Would like to have LV pool owner's opinions (2015, insurance)

Originally Posted by Mr. Style

I live in Henderson and I have a pool with a spa.
I love it. I would not have moved here to a house without one.
It does take maintenance, but its not bad if you buy chemicals at NPS or Costco.
since you're retiring, it will give you something to do - clean...
I use the pool in the summer and the spa in the winter. you can turn the valves so that just the spa water goes through the pump, filter, and heater. The 800 gallon spa can be 98 degrees in about 20 minutes when its 40-50 degrees outside. That way you don't have to heat the 9000 gallons of pool water too.

The heater is natural gas and costs me about $5/hour to run. I based this out by taking 2 photos of my gas meter with my cell phone an hour apart while the pool water was being heated and then figuring out the cubic feet and multiplying it according to my gas bill rates. So you don't want to heat the pool with a heater. I use a solar blanket (like bubble wrap that floats on the water). This helps against evaporation too.

some homes have black panels on the roof that the pool water runs thru to heat it. I don't know how well Solar pool heaters work, i see a lot of broken ones falling off roofs so they must not be that durable.

You really want to keep the water at about 82 degrees when its 110 degrees outside or it will feel really cold. Anyplace else in the country 82 would be bath water.

My pool is kidney shaped and removing and replacing the solar blanket is a real pain. I recommend getting a square or rectangular pool shape so that can use a windup pool cover at one end. since your spending a lot of money, get an electric one installed with the pool.

I assume that since its new, you will be getting a variable speed pool pump. don't settle for anything less - it saves me about $50/mo in electricity. Also get LED lights. A pool light bulb is 300 watts otherwise - that's more watts than my pool motor. plus LED can do cool color changes.

i don't know what a pool should cost, but definitely get 3 estimates. Pool vary a lot on the type of materials, if you have automation on the valve controls, type of cool deck, fences required by code and by conscience, etc. Let each company know that you are getting 2 other estimates so they give you a good price to begin with. then compare the companies bids and start your negotiations. if you don't get at least $5000 off the price doing this, you are doing it wrong. I think there is also a pool building "season" so if you don't mind waiting until winter or whenever they are not busy you should get a better price too.

also, get some sort of patio cover or shed to keep pool toys, deck chair cushions, etc. inside. the sun is so strong here that the UV light destroys stuff in a year or two if its left out.

I also recommend installing a misting system, makes a big difference as long as a strong wind doesn't blow it away.

Originally Posted by lvoc

I have now been a pool owner for something over 40 years. I would not live without one in Las Vegas...though I could live with a community pool that was easily available.

I would also suggest the best single feature of a pool is the spa...which unfortunately i Lack. The area where I live did not have gas when my home was built and it is still impractical to install...so this house has only a pool. If you build one - a nice spa with a big heater. Nothing is as nice in January as sliding into 108 degree water.

I have also gone gimpy in my later years which makes the pool more difficult to exit. I have provided new railings which make it possible though still a nuisance.

I work a quite different cost/effort trade then normal. My pool has a cover that can actually be walked on. It is nylon but quite strong. I can walk on it (Not in my present gimp stage but earlier) and it holds my 260 lbs. My prior dog treated it almost as a trampoline bouncing across it.

It vastly simplifies the maintenance of a pool. I mostly ignore the whole thing. When I go for a swim I will empty the catch box on the pool sweep and throw in a gallon of chlorine every other week. That is pretty much it. Chemical usage and pool maintenance is pretty close to zip. And if you keep a proper pH there is nothing else. And I run the pump 1.5 hours a day. Note that if we have a party or some huge set of people in the pool we would have to do more for a couple of days. But generally it is just the two of us.

The bad news is you don't actually save any money. Every 4 or 5 years you replace the cover. And that is $3,000. You get $300 back from SNWA but that does not change the economics.

It also requires the pool be rectangular mostly...which says no neat looking pools.

I think though my set up would be perfect for a retiree with the addition of a spa in one corner. It could be done and we might well do it...but we have to figure out how to get gas first.

Originally Posted by stevek64

oooh, dangerous drink...but damn good!

TimFree, we live in the Phoenix metro area and in the last house we owned here, we put in a pool. It was about the size that you're proposing. If I were too do it again from scratch, I would get a salt water pool(much easier on the skin than chemical chlorine), an in-floor cleaning system(does a great job cleaning the pool automatically, no manual vacuuming or a manual "robot" unit hanging around), and a pebble sheen finish. Not sure if they make sheen anymore but it's a bit smoother than the straight pebble-tec finish.

With that said, make sure you really want to put in a pool and it's something you will use and/or enjoy looking at it. After 5 years, we got tired of it and we swam most everyday in it from about April to November. I also grew up with pools and frankly, I just got sick/burned out from it.....got old. Judging from most people I've known around us, their pools also sat unused the vast majority of the time, some used no more than a few times a year, if that. Personally I think it's a waste to just get a pool and look at water and not use it but to each their own.

As for the 50k quote you received, that sounds high to me. We had lots of upgrades on our pool like the pebble tec, a big stone waterfall, in-floor cleaning system and the same size pool, 3-5ft depth, and payed $26k back in 2010 from a very reputable pool builder. Note we didn't have a spa built into it like you indicated but it seems 20k or so for the spa seems high, or you're getting some very high end materials somewhere I'm not aware of. Just make sure you shop around a bit. As I recall one of the quotes we got from a pool builder when we were shopping was way out of line with the others. Perhaps the Las Vegas market is different than the Phoenix metro in regard to pool costs, I don't know.

We have since moved and needless to say, we didn't put in a pool at our new house. We live in a master planned community with nice community pools, one heated, and we've been in these pools exactly zero times. When you burn out on swimming, I guess you really burn out. But again, the best advice I can give....make sure you really want one before it ends up being just a pretty hole filled with water after a few years with little use. Sometimes a tough thing to decide when in the near term, it's something you really want....or at least think you do. If you have some friends or live in a community with a pool/have a city pool, I'd do some swimming there for a while, perhaps as a test for a season to see if it's something you think you'll want.

Good luck!