Calling experienced pool owners

Willow

Up north solar doesn't really do much. Pretty much gas or don't really bother.

jeremymarcinko

If solar means solar panels on my roof then that’s a no go. My HOA doesn’t allow it.

Mikey081057

Solar heat for your pool uses panels that go on your roof where when you circulate water from the pool to heat the water... Obviously requires sunny days to heat the water, but it keeps the pool warm here mostly during the winter months. The valve is electronically controlled by the system and determines via thermo coupler whether to send water to the panels. Actually a pretty simple system relatively cheap way to heat your pool. I am not sure how well it would work in Northern climes where you may still have to supplement with a heat pump.

PSOVLSK

I’ve owned four different pools (all in Texas) so here is my experience:

All but one of my pools were “play pools”, 5’ in the middle going up to about 4’ on the ends. This is perfect for me as I’m about 5’9”. A taller person might want the middle to be around 5’6”. These pools are great for volleyball (and a rectangular pool that your talking about would be awesome for volleyball). They are also good just for your general kids playing in the pool, lounging on a float, etc. The play pool is the way to go in my opinion.

One of my pools was a diving pool. 9’ deep with a diving board on one end. I was late 30’s-early 40’s when we had this pool and I really enjoyed the diving board. BUT...it definitely cut the “usable” pool area in half, especially for adults. It also stressed me out more when my kids had friends over.

All pools have been salt systems and I wouldn’t have anything else. I won’t use the correct terminology here, but two pools had filters you had to clean every few months and two had backwash-type filter. I much prefer the backwash-type even though you have to deal with the DE powder, etc. Cleaning the filter-type system is a pain; therefore, I don’t do it as often as I should.

The recently replaced motor on my new pool is pretty awesome. It’s a high efficiency motor that runs quite and uses less energy. It has different settings on it so that during the winter it uses less rpm’s when the need is less. This is my first summer with this motor and I’ve had less problems than ever with my pool chemistry.

As for decking, get as much as you can. Cool-deck is nice on the feet, but isn’t the greatest aesthetically. One of my pools had Cool deck and I liked it. All my pools except the current one had decking all the way around the pool and that is what I prefer. Our sitting areas by the pool get lots of use.

We’ve had two pools with hot tubs and I can’t recommend this option enough. Our pools with hot tubs got used year round. We never actually heated our pool, but when the water was chilly, but not yet cold, we would heat the hot tub and the kids would go back and forth between the pool and the hot tub. There were times that it would be literally freezing outside and we would get in the hot tub. As I said, instead of being something we used for 5-6 months, it was something we used year round.

Since this is an audio forum, let me say that one of my first orders of business at each home was getting outdoor speakers hung by the pool. Priorities.

This is my longest post ever here on CP and I’m not going to bother proofreading, so I apologize for any errors.

Mikey081057

My pool deck/lanai in textured concrete... It was painted with this stuff and it lasted like 10 years according to the date on the old can that was here when I moved in. I repainted it with the same stuff a couple of years ago... It stands up great and rinses clean with a power washer... it stays cool, reflects uv's and lasts in the Florida elements which a lot of things don't.

https://dycopaints.com/products/dyco-pool-deck

steveinaz

We also had our builder "cool-coat" and texture our patio. It has been extremely durable to sliding chairs across it, and common traffic.

You can see both the "Navajo" color on the pool deck, and "red-clay" on the patio in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkxHR9ASL0M

jeremymarcinko

PSOVLSK wrote: »

I’ve owned four different pools (all in Texas) so here is my experience:

All but one of my pools were “play pools”, 5’ in the middle going up to about 4’ on the ends. This is perfect for me as I’m about 5’9”. A taller person might want the middle to be around 5’6”. These pools are great for volleyball (and a rectangular pool that your talking about would be awesome for volleyball). They are also good just for your general kids playing in the pool, lounging on a float, etc. The play pool is the way to go in my opinion.

One of my pools was a diving pool. 9’ deep with a diving board on one end. I was late 30’s-early 40’s when we had this pool and I really enjoyed the diving board. BUT...it definitely cut the “usable” pool area in half, especially for adults. It also stressed me out more when my kids had friends over.

All pools have been salt systems and I wouldn’t have anything else. I won’t use the correct terminology here, but two pools had filters you had to clean every few months and two had backwash-type filter. I much prefer the backwash-type even though you have to deal with the DE powder, etc. Cleaning the filter-type system is a pain; therefore, I don’t do it as often as I should.

The recently replaced motor on my new pool is pretty awesome. It’s a high efficiency motor that runs quite and uses less energy. It has different settings on it so that during the winter it uses less rpm’s when the need is less. This is my first summer with this motor and I’ve had less problems than ever with my pool chemistry.

As for decking, get as much as you can. Cool-deck is nice on the feet, but isn’t the greatest aesthetically. One of my pools had Cool deck and I liked it. All my pools except the current one had decking all the way around the pool and that is what I prefer. Our sitting areas by the pool get lots of use.

We’ve had two pools with hot tubs and I can’t recommend this option enough. Our pools with hot tubs got used year round. We never actually heated our pool, but when the water was chilly, but not yet cold, we would heat the hot tub and the kids would go back and forth between the pool and the hot tub. There were times that it would be literally freezing outside and we would get in the hot tub. As I said, instead of being something we used for 5-6 months, it was something we used year round.

Since this is an audio forum, let me say that one of my first orders of business at each home was getting outdoor speakers hung by the pool. Priorities.

This is my longest post ever here on CP and I’m not going to bother proofreading, so I apologize for any errors.

We won’t be getting a built in hot tub any time soon, but that would be awesome. An inground hot tub was a $25,000 option/add on.

We’re getting the variable speed pump, which I’m happy it’s included in the base package.

I don’t know that hot concrete is a real issue in Ohio. I’ve not noticed our patio really getting to warm.

Definitely looking forward to the sound system. For now I’ll probably just use the speaker B option on the Onkyo integrated amp we have in the family room and hang a couple decent outdoor speakers.

PSOVLSK

Wow! Mine didn’t cost $25k or you can guarantee I wouldn’t have had one. I loved having it though and miss having one.

The variable speed pump is really nice.

I guess Ohio concrete would be a little bit cooler than Texas concrete most of the time. We have kind of a patterned-type concrete now and it’s not too bad. Luckily we get shade in the morning from the house and in the afternoon from trees.

My pool sound system has always been just the B speakers from my AVR or integrated. Currently listening to Amazon music. Just finished grilling some burgers and now I’m about to take a little swim to cool down and relax.

jeremymarcinko

These are a couple of the price sheets we received.

The second one is the company who’s doing ours.

I think it’s a supply vs demand thing here. There are only a half a dozen pool contractors in the area and the avg wait list when you call now is 18mo. to 2 years.

Mikey081057

$2g's is a lot of profit on a salt cell.... It costs about 800 and will take the tech about a 1/2 hr to plumb in and take maybe $10 worth of pvc...

Mikey081057

Correction.... $1100 for hayward with power supp and controller

jeremymarcinko

So your saying I should pass on it and install it myself?

Willow

You can technically install the whole thing by yourself if you want to save lots of money.

Mikey081057

I'm thinking for a northern pool 3+ month season maybe go chlorine....you might never get ROI before having to replace the cell. But if you want the water quality than salt is your best option.

How many gallons?

steveinaz

Based on the size and depths...looks like about 12-14k gallon.

That's expensive, damn. Our entire build, $36k; 16x30, a lot of decking, waterfall, SWCG, pre-solar plumbed, floor and waterline returns, variable speed pump.

Mikey081057

and therre are a lot of open ended expenses on that too... dirt removal,???? electrical? gas line???

you should get more quotes... with prices on all the "extras" or they might kill you on those...

jeremymarcinko

We called other places and these two had the best prices locally, but as I mentioned the wait list is terribly long. Our install was supposed to start back in June but the builder is behind schedule. They called us Monday and said they were about ready to begin ours since we’re next on the list. Said they’d come this past week to mark it out, but no one has showed up. It’s frustrating but really the ball is in their court as we don’t want to get on another wait list after waiting this long.

Mikey081057

At this point it is mid august.... by the time they finish it will be time to close the pool... Flakey contractors that don't show up can't work for me...

steveinaz

The big backlog explains the pricing. Ouch. Both of my pools were actually built during fall/winter, but it's not much of an issue in Southern Az.

Willow

With the gas heater you'll still have at least 2 months to swim.

jeremymarcinko

Pool builder showed up today and has it all marked out. Our “Kit” should be arriving next week and they’ll start the dig soon after.

Hopefully in three weeks it’ll be completed.

We decided on the heat pump over gas as the gas required a larger meter and new larger gas line running through the basement to the pool heater.

Willow

Exciting times for you guys. When they dug ours, the guy in the excavator let my kids each pull out a bucket worth of dirt, they were so excited. We had to run an extra gas line from the meter through the basement to the heater. They could not have just tapped the current meter?

jeremymarcinko

I don’t know what tapped means, but the cfm of our current meter would not keep up with the gas heater. I’m told, per code, the meter needs to be able to handle all gas appliances as if they were running on high at the same time. So our water heater, range, gas fireplace, and pool heater. It just seemed like a hassle and even though the heat pump won’t heat as well. They said it’ll be much cheaper to run also.

Willow

They the gas guys hooked up a second pipe to my meter the same size as the main one going to fireplace, tankless water heater and furnace. Perhaps our meters are different, our house is 5 yrs old. During the summer we don't use the furnace or the fireplace. Being in South Eastern Ontario we want to use our pool from May to October to make the most of it

jeremymarcinko

This is the layout. 16x32 with a corner step. 4ft of deck on three sides and 6 ft on the left with a 16ft section bumped out to 8ft.

The fence will be out another 2ft from the deck and the existing patio.

Sorry I took the pic through the screen of a 2nd floor window. Looks bad.

audioluvr

Could you lay down in the middle like you're swimming so we can get a better visual?

jeremymarcinko

No. Maybe later when I’ve had more to drink. I will add another photo for perspective though.

steveinaz

You're gonna love it, congrats! BE PATIENT, they're going to make a mess.

jeremymarcinko

steveinaz wrote: »

You're gonna love it, congrats! BE PATIENT, they're going to make a mess.

Yes they already told me to plan on replacing busted sidewalks and curb. They will “try” to not damage the driveway with the equipment

Willow

No damage except grassy areas when they did ours.