also at 6 am each morning.

She didn't like it, but after I suggested we swap, and she stay in our cottage and vice-versa for the week she caved.

You need to say the pool is freezing. It is spoiling our holiday.

Don't say "rather cold" but assertive "it's too cold to use and we are experienced in using outdoor pools in the UK.

Go to poundland/asda/tesco and buy a £1 thermometer! Then you can report the actual temperature, rather than a vague 'its cold' response!!!

We go regularly to a holiday park in North Norfolk. The outside pool is always heated to 30 degrees. It is not a particularly expensive park. This owner is taking the piss and such low temps are not safe for little kids (I don't know if you have any in your party) unless you wetsuit up.

Put it to her via trip advisor, you'll get a warm pool.

@Eleoura

Go to poundland/asda/tesco and buy a £1 thermometer! Then you can report the actual temperature, rather than a vague 'its cold' response!!!

I was also going to say to buy a cheap thermometer and photograph it. Then complain to the company the house was advertised through - presuming there was one. A private pool can be used at any time day and night. To be classed as heated, it should be at a constant minimum temperature.

Can you threaten to claim part of your money back through your credit card company? Idk if this would qualify but this is false advertising.

I’d tell her you paid for this because of the heated pool but the pool is too cold to use. Say either you want it properly heated or some money back.
And deffo leave a review saying that

Don't say "It's still rather cold" say "It's absolutely unusable...freezing. It needs to be on for much longer in order to reach and maintain a decent usable heat"

Be much more direct than ‘it’s still rather cold’

State the temperature needs to be x to be usable and it is not.

Could you threaten to sue as the pool is unusable and you paid for a pool that was useable.

Although I would never go for an out door pool in this country. The weather is not predictable.
I thought you had to have the pool heated for considerably longer than 3 hours
I would order a thermometer off Amazon for next day delivery and take the temperature of the pool at different times per day and video it all as well as the unfitting pool cover.
You, I presume got the pool with the holiday rental in order to be able to use it 24/7. So it is unusable for most of the day.

I would take measurements of the pool and I am sure there is a calculation that can tell you how long it would take to heat the body of water and how long it would remain at that temperature.

I would start now in threatening her with legal action.

@Holiday21woes

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.

Tell her it is too cold. It needs to be heated all day, and if she won’t agree say it will be reflected I. You paid for a heated pool. It is not heated! Insane. I had this happen at a house I rented once. It was freezing. The owners told me to put in a sweater. No, you don’t rent out your place for too dollar and then expect me to act like a guest and stomach your money-saving. You purchased the services and can expect the pool to be comfortable.

outdoor pool needs to be around 25 degree lowest and 28 degrees to be comfortable

ask for the pool to be heated as stated in the spec, this is not heated but still cold and not suitable for swimming

It's a total waste of time (and money) heating the pool for 3 hours at a time, it will never get warm. It takes a day or 2 at the beginning of the season to bring the water up to temperature on our pool. Once it is up to temperature, as long as the thermal cover is in place when it isn't in use, the heating doesn't need to be on for hours every day.

I would be asking for a refund unless they heat the pool to an acceptable temperature (at least 28C), although hotels usually run them at 30C. Little children will still get cold at 28C so we always ran ours at 30C when our DC were small.

You can get a pool thermometer for under a tenner. Get one on Amazon or in a local shop and take a photo. Don't let her fob you off by saying that you must have taken the temperature when the heating was off. Three hours of heating is only going to raise the temperature of an average size pool by a couple of degrees at best.

YANBU to expect a heated pool to be warm.

But YABU to say it's outwith school holidays in the UK

Don’t say your DC stayed in for an hour, that’s a long time in an outdoor pool in the Uk in the absence of a heatwave.

We’ve just has a week in a house with a pool and it was a bit chilly but useable but we had problems with the cover which probably cooled it down.

Last year we rented a place in September and the pool wasn’t included so I paid an additional £100 to have it heated. It was an absolutely beautiful pool so don’t be told that it costs a fortune to heat. You’ve paid for it and wish to use it which is VV reasonable.

When we had an outdoor pool it was heated by 2 boilers and used to take about 7 hours to get it upto 27C with the cover over it and obviously they'd cycle on and off during the day when used. 3 hours is a waste of time for an uncovered pool

3 hours no where long enough. My mum has had an outdoor pool for at least the past 50 years and in the current rather chilly temps the pool heating is basically on for at least 10-12 h/day ( obviously it clicks off on the thermostat if warm enough) it was one of the reasons she covered her roof in solar panels.
She is in the north east and it certainly is possible to swim in comfortable temps in the uk but you do need to put the heat in, and cover the pool when not in use unless it is a boiling hot day.

As someone who rents out holiday properties professionally, a pool heated for 3 hours is not a heated pool.

She should either heat it properly and add the heating to the rental rate (or make it optional for the customer) or not bother.

For transparency she should say ‘I heat the pool for x hours a day’, the average temperature in June is x, if you want it warmer the price is £ y per week.

To maintain a pool at a decent temperature outdoors in the UK (28 degrees or so) requires way way more heating than 3 hours a day!!

I had some guests at a house abroad who paid for the pool to have extra heat in June. The heating system wasn’t working properly and it was really cold. So I refunded the money.

If your heated pool is part of the rental rate and you can’t use the pool as it’s too cold, then I would expect some level of refund to reflect that.

@RandomMess

Don't say "rather cold" but assertive "it's too cold to use and we are experienced in using outdoor pools in the UK.

This is an important point. You know from experience of other outdoor pools that this one is significantly colder and “too cold to use” if you want a chance of action.

When we had an outdoor pool we heated to a temperature not a timer. There is no point in heating a pool for three hours a day if it's too cold to swim it's a waste of energy.
when you've got a pool you just have to accept that some summers are hot and require less expenditure to heat and cooler summers cost more.