For those who may not know the true statistics, adding a pool to your home does not normally give you a Return on Your Investment (ROI) unless you are in one of those neighborhoods where it is expected that you will have a pool. There is a mix in our area and what it comes down to is that someone who doesn’t care about a pool isn’t going to pay extra for one, but somone who wants a pool will specify that when looking at houses. In our case, we put in a pool and hot tub for our own enjoyment, so while getting an ROI would be nice, that wasn’t the primary point.
This has been our first time to have a pool and it does come with some interesting lessons. The first being that in this particular location, the limited size of the yards means a small pool and it can’t be deeper than five feet. Say what? Yep – it has to do with a number of factors that we weren’t aware of. It was a mild disappointment, but hey, if you’re swimming/floating on top, it doesn’t really matter. Our next decision was about the wonderful soft chlorination system that is now available and that is a special option that allows you to use salt instead of chemicals for the pool. It is not a saltwater pool, but there is a slight salt taste as the chlorine is drawn from the salt that you dump in. There is no harsh smell or itchy eyes from heavy chlorine and you use very few other chemicals to keep the water in balance. We recommend this to anyone considering a pool.
However, one of the things that we didn’t know was that a pool has to be re-surfaced every 6-10 years and yikes, we just had to have that done. Hopefully that will carry us through until we sell this place and make the next move. Interestingly, when we put the pool in, the salesman actually suggested that we not heat it. He explained that a heater was not expensive to retrofit and that many people didn’t use their pool in the winter even if it was heated. As it turned out, we went the first year without a heater, then added one, although I admit that we don’t usually get into the pool in Jan & Feb, but do use it March through early December.
Between the problem that led to the pool being resurfaced and the time that took, it has been out of commission for the past few weeks, but it is Memorial Day weekend and a pool workout this morning seemed like the right thing to do. It was pleasant and at least I didn’t have to fish frogs out of it today. The creatures that get into a pool are the subject of another post though.
