swimming pools

[itsbob]

Inground pool = more $ in land taxes also. Just remember, even with an above ground pool you'll need to get permits from the county etc. I helped put a pool up at a friends house (they lived way out in the woods) and someone from the county drove by to see another house (shared driveway), and slapped a stop work order on the pool.

Inground Pool = Positive Equity, above ground pool = negative equity.. WHY an inground pool adds to taxes, but taxes are so inconsequential here what would be the problem!??

Go inground.. you can go and get a custom made pool to your size dimensions or pattern for about what you'd pay for a Kayak..

Saw one in PA was the Chevy BowTie.. NOT my choice but did think it was pretty cool!!

And buy the friggin permit, what is it 10 dollars, 100 dollars??? Pay it and be done with it!!

 

[mAlice]

I've heard they make the same tax assessments for an above ground pool. Not true?

 

[itsbob]

Well golly-gee...call me TACKY then...with our huge above ground oval pool, 4.5' deep, behind my 3500+ sq ft log cabin way out in the woods.....
We LOVE ours. I use the 3 in one cholorinator from Lowes (100.00 a tub but WELL worth the $$, 8 0z a day keeps it crystal clear and the water is "soft") I would recommend a sand filter (the bigger the better) buying quality stuff pays off. The only drawback is that right now it feels more like a warm tub when Rottncop and I slide in nekkid every night before bed
Ours came from village pools on rt 235, and he comes to open it for a minimal fee too. Good folks.

No slide nor diving board, NO DIVING in a 4.5 foot deep pool.. NO fun!! been there done that, and got bored REAL quick.. Liner failures, side wall failures.. tears in the lining, new filter.. new pump.. etc etc etc.. go with inground, spend the extra dollars and do it right!!

 

[itsbob]

If I remember right if you get a house appraised with an above ground pool they actually subtract from the value of the house.. inground they add.

 

[kingidiotface]

A1- Pool care in Solomons Island is great! They'll take care of all your questions and get you what you need

 

[Cletus_Vandam]

I've done some research on the pool issue. As far as in-ground goes you've got three choices: gunite (commonly referred to as concrete), liner pools and fiberglass.

Gunite pools are the high end of things. They're typically custom, which means diving board(s) and slides wherever you want them, depth to whatever, waterfalls, wading area, you name it they can pretty much do it. But be prepared, these are the most expensive by a long shot. Maintenance on them isn’t too bad, but expect to resurface it in about fifteen years depending upon how well you maintain it. Typically the algae issues seem to take their toll a bit harder on the gunite pools because of their pourous nature or the fact that there are natural tile borders with grout that need to be scrubed clean at the start of the season. All in all though, no more maintenance than you’ll find with the other pools.

Liner pools, are a step below the gunite pools. The design, shape and other aspects of the pool won’t be a flexible as the gunite, but then again, the liner pool is cheaper. Maintenance; expect the same, but I’ve seen liners pull free from the edge and drop into the water allowing water to get between the liner and the structure. This is a big problem when this happens. The life of a liner depends on how well you take care of the pool. My in-laws have a liner pool and they got about twenty years out of the first liner before having it replaced.

Fiberglass seems to be the way to go as far as I’m concerned. You can get them large enough to dive into if that’s your thing. Shapes and sizes vary enough to the point where you should be able to find one that suits you. Best of all they come on a trailer and they’re dropped in the hole and ready for swimming in as little as two days. Also, if you have some plumbing experience, excavation experience and patience, you can do the install yourself; saving about 50%. I’ve priced them out and you can get a reasonable pool shell for anywhere between $7 to $15k. Add in the filtration system, cover and deck and you should be in under $20k (doing it yourself).

 

[OldHillcrestGuy]

Im on my 20th year with my above ground pool, (15x30) very few problems went 18 years on the first liner, just this season replaced the filter and that was my fault forgot to drain it last fall, in 20 years Ive only had to replace 3 pumps. Ive gotten many years out of it, have nice wooddeck around most of it, and landscaping with bushes and flowers. I installed it along with my brother-in-law so I didnot have to put any money into labor and he was into selling spa's and pools at that time so the cost wasnt much but I have sure gotten my moneys worth out of it. I have had other neighbors go the in-ground way and 3 of them have already torn them up filled them with dirt.

 

[Christy]

We have an inground pool with a liner. LOVE it. It's 3.5 feet in the shallow end, deep end is 8 feet, with a slide.

The nice thing with a liner over concrete, is that it's not as rough. It's also not as hard. Underneath our liner is some sort of spongy stuff, so it's sort of like having padding. :shrug:

My sister has an above ground kayak. 4.5 feet. Hers may as well be an inground pool, they dug out half a hillside to put it in, so it's actually level with the ground except in a few places. Hers is nice because you can do the pool volleyball since it's one depth. Mine is nice because it's deep on one end and the kids can dive without cracking open their skulls.

 

[cattitude]

Inground Pool = Positive Equity

Nope...at least in this area. It doesn't do a thing for the value of your home at all. People like to tell you it does but it doesn't. Over the 18 years we've lived here, we've had our house appraised 3/4 times and have been told consistently that inground pools do nothing for the value of the home.

 

[redfish]

Go inground

We had a gunite pool put in three years ago and love it. I don't think there's that much maintenance; pretty easy in my opinion. Would vote for chlorine - much cheaper. Would also suggest DE filter. Do some research if you're going to lay out a chunk of change. Check out this link for tons of good advice:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf/dcboard.php

There may be some nay-sayers, but I use bleach, yes that's right, bleach, for my chlorination. It's the same stuff you'll pay three times as much for from a pool store - sodium hypochlrite. When added to water it forms hypochlorous acid - the same compound all pool chlorinating products form to oxidize comtaminants. I also use baking soda to adjust total alkainity and borax to raise ph.

Would also stear you away from a slide. My insurance company said they would not insure me if I installed a slide, but a diving board - no problem.

In this area, you have a few choices for inground concrete construction - Sylvan, Maryland Pools, Stevenson, and Blue Haven. Again, do your research and you'll see some problems with a few of these companies. We had all but one come out for a quote. Most of the companies will bad mouth the others. I called the references they provided and went to the county permit office to find my own references.

Good luck

 

[Christy]

Would also stear you away from a slide. My insurance company said they would not insure me if I installed a slide, but a diving board - no problem.

That's weird, you'd think a diving board would be far more dangerous since you're going in the water head first not butt first like on a slide. :shrug:

We have a slide and our insurance company didn't seem to have a problem with it.

 

[mAlice]

That's weird, you'd think a diving board would be far more dangerous since you're going in the water head first not butt first like on a slide. :shrug:

We have a slide and our insurance company didn't seem to have a problem with it.

Maybe it has something to do with people falling off the top of the slide and cracking their head open on the concrete. :shrug:

 

[Christy]

Maybe it has something to do with people falling off the top of the slide and cracking their head open on the concrete. :shrug:

Well if one is too retarded to navigate the slide, one deserves to crack their head open.

 

[mAlice]

Well if one is too retarded to navigate the slide, one deserves to crack their head open.

Okay.

 

[terpfan]

We had a above ground pool for 10 years at our old house. We got the pool for our kids. We decided on an above ground so we could get rid of it when the kids got older if we wanted to. Well, as it ended up we spent more time in the pool than the kids. We loved the pool. We recently moved and looked only at houses with inground pools. We have now have an inground heated saltwater pool with automatic vac. I'm not sure of the dimensions but it is quite large with a diving board. We have to do very little to take care of it. We hook up the vac, check the autopilot to make sure we have green lights and take in the water to be tested every two weeks. We opened it the first week in May. So far, so good. We are doing less to take care of it than our above ground which was a Fantasea (similar to a Kayak.) If you can afford it and love to swim, as we do, go for the inground. Ours was installed by The Pool Company and that is who we deal with and they have been really nice and helpful.

 

[willie]

I also use baking soda to adjust total alkainity and borax to raise ph.

Walmart is out of PH up. Any particular brand of Borax?

 

[crabcake]

Well if one is too retarded to navigate the slide, one deserves to crack their head open.

I'm hoping to drive down to Mooresville in the next couple days and look at a house that I love ... it has an in-ground pool. Just out of curiousity, about how much time weekly can one expect in pool maintenance? It'd be nice to have, even though DQ is gone during the summer, b/c I like warm night swims in the buff ... but if I'm gonna spend every evening keeping the thing up, it might be better to opt for a house closer to/on the Lake.

 

[redfish]

Walmart is out of PH up. Any particular brand of Borax?

20 Mule Team Borax, it's a green box, can be found at grocery stores, about a buck and a half.

Add 1/2 a box in the skimmer with pump running, wait several hours before re-testing.

If you decide to try the baking soda for alkalinity increaser, be sure to get the Arm and Hammer pure baking soda, not their laundry detergent. The box will even mention using it for pools.

Ditto for bleach. Never use any scented bleach, just plain old sodium hypochlorite.

 

[redfish]

Just out of curiousity, about how much time weekly can one expect in pool maintenance?

Provided you have a built-in pool cleaner, expect to spend a wopping 30 minutes a week.

self-testing water every couple days - 5 minutes
adding whatever to water based on test results - 2 minutes
cleaning out skimmers and rinsing baskets - 3 minutes

every few weeks or so, backflushing filter - 15 minutes

It really isn't that much work. As long as you do your own water testing and keep the water in balance, there shouldn't be any major work involved.

 

[huntr1]

My sister-in-law's father does pools. He's putting in a georgous in-ground one for them right now. If you want, I can get you his number.