Buying house with Swimming pool- bad idea

[floppypancakes]

Anyone? Dh says no way. It’s something I’ve always wanted. Am I mad. Is it a bad idea?

I'd love one OP but after a lot of research I've painfully had to admit I just can't justify it.

My NDN is an estate agent and he was unequivocal in saying it would put off buyers if we wanted to sell in the future and thus devalue the house.

Also as other pp's have said it's not just the cost of installation (which is v expensive if you're doing a proper job with a rigid cover or a floating floor, which is what I was looking at) but the ongoing maintenance re:heating and chemicals.

I also suspect that whilst it would get a lot of use initially that would dwindle and I'd be the only person regularly using it - as such it's a very expensive present to myself and the money could be put to far better use.

So I'm now looking at perhaps a small endless pool. Basically they generate a current for you to swim against and aren't much larger than a hot tub and you can get both above and below ground models.

Cheaper to heat/maintain but you can still exercise in them - but they are not going to be the focus of a pool party due to size.

Why not get a house with a big garden and have one of those above ground pools? Not as nice but when you sell you can just take it down.

We have one in our holiday home in Europe. It is fenced off and lockable gate.
Can acquire £500 more per week rental than one without and it adds value to our house.
It’s the holiday dream wine sunshine private pool.

Price circa £2000

Our last house had a swimming pool. The owners were shocked when they put it on the market to find that the pool actually made the house worth less. It cost us about 5k to get it all filled in and back to being a nice lawn. We live by the sea so when we want an outdoor swim we go in there.

Oh no. Sorry to hear of the dangers some pp have had with them. I would absolutely not have anything less than a fence around one and would build one if I had to. I have been looking at houses and only want one where there is a garden and then a pool
If that makes any sense so that I can effectively separate the garden and pool area.
Stupid question but can animals get stuck on the pool covers?! I digress...

Yes animals can definitely get stuck on pool covers - we found this out before filling it in

A friends indoor pool costs around £3 - 6k per year to use it depending if they have it heated all year of not.

We found a lovely house with a basement pool. We were really excited about the house but we knew the pool would cost around €8000 a year to service and function so we passed. Bought a similar split level house for €40,000 less and in the summer we just put up a big pool in the garden for the kids. We have to care for it but in autumn we dry it out and store it for the next year.
The thing is, in Germany, wages have not kept up with living expenses so they're many houses with pools that are getting sold off as older people die but a modern family cannot afford to run.

We have an outdoor pool, it’s heated - we have a separate boiler in a garden shed. Its 24ft by 10ft and the deep end is quite deep - the kids can dive in. It’s awesome, we love it in the summer, we have decking and I sit out and watch the children messing about on inflatables etc - their friends love it. The chemicals are easy to balance, the patio area around it is a bit of a pain to clean at the start of the summer, it takes a bit of pressure washing and tidying up but the pool itself is not high maintenance. We put the heating on a couple of hours before we plan to go in it, and we run the filters for seven hours a day from May-September and a couple of hours a day through the winter. I would say it adds an extra £50 a month to our energy bill through the summer - max. I think outdoor pools are easier to look after than indoor pools because the chemicals are easier to balance. The pool was there when we bought the house three years ago - I guess one day we might fill it in when we get older and the kids have left home, but definitely not at the moment. We don’t live in a particularly big house, it’s a four bed detached house in the south, but the pool does take up about a quarter of the garden. I’ve spent today starting the summer tidy up, can’t wait to take the winter cover off :-)

@Mumtofourandnomore ahhh and you’ve started me off wanting one again

While these guys are selling a product, the safety aspects are all spot-on facts:

cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/482700/Advance_Content/myth-busters-commonly-asked-pool-cover-questions-debunked.pdf?t=1479742151925

I have dismissed houses with pools from our current search. As the owner of a teenager the thought of late teens, alcohol and a swimming pool fill me with dread.

We have a pool. It’s an outdoor one and it’s
18m x 9m. There’s also an attached children’s paddling type pool. It costs quite a bit of money to run monthly as we control the temp with a heat exchanger because of where we live. It’s money well spent (though we are about to try and install solar energy throughout the entire house and pool room) because it serves a distinct purpose just as our custom built house does. We have great fun around it as a family and I’m as used to looking out of my bedroom window in the morning and seeing one of my married children doing lengths in it as I’m as used to my children have joint parties with friends and my grandchildren having play dates and birthday parties around it. Last but not least I love seeing my disabled son it it when he’s sneaked biscuits and he’s trying to work them off. He asks someone to go out there with him and we just know he’s been up to something. ❤️

Apart from the safety issues my friends ten year old pool has just developed a crack, 12k to fix it...

I wouldn't. We had one growing up and it was a pain in the arse for my parents.

Some close friends had one. It looked lovely and they cared for it well. The two downsides were running costs and amount of maintenance needed. The other was all these 'friends' who would descend on sunny days. My friends husband was a social type, so was quite happy to sit and chat to various acquaintances who randomly turned up with their swimming kit, and chew the fat for a few hours while their kids swam. My friend got fed up with screaming kids running around at weekends when she wanted to relax in peace. The crunch came when she slipped over in the kitchen when said children has been running in soaking wet (to help themselves to snacks) and left water all over the floor. They stopped the free for all pool parties and when they moved, discounted any house with a swimming pool.
Having said that, if I was a millionaire with a suitable garden I would love one of those natural swimming ponds. I wonder if those are self maintaining?

I had an outdoor pool in a past house pre divorce. TBH I loved it and the DC and I got a lot of use out of it. I sold the house easily to a family with three primary school aged children.

We only used it May to October and it was not too expensive to run, probably an extra £100 a month. I used to watch the weather though and turn the heater off if there was a cold or rainy spell as we were all fair weather swimmers.

Learning to look after it yourself is a big money saver, I just paid someone to open it up in May and winterise it in October, the rest I did myself. It is fairly easy to learn and I found it quite relaxing, though you do get a bit obsessed. I can still look at the water in anyone's pool and tell at a glance if it is perfectly balanced. You can use a lot less chlorine in your own pool (unless you have lots of children coming over).

Get a pool cleaning machine which runs off the filter system. It will save you lots of cleaning time.

Have a pool maintenance company check the pool and its system over before you buy, they will do it for free or a low cost.

The only problem is it does ruin you for public pools forever more! Nothing beats getting into a totally still, empty pool to swim.

We have an outdoor pool. It nearly put us off buying the house as we had a toddler at the time and the low walk around it seemed woefully inadequate. However, we've had no problems at all. It's quite old and will probably require some maintenance in several years but for now is fine.

DH did massive amounts of research about heating it (completely normal for him). He bought an air-source heat pump to replace the old boiler. It's amazing. The heating costs plummeted and the savings have pretty much covered the initial outlay 3 years on. He bought a Canadian one which is quite a beast, but was recommended as really efficient and reliable.

Btw we do all the overwintering and maintenance work ourselves. It's not that much of a hassle.

We had one, DH did all the maintenance himself and reckoned it cost about £1000 a year (April-Oct) for chemicals, electricity (pump has to run every day) and gas to heat it to 25°C on sunny days so we could swim. We averaged about five weeks use a year.

Ours was a liner pool, the liners last about 13 years before needing replacing (£5k ish) Ours has been installed in the mid-90s and by 2012 needed a new gas boiler and by 2014 a new pump. The pipes were starting to leak too.

We filled it in during 2016. It was fun when the kids were little (it had a fence and gate to secure it) but I would have worried about teenage pool parties and drunken swims and legal liability.

We also bought the house at a bargain price partly because no one wanted an outdoor pool! It was also on the market for a long time because of the pool.

Last summer I missed it, especially during the stressful GCSE season but not the cleaning of it or the utility bills!

A friend is selling their house and had to tell the estate agent how much the pool cost to run a year. £11k!! Now my friend is fairly rubbish at shopping around for deals so I'd knock a couple of grand off for being a mug but that's still £9k a year. That's indoor, boiler repair (), chemicals, cleaning etc.

This is my dream too, OP. One day I will have my own pool, and it will be when I have enough money that the costs are not an issue. After watching The Secret I even did a vision board with swimming pools on it! Crackers I know

My DP had an indoor pool when I first knew him. Heated slightly warmer than most (for good reasons), he reckoned it cost him about £500/month. Obviously it will depend on size, how often it's used, how warm it is, indoor/outdoor etc. Plus you will always end up being the host!

Personally I wouldn't want the hassle. Cheaper to use someone elses indoor pool and get a taxi there and back.

@Bleubelle - Reading that made me feel claustrophobic. How scary!