I recently bought a house that has an in ground fiberglass pool in the back yard. The house was a foreclosure, so the former owner took the pump, filter, heater, basically everything lol. She also left it uncovered, so it looks pretty rough right now. I did get a cover from the bank when I bought it, and recently had all the lines pressure tested just to be safe all that was still good. Other parts of the house are keeping me busy, but as summer approaches, I want to start looking at the pool. Roughly, how much money am I looking at spending to get this thing running (just parts alone, not including labor). I'm hoping the gunk in the pool can be pressure washed off, but if not I do get a deal on paint from a guy I know. Aside from that, I'm pretty clueless. I doubt I put a heater back out there too. Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk
Forget the pumps and filters and all the excess money of up keep. Let the rain fill it up and buy some stock fish.
We have an inground indoor pool at my parents. That thing is a pain in the butt - they're actually talking about filling it in. But, when the walls needed cleaning (as it is inside so it gets dirty quicker) they just sent us kids in with scrub brushes. My inlaws used to have an outdoor pool and it was roughly $600-1000 a year to get it going.
My parents had a pool growing up and I was the pool boy, was so happy to see it filled in. Funny the pool in Florida they hired a pool guy even when I offered to look after the pool from December to March.
We also just bought a place with an in-ground pool. But, I was fortunate to have all the equipment in place and in working order. That being said, it had not been used in three years, so it is a horrible mess. I ordered all the chemicals early this week and they came yesterday. This weekend I am going to start cleaning it out and add the chemicals. I am also looking into adding solar heat panels and just use the gas boiler heat as back-up. I found everything I needed on the web at Doheny's. You could check prices for a new pump and sand filter there also. Hayward seems to be the brand that was recommended to me everywhere I checked. Be very careful of draining it completely if it is full now. If the water table is high in your area, the pool can actually get "floated" right up and out of the ground. Then you have major problems. I am also going to be lazy and buy a robot cleaner. A really good one looks to be a little less than $2k which seems crazy at first. But, it will run for a few hours every-other day and keep the pool in great shape. I figure spending 10 or 15 minutes starting it up, rinsing it out, and putting it away beats the heck out of doing it all by hand all the time. In addition to saving a ton of time, it will save on chemicals needed. Or plan is to give this a try for a couple of years and see how much we actually use it. If not, I already told my wife that it will get filled with lily pads, bass, and bluegill.
Go with koi Fletch otherwise it will be a green swamp. We had a winter mishap years ago and the koi all died in the spring I talked my wife into stocking the pond with bass and crappies, even with the water falls, strainer, and biofilter the pond was a green mess the experiment didn't last long.
Bummer. Maybe you could still run a sand filter and some type of algaecide that the fish can tolerate? Like what I used to use in my big aquariums? Honestly, I think it will remain a pool. We used to go there when friends had it, and it was always a great time and he said its not that big of a hassle. I'm not afraid of a little work to keep it up. From the sounds of it, you just have to stay on top of it.
If you have kids that can swim, take care of the pool and enjoy. Get a sand filter and salt system. With a salt system, the maintenance is nearly nada....So easy. The heater will give you 3-4 weekends in the spring and fall extra swim time. Up to you if the $$$ offsets that expense.
I need to get mine opened up here in 2 weeks or so. Best advise I can give you is to go talk to the guy at the local pool store. He's helped me a ton. At least near me, he's extremely helpful in understanding I have no clue what I'm doing. Also, his products are roughly the same price as you find anywhere else so it doesn't even cost me extra. We have a paper filter which I really like. It was difficult at first because it was in such bad shape it took a while to get it cleaned up, but after I got all that straightened out, its been awesome.
I had mine dug about 5 years ago. My girls (wife especially) love it. I can get it up and running for about $50 (pool builders will open it for $120) and depending on the weather throughout the season I spend about $500 a year on chemicals. I have a polaris automatic pool cleaner, well worth the money. The biggest thing with a pool is to stay on it and it's not that bad at all to take care of. I shock mine on Sunday night's, vacuum it on Monday it's generally fine until the next Sunday.
After about fifty hours of hard work and LOTS of learning about chemicals and pool equipment, we are good to go. The pool has actually been up and going for over a month now and we love it. The water temp was 96 degrees yesterday and the only thing I have done is keep a solar cover on it. I ran the boiler for a total of 5 hours the first week. I actually left the solar cover off last night so the water would cool some. My wife and I enjoyed our morning coffee while floating in the pool at 5:30 am yesterday and the water was like a bath. I did buy a robot cleaner. I got a Dolphin Triton, and it does a fantastic job. I have not had to use the vac once since I bought the robot. I run it every-other day. It takes a total of about 10 minutes to throw it in the pool and then clean it up when done. I hooked up an in-line chlorinator that was already sitting on a shelf in the pool-house when we bought the place and messing with chemicals now consists of adding some chlorine tabs to the chlorinator about three times a month. Hard to imagine that I caught 12 bullfrogs, a leopard frog and a host of other creepy crawlies out of this thing just a few weeks ago. Updates from anyone else?
We've had our's for 7 years I think... I've never had to use the vac. Auto pool cleaner takes care of it. Empty the skimmer baskets, and dip stuff off the surface a couple times a week. I have to do the super chlorinate once a week, and that's about it... I do have to adjust the PH and alkalinity from time to time due to rain and heat. Very little effort with a salt system.
I've been busy working on the inside of the house that I haven't really gotten started on the pool yet. I did go buy a pump, filter, and the goods to turn it over to salt. I hope to get a start on it Friday morning and with any luck will have it wrapped up soon. A lot of learning left to do. Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk
