Yes: Pools are worth it....

[BradInATX 9208]

Have a few questions for you pool guys, and much appreciate any and all thoughts. Moving in a couple of weeks and first order of business is to get a couple of pool companies out to spec out and quote me, so I'm trying to get informed.

- Is having the attached hot tub worth it? At the house now we have a fiberglass hot tub and it's pretty bad ass. I'm sort of torn between the pool/spa combo which is nice for obvious reasons, or saving $15k and doing the pool by itself, and getting a nice fiberglass hot tub and a nice gazebo or housing for it. 

- What am I getting myself into if I want to extend pool season to late April through October-ish? I've been quoted about $4k for a 400,000 BTU heater but what am I looking at in propane cost, etc.? Does anyone actually do this, or is this one of those things that sounds better than it actually ends up being?

- Is there something I'm missing on the darker finish pools? I think they look much better than the standard finish - is there a drawback to them?

- Any recs on pool builders in Central Texas (New Braunfels)? I have a couple guys I'm talking to, but I trust the Surly collective here.

Appreciate any feedback on this one. Hopefully I'll be posting from the new pool here next spring.

Edited July 25, 2020 by BradInATX

[Hate 20108]

Yes. The spa is an essential add.

[conVINCEd 21469]

10 minutes ago, Hate said:

Yes. The spa is an essential add.

There are cheaper, more reliable methods of birth control available.

[BradInATX 9208]

3 hours ago, conVINCEd said:

There are cheaper, more reliable methods of birth control available.

I have a toddler and a pregnant wife. Tell me more.

[williemackgarza 1826]

If u”you are gonna have a hot tub, attaching it to the pool seems esential as far as look goes. (In my opinion.
Darker pools mean hotter water (supposedly). Not sure if it messes with pool chemistry. The actual aggregate is what im worried about since I have small kids and the rougher pebble finishes could hurt their feet.
No builder recs here, kinda GCing it all myself. Subs are busy as hell and its tough getting gunite. If you sign soon make sure you get on the gunite companies schedule asap.

[Surly Bevo 24908]

Darker pool coupled with adequate sunshine will enable you to use your pool earlier and later in the season without a heater. It will be hotter in July and August.

Don’t have a hut tub with my pool but have some friends who “sunk” a jacuzzi in a way that looked cool.

[Hate 20108]

I have a toddler and a pregnant wife. Tell me more.

Get your wife to enjoy anal.

To add to the spa, there is nothing better than sitting in the spa on a cold night getting drunk. If you put a tv outside you will enjoy sitting in the spa and watching football.

[freyguy 4271]

I'd be worried about the darker plaster revealing calcium buildup more readily, but at the same time hiding algae buildup.

 

[BradInATX 9208]

10 hours ago, Hate said:

Get your wife to enjoy anal.

To add to the spa, there is nothing better than sitting in the spa on a cold night getting drunk. If you put a tv outside you will enjoy sitting in the spa and watching football.

 

One of the things you said is good, new information that I hadn't considered yet. I'll let you guess which one.

[Surly Bevo 24908]

8 hours ago, freyguy said:

I'd be worried about the darker plaster revealing calcium buildup more readily, but at the same time hiding algae buildup.

 

Well there's a pretty simple solution to both of those issues.....

[Brew 3049]

We had gas heat on our pool at the house we sold. It could warm it from close to freezing to 85 degrees overnight in the middle of winter, but it cost about $100 each time we did it. Extending the seasons it wasn’t that bad because it ran periodically, but heat pumps are much more efficient and cheaper. They can’t operate once temps drop below a certain temp, but we rarely used ours when it got real cold. With the pool we are looking at doing now, we are going to run a heat pump and chiller on the pool and a gas heater on the spa.

[Hate 20108]

 
One of the things you said is good, new information that I hadn't considered yet. I'll let you guess which one.

The tv is essential for outdoor living.

[DaysOff 7950]

Tonight is one of those nights . Yes, it's worth the money pit hassle.

[Poolflood 845]

2 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

Tonight is one of those nights . Yes, it's worth the money pit hassle.

Very nice.  And user name fits 

[troph 24793]

Tonight is one of those nights . Yes, it's worth the money pit hassle.

Excellent!

And the hot tub comments before ... if you have a hot tub and aren’t using it frequently in the winter you’re doing it wrong. Football, drinks, sex, relaxing, warming up, reading a book I mean in the winter we used our last one 3-4 times a week. It’s easily more used than the pool.

[Hate 20108]

1 hour ago, troph said:

Excellent!

And the hot tub comments before ... if you have a hot tub and aren’t using it frequently in the winter you’re doing it wrong. Football, drinks, sex, relaxing, warming up, reading a book I mean in the winter we used our last one 3-4 times a week. It’s easily more used than the pool.

Exactly!

[troph 24793]

Exactly!

You must be a fellow hedonist. /cheers!

[HookEm 2467]

We love having a built in hot tub. Same water as the pool. Just heat it up. Plus it easily hold 10 people. It is WAY better than a fiberglass hot tub (which I think are kinda gross). Not even close.

We have our hot tub scheduled to heat up every Wednesday and the family looks forward to it. I'm the winter we will probably bump that up to 3x per week.

Right now the pool is 89 degrees, so the hot tub is less appealing except at night

[Hate 20108]

The spa was also a great place for our son to learn how to swim. When he was old enough to walk, we put him in a life jacket and would play in the spa. He learned to get used to the water and always had a safe place to stand up when needed. He would “swim” across the part of the spa where there are no benches. It was also nice to have the spa on those warmer winter days for him to swim in. We could heat up the spa and let him play in there with all of his water toys while wearing a life jacket and he loved it.

These days it’s mainly me getting in and watching football during the fall and winter. I make up a little cooler with bourbon and ice and watch. It’s fantastic. Just make sure when you install your TV to put a sound bar on it with a Bluetooth bass speaker. You’ll want that especially if the spa is more than a few feet away from your tv.

[Billy Pilgrim 1963]

Yeah- we heat the hot tub on thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve when family is over (much cheaper than heating whole pool) and it keeps kids out of the house for 2-3 hours. They inevitably jump in the freezing pool and get back in the hot tub.

Also find drinking in hot tub gets wife in the mood quicker.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

Yes, I’ve noticed that too

[joe dirt 285]

On 7/14/2020 at 8:13 AM, williemackgarza said:

Finally making progress

how’s everything going? they just did rebar and rough ins for ours this week. waiting on inspection and then gunite. no idea on timelines yet. 

[williemackgarza 1826]

Hoping to plaster this wed. Still need some work for slide/waterfall/ jump ledge area and cool cote on back sidewalk. I will finish those later when slide comes in. My kids wanna swim!!

[troph 24793]

That’s a solid set up for this kids with the deep end, hot tub and slide. I won’t show my boys. No definitely won’t. Cool spot to “chilax” as my kids say and watch the littles as they splash around. I see beers and margaritas with the sun going down with water splashing around in your life very soon.

[Dbeasy 15050]

Hoping to plaster this wed. Still need some work for slide/waterfall/ jump ledge area and cool cote on back sidewalk. I will finish those later when slide comes in. My kids wanna swim!!

I like the design. Shallows on the right? Do you mind sharing the size depth and ultimate cost?

[Billy Pilgrim 1963]

May need to do something about those trees. We had live oaks covering our pool when I was a kid. ALWAYS dirty and cold.

[Brew 3049]

Moved in December and decided not to do a pool at the new house. We’re not around much in the summer and the kids are older and didn’t use it. That plan lasted all of 7 months. Meeting with the pool guy this morning to finalize plans on a 16x42ish pool. Still debating the hot tub on it. I’m having a hard time justifying the price tag they are quoting for it.

[Quagmire 2147]

Hot tub is cheaper than all the unplanned pregnancies

[Hate 20108]

14 hours ago, Brew said:

Moved in December and decided not to do a pool at the new house. We’re not around much in the summer and the kids are older and didn’t use it. That plan lasted all of 7 months. Meeting with the pool guy this morning to finalize plans on a 16x42ish pool. Still debating the hot tub on it. I’m having a hard time justifying the price tag they are quoting for it.

Do it!  Like I've said, make sure you have a TV outside that is within a good view of the spa.  You won't regret it on cool fall and cold winter evenings watching football. 

[Brew 3049]

Just now, Hate said:

Do it!  Like I've said, make sure you have a TV outside that is within a good view of the spa.  You won't regret it on cool fall and cold winter evenings watching football. 

16x48 pool and a 16x32 covered patio with TV’s on each end. Still having a hard time justifying the hot tub but we’ll see. Quote on it is $35K for a 6 person built in with gas heat and full automation for phone controls. That just feels like I’m getting bent over even more than I’m already in for. I can just heat the pool up for those nights it seems like. Shit who knows. He did say he could plumb everything in and we can add it later.

[Hate 20108]

The 35k for a spa does seem excessive.  I think mine cost 10K extra, but I'm in the Houston area.  Maybe that makes a difference.  Art any rate, I would still do it.  You'll never want to heat the entire pool to watch football. 

[Both Tacos 1806]

I'm not sure that is a good quote for an addition of a spa if you are building it the same time as the pool. Seems pretty excessive.
The phone controls are going to already be there to control your pool so that's not an extra expense.

[williemackgarza 1826]

My depth is 7 ft at one end and 4.5 ft near the spa.
I pretty much owner built mine and havent added up all the costs.
Original pool builder quoted us $70k with the spa, salt and chiller. That did not include my deck of conc/travertine, waterfall, and slide. After the dig/rebar the PB took forever. So,got rid of him and took over.
3 weeks since gunite and Im almost all full of water. Slide shipped today, need to kool cote the existing brown deck and concrete sidewalk from the spa to the slide location, so need to tie up a few things but we are ready to swim. Gonna take a break and get it done in Sept.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10235]

8 hours ago, Brew said:

16x48 pool and a 16x32 covered patio with TV’s on each end. Still having a hard time justifying the hot tub but we’ll see. Quote on it is $35K for a 6 person built in with gas heat and full automation for phone controls. That just feels like I’m getting bent over even more than I’m already in for. I can just heat the pool up for those nights it seems like. Shit who knows. He did say he could plumb everything in and we can add it later.

35k is definitely too much... We just built and have an champagne/infinity edge spa and it was around 20k additional (still thought that was slightly high, but no regrets). Houston area

[freyguy 4271]

Agreed with 10k as well.  That was the add on pricing in Austin.  Call b.s. on that.

[Poolflood 845]

35k to add the hot tub is on average, fucking obscene.    

[Brew 3049]

What size are you guys putting in? That was pricing for a 6 person. I believe the gas heater and automation was about $7k because it was the larger heater to heat the pool also.

[Poolflood 845]

15 minutes ago, Brew said:

What size are you guys putting in? That was pricing for a 6 person. I believe the gas heater and automation was about $7k because it was the larger heater to heat the pool also.

Its obscene and not even close.  The difference in a 200k gas heater to a 500k gas heater to the builder is under a grand.  Only if you originally had no automation and added automation would that price be sniffing close.  But that's for the 7k upgrade for heater and automation.

[Brew 3049]

33 minutes ago, Poolflood said:

Its obscene and not even close.  The difference in a 200k gas heater to a 500k gas heater to the builder is under a grand.  Only if you originally had no automation and added automation would that price be sniffing close.  But that's for the 7k upgrade for heater and automation.

That $35k pricing included the automation and heating. The pool price did not have any of that in the pricing. That put the 6 person hot tub and plumbing at about $27k or so. Going to see if they will work on pricing.

[Poolflood 845]

7 minutes ago, Brew said:

That $35k pricing included the automation and heating. The pool price did not have any of that in the pricing. That put the 6 person hot tub and plumbing at about $27k or so. Going to see if they will work on pricing.

I'm hard pressed with everything,  and I mean everything.... more than 20.  

[Brew 3049]

That gives me an idea anyways, call them back the first of the week. $18k-20k was the number I expected originally. 

[Hate 20108]

This  may specific to me, but I've had my pool for 12 years and I think I've heated the pool twice.  Both times were in late April or early May when the water was just a little too chilly for my wife.  Unless you are sure you are going to heat the pool often, I wouldn't worry too much about it.  Get a heater that will heat your spa to about 99 degrees efficiently and that's all you'll need.  I think I've had mine at 100 degrees a few times, but that was when it was really cold outside. 

[Billy Pilgrim 1963]

We were going to leave off hot tub but it was only about 12K to add it on so we said what the hell. I agree that 30K would’ve been a nonstarter 

[BottleRocket 646]

BottleRocket casa still kicking it old school 1970’s style. I spend all my free time sitting in the drink. Love it and couldn’t live without one.

[El Tri 412]

On 8/7/2020 at 9:27 PM, Hate said:

This  may specific to me, but I've had my pool for 12 years and I think I've heated the pool twice.  Both times were in late April or early May when the water was just a little too chilly for my wife.  Unless you are sure you are going to heat the pool often, I wouldn't worry too much about it.  Get a heater that will heat your spa to about 99 degrees efficiently and that's all you'll need.  I think I've had mine at 100 degrees a few times, but that was when it was really cold outside. 

if you get a spa, they will have the heater be able to heat up the spa and the pool, won't be anything extra.

it's nice to have - used it a few weekend this april when the water was in the mid 70s

[Hate 20108]

I do the same thing. It’s just turning the heater on while the pool runs normally. I’ve only done it a handful of times. It’s not that expensive here in the Houston area with a natural gas heater.

[williemackgarza 1826]

Got it full of water and swam all weekend. Kids cant stop seimming. Waiting on slide now to finish up

[Hate 20108]

It won't be long before they are begging to drag that trampoline next to the pool.

[HouTex 1867]

Got it full of water and swam all weekend. Kids cant stop seimming. Waiting on slide now to finish up

Keep your homeowners insurance current and get an umbrella policy or don’t let other kids use your pool. Sucks that that’s the case but diving boards and slides are accidents waiting to happen. When I had my pool I had to tell my agent whether I had a slide or a diving board.

[Buzzrock 14920]

Well fuck.



We moved here April 2019 and neither pool light (pool or spa) worked. I didn’t worry about it last summer but recently I decided to investigate.

When I pulled the main light it floated to the surface. The interior was dry but the bulb was blown. Screwed in a regular bulb to test and no joy. Then i realized the GFCI was tripping, so I pulled the spa light (had to drain the spa, no biggie) and it was full of water.

Ordered a new bulb and gasket and after some Amazon shenanigans I finally received both. Pulled the light again, dried it out, screwed in the new bulb and voila, let there be light. Put it all back together with a generous application of silicone and it still worked when filled with water. I’m happy, so I went ahead and ordered the (fairly expensive) new color-changing bulb for the main pool light.

Work has been kicking my ass and we’ve had some weather so I haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet. I was planning on doing it today or Friday. But last night as I was going to bed I hit the light switch just to see the spa light come on and...nothing. I’m afraid it might be full of water again and tripped the GFCI. So I get to start all over again.

It’s old so I’m afraid it could be leaking where the power cord attaches to the housing. If that’s the case I think I’m gonna have to call someone and have the whole thing replaced. Fucking annoying.