Price of an Inground Pool

[maciec]

Dh and I are thinking about getting an inground pool. We have no idea how much one costs or anything about them.

How much did you pay for yours?

What kind is it? concrete or fiberglass? which is better? are there any other kinds?

We cannot have an above ground pool in this development so thats out of the question

Any advice and information would be greatly appreciated.

TIA!
Melissa

 

[Laurajean1014]

I don't have a pool for the same reason, deed restrictions and other valid reasons. We belong to a Country Club down the street.

My sister has built two pools in each of her homes.

Her first pool was olympic in length and was L shaped. It was fiberglass and had a 10' cement skirt around it. The flagstone after the cement. She also had a cabana with bathroom and shower installed. This cost her $81,000 in 1992.

Last year, she put a pool in another home and it had a waterfall and rocks everywhere. The pool was fiberglass or ceramic of some sort. Again a 10' skirt around the pool and special lights for evenings. Including horiculturals, it was over $100k.

I think pools are a lot of work, a lot of money and take up a lot of space in a backyard to find out that all the money, taxes and insurance that goes into it, only 50% of the buyers want a pool when they are looking for a home. Now the market is good, but if the market gets tough, all that hard earned money may not get your house sold for you.

Our CC pool membership is less than $1000 a year and we get to golf as well. Tuck your money in a safe investment and join a club if applicable.
JMHO.

 

[DVC-Don]

Ours is 10 years old so the prices will be off.

Vinyl liner, 16x32 with a deep end and included water and 4' concrete apron with DE filter & gas heater = $14,000.

Extra concrete, retaining wall, 8' screened gazebo & vinyl coated chain link fence and some landscaping brought the total price up to about $25,000.

The money came from some life insurance money from the death of a close relative, so we refer to it as the Tom N**** Memorial Pool. Thanks Tom.

*We just had it rehabed for $3200. New liner, repaint metal parts and other little things.

 

[soccerchick]

Friends of ours put in a beautiful pool three years ago for $50,000. It has lots of natural rock, not huge, but plenty big to swim around.

 

[ducklite]

Laurajean gave some good advice.

We didn't put in a pool for a bunch of reasons. They are expensive to maintain, they are a liability, your home owner's insurance will most likely go up, and in some areas of the country buyers absolutely do not want them--in the Boston area they will actually take away from the resale value!

There are a lot of pool clubs, country clubs, even "Y"'s that can be joined for a nominal fee which would be a lot less than a pool...and you never have to worry about your neighbors kid drowning while you are out shopping some afternoon...

Anne

 

[DrCavin]

Our neighbors just priced one & just a small basic pool started at $30K

 

[ChrisnSteph]

A nice pool around here, installed by a pool company would run you anywhere between 30-45,000. That's for a concrete pool, including hot tub. But you can save a ton of money, almost half, by contracting all the work out yourself. More and more people around here are doing that because the pool companies charge way too much. My gf just had a pool built. She designed it on the computer, hired her own concrete, electrical, ect.. guys, and it was done in half the time and 15K less than what the pool company was going to charge.

 

[ncgolfer]

Just priced a 16 x 32 oval with walk in steps and diving board at $12,500.00, about $17,000 with concrete included.

 

[marlasmom]

Be careful about a diving board. Most insurance companies will not insure you if you have one.

My pool - three years ago was $20,000. Here in Florida it is not very deep, but it is pretty - concrete with a finish, tiles, fiber optic light that changes colors to the delight of children. Stairs and two ledges.

My neighbor got bids last year of $26,000 and $30,000. Again, it's only about 5 feet deep at the deep end.

 

[vettechick99]

I've been pricing fiberglass pools and think it would cost us under $20K if we did some of the work ourselves (DH loves any excuse to get on an excavator ). As with anything, you can spend crazy money with upgrades like certain decking, landscaping, hot tubs, pool houses, size and depth of pool, etc. If you keep that in check you can stay under your designated budget.

Look into fiberglass though as they are easy to install, generally cost you less and maintenance is much simpler.

Some good websites:

http://www.bluehawaiianfiberglasspools.com
http://www.waterworldpools.com/poolpics.htm

 

[ckmommy]

We put in a pool 2 years ago --after our first summer in Texas. Our pool is 18'x32'. Our pool is gunite--a form of concrete. We had a textured decking (concrete patio) put all the way around the pool. Flagstone edging is around the pool. It cost us $24k. We do not find the maintence bad at all. The chemicials are less than $25/ month (initial cost to buy the chemicals is about $200, then it averages out to $25/ month to replace the chemicals that have run out). The electricity to run the pool is about another $30-$50/month. We needed to re-landscape after our pool was complete, so that added so more money, but we did this ourselves. Remember, these are TX prices. Things here seem to be a whole lot cheaper than in other parts of the US.

I have to say, putting our pool in was the BEST investment that we have made to date!!

Oh, as for insurance, ours did not go up one penny. I called our agent and told them we were considering putting a pool in--how much would our insurance jump? I was told nothing because we already had enough coverage--or something like that. We did not need another policy or anything even re-written.

Good Luck to you!!

 

[debloco]

We have a fiberglass inground pool that was installed in Aug '01. It's 14 x 28 with a slide, 4 color light, cascade (like a little waterfall), upgraded finish (speckled blue), 2 inlaid tile dolphins on the bottom of the deep end, dolphin tiles around the top edge, extra concrete to have a bigger pool deck and a "coped" concrete edge was just over 30K. Code in our area is to have a "BOCA" code fence either around the pool or around the yard. We fenced just the pool for an additional 3K. Landscaping and lawn repair was almost another 4K. So all told it was just shy of 40K. We could have done it for less (white light, no slide, smaller pool deck, flat concrete edge, plain finish, no tile edge or dolphins, no cascade, no landscaping) and probably would have saved 10K. But we love it and it is a beautiful little pool. Concrete or vinyl liners run about the same amount of $, a lot of the cost is the excavation and the dumping costs. But vinyl liners eventually need to be replaced (drain the pool, cost, etc) and the concrete (gunite) can need repairs down the road as well (again, drain the pool, cost, down time, etc). One poster said they didn't add to their insurance b/c they were covered and that is technically true. But we did add a 1M umbrella policy to our coverage for less than $150/year for peace of mind. If someone sues you because little Susie or Jimmy got hurt at your pool, most homeowners policies limits are not high enough to pay out on a judgement against you. And legally pools are considered an "attractive nusiance" by most town/cities/counties.
You also want to think about the increased utility costs (gas and electric for heating the pool and running the filter system), opening and closing costs each year, chemical costs, yadda, yadda, yadda.
It sounds like a lot, but it sounds more intense than it really is, at least now that we have the pool!

 

[mudnuri]

Be careful about a diving board. Most insurance companies will not insure you if you have one.

Commerical pools here have to have a 12 foot depth for a diving board. I'd never put one in a residential pool with a 8-9 foot depth.

I'd go Gunite, not fiberglass or concrete (which I think you guys are actually thinking is concrete when really its gunite) or liner.

Our Gunite pool was built in 1958....

Brandy

 

[WeirdEyes]

We had our pool in our old house installed in November and it was a lot cheaper having it installed during the fall. We had it put in about 10 years ago. It was a 18x36 pool with a liner and concrete with diving board for around $8,000.

 

[disney junky]

We had installed an anthony and sylvan pool about 6 years ago, concrete (gunite) with plaster, 26,500 gallons, irregular shaped. Lifetime warranty against leaks, DE filter. With 3 feet of cement around the edge of the pool the cost was in the mid 20's. Pools with the vinyl liners in this area ran about two thirds the cost of what we paid, but most people end up replacing the liners in 10-15 year and that's an additional cost of 5 or 6 thousand plus water. Shop around. I regret putting ours in mainly because it doesn't get used that much and we live in the northeast so really we only have a 3-4 month swimming season. I thought the kids and neighbors would be knocking down the gate to use it, but that really hasn't happened. There are a lot of above ground pools in the neighborhood. My insurance didn't go up at all; in fact, my agent said because it's a water source for fires, it would actually reduce our premiums except that we live within 500 feet of a fire hydrant. I'd guess we pay $500 per summer for chemicals, and running the filter does jack the electric bills an additional 50 to 75 a month. No heater yet, but my wife insists she would use it more if I got one. Water temperature gets into the 80's with no additional help, and I don't like it much warmer than that.

 

[mudnuri]

We had installed an anthony and sylvan pool about 6 years ago, concrete (gunite) with plaster, 26,500 gallons, irregular shaped. Lifetime warranty against leaks, DE filter. With 3 feet of cement around the edge of the pool the cost was in the mid 20's. Pools with the vinyl liners in this area ran about two thirds the cost of what we paid, but most people end up replacing the liners in 10-15 year and that's an additional cost of 5 or 6 thousand plus water. Shop around. I regret putting ours in mainly because it doesn't get used that much and we live in the northeast so really we only have a 3-4 month swimming season. I thought the kids and neighbors would be knocking down the gate to use it, but that really hasn't happened. There are a lot of above ground pools in the neighborhood. My insurance didn't go up at all; in fact, my agent said because it's a water source for fires, it would actually reduce our premiums except that we live within 500 feet of a fire hydrant. I'd guess we pay $500 per summer for chemicals, and running the filter does jack the electric bills an additional 50 to 75 a month. No heater yet, but my wife insists she would use it more if I got one. Water temperature gets into the 80's with no additional help, and I don't like it much warmer than that.

Add up your chemical bills this year- I would almost guarantee with a DE filter system, your not using $500.00 and if you are, shop around for your chlorine.

Brandy

 

[DisneyMomx7]

We have a 16x32 ft. in ground pool with diving board, extra wide steps four foot concrete walkway around and 8 foot patio attached. We put it in 8 years ago and I think we paid about $22,000 at that time. We get so much use out of it it was so worth it. When my older kids were little we belonged to a pool club and that was fun too.

 

[disney junky]

zzzzzzz

 

[vettechick99]

Wow! You know what I spend should be spending. Amazing. Chlorine is only one of many chemicals required for pool maintenance. How about balancing agents for Ph. Algaecide. Shock. DE. Even testing strips. I buy my pool chemicals from a pool supply store. They also test my water for me for free. Silly me. I'd better find some place else to care for my investment. Maybe Walmart for those chemicals.

Not to be a buttinski, but I don't think mudnuri's response warranted the hostility in your answer. $6000 a year does seem really high. Our friend uses salt instead of chlorine and says its far less expensive and not as harmful. If you really are spending $500 a month, I too would look for a different supplier or consider the salt alternative.

I think this is the method he uses Salt Pools

Just my 2 cents.

 

[tiggersmom2]

My parent's have a guinite pool with a DE filter also and their total summer bill for chemicals averages to about $500.00 too.