The weather is getting warmer (as if you hadn’t noticed). If you have ever daydreamed of having your own swimming pool, your fantasies of reclining on a float in pristine, blue chlorinated water while sipping a margarita are probably once again at an all-time high.
And for good reason: Who wouldn’t want a swimming pool? That said, as you’re likely well aware, swimming pools aren’t inexpensive to install or maintain. So if you’re considering buying and installing a pool, and you’d like to know what you’re in for, these are some of the expenses you will likely incur.
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Building and installation. Assuming you’re planning to build a traditional, in-ground swimming pool, you’re either going to want to have some serious money saved up or have a solid credit history to get plenty of financing. For instance, according to the cost-guide website Fixr.com, the average cost to build an in-ground, 12-by-24-foot concrete swimming pool is $29,660. Meanwhile, HomeAdvisor.com suggests that the average cost (based on 966 members’ experiences) of a swimming pool is a bit lower at $17,816, although most of the 966 homeowners spent between $5,539 and $30,144 to build their swimming pool, with some going as low as $900 and some as high as $50,000. And for good measure, Angie’s List estimates $25,000 is the average cost to install a swimming pool.
Trey Taylor, who owns an insurance company in Valdosta, Georgia, says he paid $40,000 for his pool, although it was amortized over 15 years in his mortgage. It was completed as part of an agreement to buy his house, and those costs weren’t just for the pool but the landscaping, lighting, a separate water fountain and a pool house. And while Taylor and his family love the pool and its amenities, he has come to realize that for all the money they spent and continue to spend on it, “the total cost of ownership versus the number of times people actually get wet is kind of high.”
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Maintenance. Taking care of a swimming pool can be a little like taking care of a pet. Give your pool a lot of TLC, and it’ll be a wonderful addition to the family. Ignore it, and, well, nobody will call the humane society, but you get the idea.
Wayne Mielczasz owns the Belle Hearth Bed & Breakfast in Waynesboro, Virginia, with his wife, Linda, and they have a 16-by-32-foot swimming pool; he says he spends 30 to 60 minutes a day cleaning it.
Granted, they need to keep their pool cleaner than the typical homeowner who won’t have guests every day, but Mielczasz says that if you’re a regular in your own pool, you’re going to be skimming leaves and bugs off the water’s surface a lot. He can spend even more time than an hour if he vacuums the bottom of the pool, which he does once a week since invariably, despite the skimming, the rogue leaf or random worm will end up down there.
Mielczasz notes there’s also the cost of the chemicals to control your chlorine and PH levels. Those may run about $40 a month, experts say, and your water bill will climb somewhat since you’ll have to continually replenish the pool as the water evaporates.
Homeowners insurance. How much those premiums will rise is hard to say, since it depends on the insurer and the size of the pool, but generally insurers will require homeowners to increase their liability on their home from $100,000 to, say, $300,000, and it can get worse if a diving board is involved.
“Our agent said it would increase our liability insurance by approximately 75 percent, so I took our board down 10 years ago,” Mielczasz says.
Taylor’s insurance company, Taylor Insurance Services, specializes in employee benefits like life and health insurance, but he has become something of an expert on what a swimming pool will do to a homeowner’s insurance policy.
“The pool added 22 percent to our homeowners policy, about $600 per year, and we increased overall liability to $500,000 and bought a personal umbrella policy of $2 million to cover liability if anyone got hurt and sued,” Taylor says. He adds that his first agent quoted low limits to help him get a good price, but that, Taylor says, is a good way to end up bankrupting you if something bad and expensive were to happen.
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Hidden costs. It gets more fun, according to Taylor. While you will likely spend money on everything from inflatable rafts to patio furniture, “it’s the unforeseen stuff that bites you,” he says. “The first year we had the pool, a white film developed on the bottom. It turned out to be [calcium] scale and was damn near impossible to remove. In the end, we had to drain the pool and do an acid wash to remove it.”
That cost Taylor $1,500. The following year, the chlorine generator (which eliminates the need to buy chlorine and most chemicals) burned out, and he spent $1,000 to replace it. The year after that, the pool pump burned out, and he spent $750 to have someone install a new one. The year after that, a pool cleaner pump burned out, which cost another $750. “You see the trend,” Taylor says.
But Taylor lives 15 miles north of the Florida border in a warm climate where people expect to be able to take a dip often, and so he is hopeful that someday, when he puts the home on the market, the pool will be a selling point.
If you’re innovative, you may find a way to have your pool and swim in it for less.
For starters, you could get an above-ground swimming pool. According to Fixr.com, the average cost to buy and install an above-ground pool is $6,200, and that would include extras like a privacy fence. And if you’re a true DIYer, you might be able to devise a way to get your own pool without spending a fortune.
Sue diRosario, who works for a nonprofit social service agency in Winslow, Maine, says that back in 1986, she and her spouse bought a used above-ground swimming pool for less than $1,000. Then they rented a back hoe for $250 (they knew the guy who owned it, and he allowed them to rent it for less) and dug hole in their backyard. In effect, they created their own DIY swimming pool and improvised as they went along.
“Over the years the pool lining was no longer patchable, and replacements were expensive. So we purchased a blue tarp and tucked in all the edges,” diRosario says, adding that the tarp cost about $30 and generally lasted about three years until she would replace it.
It wasn’t a perfect solution by any means, and diRosario admits, ” Many of the measures we used … would not be palatable for the average bear.”
But until they stopped using it about five years ago, she says the swimming pool gave her family about a quarter-century of enjoyment. That’s probably the important thing to ask yourself. Is your pool likely to be a lasting part of your home life, or is there a chance you may only enjoy it for a summer or two before everyone gets bored, and you end up ignoring it and eventually have an empty hole in the ground?
Because for those who aren’t sure if they want a swimming pool, that’s why swim clubs and YMCAs were invented.
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How Much Will That Swimming Pool Cost? originally appeared on usnews.com
