Swimming pool maintenance

OP:

The only way to go.

there are two reasons to have a pool:

pool sex and having a hot pool boy.

if you can't afford that, you shouldn't have a pool

Wealthy people problems

I have solar panels for power and my pool is a salt water pool. The costs are therefore minimal. The company that cuts my lawn also treats the pool. No, I'm not wealthy. A lot of people in Florida have a pool and use a lawn service to cut/edge the yard.

Just get some pool boy to fuck and admire take care of it. As soon as he hits 22 years of age, drown him and get a new one.

I thought when the pool boy ages out, you call INS and have him deported

A pool, like books, is awfully decorative don't you think?

I almost bought a house with a pool until my sister told me what a pain it was to upkeep her pool—so I backed out of the deal

It's no big deal. Pool boy comes once a week (it's usually the frau who owns the local pool store). I never use it, but it looks nice. My dog liked it.

R7 I am classy, I would never get a poolboy with foreskin! MARY!!!

But what would Dixie Wetsworth say?!

foreskins on poolboys are very fine, the saline rinse keeps them fresh, plump and delicious...briny like good oysters

You know, for all you foreskin freaks (both for and against): if a person has poor hygiene, they'll smell bad whether they're cut or uncut. The issue is not cut or uncut, but whether that person has good hygiene. I've had the misfortune to encounter stinkers who were cut and those who were uncut: either way, it was gross.

I'm uncut R14, I can scrub that shit dry with the best soaps in the world and it'll smell in under an hour again.

I would never get a saltwater pool. I stayed at the J.W. Marriott in Chicago right after it opened. The pool wasn't open yet. It was a saltwater pool. A few months later a group of senior citizens stayed there and several died from Legionnaires disease spread by this saltwater pool. I'm fine with chlorine.

Salt water pools use chlorine, too.

Always understood that a pool made it harder to sale a house

Where I live, it would be harder to sell without a pool.

I wouldn't be surprised r18, a pool is just going to seem like a hastle to deal with to a lot of potential buyers.

Call me, r15.

Upkeep is a drag: it takes about 4 - 6 hours a week, plus you have to buy all the chemicals. Electricity for the pump/filter system is at least a couple hundred dollars a month in the summertime. Overall I am not much of a fan but my husband loves the pool and swims naked in it almost daily.

R22 Don't do the maintenance yourself: it's a death trap. Friend of mine was doing his own pool and fell, nearly drowned of shock and broken foot.

Pools are time-sucking maintenance, electric bill nightmare idiotic things. I regularly design pools for clients that put two toes in the water, then walk back in the house. It is still seen as a status symbol of the wealthy, and the construction costs for those type are astronomical. In the high-end residential circles, the wilder the design, the more prestige/wealth you have. Rarely do my clients actually swim in the pool, rarer are the people who actually do laps. Some of the pools in the landscape designs I am working on now are in the 150 grand range. One is 95 feet long.

Since I end up doing the pool design to work in with my landscape designs, I can't really avoid it, and truth be told, it is fun to design them, but it would be nice if the clients actually used them more frequently.

I just got out of my pool and am lounging in the late afternoon sun. I live in the NE and use it May - September. It is 18' x 24'. It takes 30 - 40 minutes a week to vacuum. They have automatic vacuums that you can leave hooked up but I don't like the way they look. I test the water weekly and add whatever chemicals are needed -- 5 minutes. Opening/closing is a big job, takes a few hours and I need help to do it. For the past few years, I've had a pool service handle the opening and closing for $300 each. I order all the chemicals online and it's about $200 (for hot tub too).

It's hard to say how much extra electricity it uses because I am also running A/C and fans all summer. My electric bill for July was the highest ever but I also had A/C going 24/7 for a few weeks.

With everything else to maintain in a house this is probably the least time intensive.

My brother has a pool and his summer electricity bills are $750+. He lives within sight of the Gulf of Mexico.

R18, not in Florida.

It is not a big deal.

Pools require weekly maintenance but a good automatic cleaner can help cut down on brushing. Chemicals are expensive and the electric bill will be higher than if you didn’t have a pool.

Saltwater systems use chlorine but less of it that is mixed with salt and the disinfection is through the process of electrolysis. The primary benefit is a reduction of chemicals and the water feels better on your skin. But these benefits are ultimately negated by the wear to the pool finish and equipment caused by salt and chlorine mixture.

Refinishing pool interiors is a must every 8-15 years depending on the finish (marcite, diamond brite, pebble tec).

Has anybody ever installed a 'natural' pool or pond on their property? What was that like?

I had a pool in a house I owned a while back. I had to have th coping replaced, have it re-plastered and had the concrete stamped all around it as well as a new pump/filter. I elected not to have the heater replaced. IT was a never ending expense. I also had weekly pool cleaning service as I couldnt figure out how to do it myself.

Having said all that, my house was a u shape and all the downstairs rooms looked out to the pool. It was incredibly beautiful at night when I had the pool lights on. I swam in it maybe 10 times in 2 years.

That looks like mosquito central, R30.