Many of us dream of having a home with a swimming pool. However, as many pool owners soon realise, this luxury comes with its drawbacks. Here are just a few of the main factors to consider before you splash out on a home swimming pool.
Cost
Installing a swimming pool isn’t cheap, but it’s also not as expensive as many people assume either. In fact, you can install a swimming pool in your garden for as little as $15,000 (£11,500) – which is a lot less than most people spend remodelling their kitchen or bathroom. Of course, for a mosaic tile swimming pool, you can expect to pay upwards of $25,000. A heated pool could cost even more money, as well as adding to the running costs (which we’ll discuss a little later when talking about maintenance). Decide exactly what type of pool you want and whether you can justify the cost.
Safety
Pools can serve as a serious hazard – especially if you have kids or pets. This is something to carefully consider beforehand. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to make pools safer, one of the most effective being horizontal roller shutters. You can even install pool alarms that are triggered when the water is disturbed.
Maintenance
Swimming pool maintenance is something that is often overlooked. A pool should ideally be cleaned every day – this could include fishing out debris with a net, scrubbing away dirt and adding chemicals where necessary. You should also test your pool regularly to ensure that all water levels are correct -these include the PH, the total alkalinity, the calcium hardness, the chlorine level, the cyanuric acid level and the total dissolved solids levels. Filters will also need to be monitored and maintained to ensure that they’re working correctly. This is something that many pool owners can find a chore. It is of course possible to hire someone to maintain your pool, but this also means paying more.
Usage
You may also want to consider how regularly you plan to use your pool and for what purpose. If you plan to take a dip every day and are prepared to swim in all weathers, you may find that it’s a worthy investment. However, if you rarely visit the pool as it is and need the climate to be just right before taking a dip, you may not get much usage out of it. Having a clear purpose could help to justify getting a pool. Perhaps you plan to host lots of fun summer parties or perhaps you want to use it to exercise or even train for sporting events.
ROI
Planning to build a pool to up the value of your property? You could find yourself disappointed. Pools can sometimes have no impact on the value and may even bring down the value in some cases due to maintenance and safety concerns. That said, in certain wealthy areas, you may find that the opposite is true. To be absolutely certain, it could be worth talking to an estate agent first to get their view on the matter.