Let’s admit it, owning a pool is part of your dream house’s must-haves, especially once you realize summer is fast approaching again and you know you’ll be stuck with sticky sweat that clings on to everything. But did you know that other than the upfront cost that you would have to pay the contractor, you still need to worry about the real costs of owning one?
Owning a swimming pool, regardless if it’s a fiberglass pool or a concrete one with multilayer finishes, is not as easy as paying someone to dig up a hole in your backyard and filling it up with water. It comes with great responsibility and additional financial costs, as well as time and effort that you need to put in yourself.
Costs of Owning a Swimming Pool
Before picking up your phone and Googling “pool contractors”, here are some of the not-so-hidden costs of owning a swimming pool:
· Permits and Clearances – most contractors would take care of this for you but it still means that you would still need to dole out some cash for permits and clearance, even for a personal swimming pool. You would also need to line up and tackle red tape before you can even begin shoveling dirt towards your neighbor’s yard.
· Heating and Electricity – these two are part of your operating expenses as you would need to ensure that your pool has to heat, especially if you have a four-season climate. You would also need to ensure that the facility is properly lighted at night, not excepting convenience outlets for electric grills, water pumps, and chlorine filters. Heating combined with lighting and pumps can equate to an additional $100 in utilities per month. You can get around this by installing the solar-powered heater, especially if sunlight is pretty generous in your area.
· Insurance Premiums – umbrella insurance policies are not enough to take care of insurance for your pool, some insurance companies don’t even want to cover the house with pools. Swimming pools are well-known for being dangerous and risky which can cause them their business. This is also why most insurance companies would require pools to comply with local safety standards before drawing up the policy. Insurance policies for homes with swimming pools would cost you about a thousand bucks annually.
· Maintenance – most pool owners would hire a pool person who looks after the maintenance of their pool, which does not really cover what they actually do during their services.
Pool maintenance includes:
o Adjusting chemical levels
o Skimming leaves and twigs
o Maintaining filters
o Servicing pumps
o Other general repair services
These don’t include specialized maintenance tasks that you might need, especially for fiberglass pools that easily gets coated with slime. A professional cleaner can cost about a hundred dollars per month but you can always do it yourself and save the money you could’ve spent on more specialized services that you know you would need down the road.
· Stress – the real hidden cost of owning a pool, stress eats away at the fun of owning a pool by giving you constant panic and anxiety attacks especially if you have children and pets that have a high risk of wandering about and drowning or getting injured at least. Then there are the neighbor kids who might take advantage of having a pool nearby.
Extra costs like additional retaining walls and landscaping also factor into the overall cost of owning a swimming pool. Accessories like diving boards, cabanas and huts are often bought out of contract and should also be taken in as extra costs.
A side note here. There are a few different swimming pool building techniques these days. For example, fiberglass swimming pools last a lifetime and one does not have to deal with cracks and other structural maintenance. Get quotes from at least 5 different pool companies to get an idea of what is possible.
The real costs of owning a swimming pool are a combination of financial and emotional investments that can be beneficial in the long run if you know how to play your cards right. They can increase the value of house significantly but if you don’t maintain it, it can bring it down without effort. For more information about swimming pools, you can visit http://riverinapools.com.au/