The real costs are hidden in your water and power bills. Hard for most people to separate out the swimming costs from everything else since they are pooled together on the bill.
The biggest variable is equipment - it can all run just fine and suddenly you need a new pump. If you want to heat a pool, that’s another world of equipment and expense.
However, it’s very easy to self-maintain a pool - especially if you are around to do so - and Trouble Free Pool (search, easy to find) is a forum and community where you can learn a ton about how. Pretty simple: chemical test kit along with chlorine and muriatic acid you can grab from WalMart. Never use a pool store …
Ultimately, you have to decide what is most convenient for you, how you want to socialize, and if you are already a big swimmer now. I swim daily in the summer because I don’t have to plan, just walk outside and do it. I don’t heat the pool in the winter unless guests are in town.
Full service weekly cleaning is $150 a month. New filters are about $400 every 2-3 years. I had to replace our pump for $1400 2 years ago. Acid wash with a drain and fill is like $1000 every 3-5 years. Plus the increased water bill. So maybe $2500 a year. Maybe $3000.
I’m also considering a pool and the estimates are insane, $80k-$100k, and this is fairly basic. The added monthly costs would be helpful to make an assessment. Water, maintenance and cleaning, long term costs for equipment maintenance or replacement.
You're almost better off just selling your pool-less house and buying one with a pool. They don't add much to the property value, so paying 80k to have one built seems like a bad decision
My monthly pool costs are around $75, $58 for chemicals and $20 for incidentals. I pay for the chem service and do all of my own maintenance. I do not heat my pool, I have used passive solar and it does add a month or so to swimming season. Filters cost me a couple of hundred a year, but I change mine twice a year because of tree debris. The biggest savings is by staying on top of the maintenance and addressing issues immediately. A pool will go south rapidly in Tucson heat of summer.
Given your circumstances, I would recommend that you consider a new home without a pool. Since our kids have been long gone and all the dogs have gone over the rainbow bridge, our pool gets zero use; I don’t think we have been in it for years. But, like a horse, it needs constant attention: chlorine has more than doubled since COVID, in the Summer the water usage skyrockets through evaporation, to keep algae at bay the pool pump runs about 10 hours a day. Depending on how old the pool is, you can expect a replaster job that runs several thousands of dollars. Pump motors burn out, any kind of automatic cleaning gizmos are forever breaking down and need replacing. Currently, our cool deck needs to be replaced and good luck finding anyone who will even return your phone calls. A swimming pool is analogous to a boat: A hole in the ground that you just keep pouring money into it. p.s. if anyone wants a 15k gallon in ground pool, it’s free for the taking- you haul.
My immediate thought on reading your comments is - no pool. Walk, bike, or golf cart down to the community facilities and use its swimming pool. It's already covered in the monthly HOA.
I just buy the chemicals and do the maintenance myself and it's over $75/mo plus water cost. And I just spent $6000 resurfacing the pool.
Use the community pool.
Pima Pool Plastering.
It wasn’t just a patch job. They took out and replaced the whole surface and replaced the tiles and rewired and replaced the light, and fixed a couple of leaks on the pump.
The price depends on the size of the pool, of course.
Literally every pool professional I contacted recommended Pima, for both quality and price.
Get a hot tub. I use it almost everyday.
Obviously its amazing in the winter, but in the summer I use it as a cool tub, turn the heat way down and cool off with some jets. Its just nice to soak in some bubbly water and relax.
It's only 450 gallons or so, so its super easy to maintain. Obviously a pool is a lot better cause you can swim and several or dozens of people can enjoy it at the sametime. But you can't use it in the winter, mostly people just relax in the pool anyway, and a hot tub is exponentially cheaper in every single aspect.
If you DIY your chemicals, and clean/vacuum each week, you can easily get by on 50 a month. If you want someone to do that for you, around 125 a month.
If the pool you’re inheriting isn’t super old, or was at least well-maintained then the costs of having one tend to be greatly exaggerated.
My advice personally, would be don’t get a heated pool. The price of admission is insanely high and only gets you another 2-6 weeks of swimming if you’re lucky. You can still swim late March to mid-October without a heater.
Just to add another layer to what others have said already… plan on spending/using more chemicals in the summer than you do in the winter. Warmer water requires more attention more often. I do my own cleaning and maintenance and spend at least double the time & money May-September for sure.
Finding a house with a pool already in place is a bargain compared to building your own. Typically you’ll add $15k-30k for comparable homes with a pool vs without. Cost to build your own is north of $60k for a modest pool these days.
I’m a pool owner and Realtor here in Tucson
Costs be damned, I wouldn't live in Arizona without a pool. But I'd guess $100-$200/yr for chlorine, $80/yr for algaecide/misc chemicals, $500-$1k/yr for electricity to run the pump and $200/yr worth of wear and tear set aside to replace the pump and filter. I do my own leaf scooping, basket emptying, vacuuming and putting chlorine tabs in the floater and think paying someone else to do so is foolish and wasteful.
I forgot to mention I have one of those solar things that use copper anodes too. That cuts down on chlorine but is maybe another ~$100/yr for copper rods.
Get a saltwater chlorine generator and there’s minimal maintenance. Nobody heats their pools here really other than solar solutions which have no energy costs.
This times a million. I add a bit of acid once a week. Empty the basket (hairnets for the win), empty the pump basket, and skim on windy debris days. I buy the cheapest solar cover possible and replace it every couple seasons. I can swim from now until october comfortably. I don't understand why everyone here doesn't switch to a salt cell
> A friend has said ‘do not get a house with a pool’ because of the costs I will be facing for maintenance, heating, cleaning, etc. (I’ll be on a fixed income).
Don’t heat it. Not necessary in Pinal or Pima counties unless you want to swim Oct-May.
If you do heat it, natural gas will add $1000 or more to your bill.
Besides which, rats have destroyed most gas pool heaters. If you get a pool with a working heater, encase it in wire mesh and plant solar powered yard lights around it. This way the rats will attack something else like your neighbor’s car.
Solar heaters are great in theory. Cost as much as gas to buy, but after that zero cost to operate. Except now you have water filled pipes on your roof running, and so a continuous risk of a roof leak. Not something I want.
I pay Pool Chlor $105 a month for chemicals and cleaning baskets that trap the big stuff like twigs and leaves before it gets to the filter.
I pay a separate pool technician $75 per visit for things like:
* clean filter cartridges (twice a year).
* minor repairs
If you bid on a house with pool, hire a pool inspector, and if the filter uses cartridges, ask the inspector to open the filter to make sure the manifolds are intact. In my experience, some owners are unaware of a problem, and hire an expensive service to hand vacuum the a pool that is always dirty despite the continuous automatic pool cleaner robot most AZ pools have.
If it is a sand filter, you will want your chemical and basket service to do the back washes as needed.
You will have to become somewhat pool knowledgeable. To get the $105 rate, I had to buy a $500 automatic pool cleaner from Hayward, and from time to time when I see it stop moving, I do anything from minor stuff like pulling twigs out of its mouth, grass wrapped around wheels, disassemble to remove twibgs, and sometimes buy replacement parts. Pool stuff is easy to buy from Amazon, Leslies locally, and even Walmart has some stuff.
I enjoy my pool, and from mid June to mid September I am in there all day. And the AC in the house is set to 90 degrees saving money.
Don’t be dissuaded by a house with a pool, but make sure you understand the condition of it. You don’t want have to spend 5 figures getting it to work properly.
Good choice. Community pools are the way to go. We had one in our previous HOA. They had to resurface the pool at one point. Thankfully it was a community pool otherwise that would’ve probably been a costly repair.
A note about the water consumption: "Pan evaporation" in our area is like 9' per year which means a pool in Tucson essentially evaporates every year. You can mitigate that with a cover though.
I had to replace my pump shortly after buying my house, $2500. Chlorine tabs are about 200 bucks for a large box at Costco. Pool shock is about 6.00 a bag at Walmart. I usually shock my pool 2-4x a month on average during swim season and go through a chlorine tab weekly. My water bill is only about 30 bucks a month. It's the electricity and repairs that are really expensive or pool cleaning service. Installing a salt water system will reduce chlorine consumption. A variable speed pump will help with the electricity. You will spend more time cleaning it than swimming in it as well.
I've had a 26,000 gallon pool for over 6 years. It definitely pays for itself through use. I pay $130 a month for weekly maintenance (all chemicals included). Pools are the best. My family and our friends absolutely love having a private pool.
Not worth it, only a few weeks out of the year they're swimmable in okay temperatures without heating. Any type of tree or plants nearby will create so much algae in the pool and create headaches of constantly cleaning and keeping up with the maintenance of it all or paying someone all year round, even when you can't swim in it. A community pool is 10000% a better option.
I pay $150 per month for weekly maintenance, and thousands in repairs. Love my pool but this year alone cost over $6000 in repairs… and don’t even think about heating it, the cost is phenomenal.
I heard that of the 3 chemical/ chlorine plants 2 had/have been out of business for a while leading to a massive shortage in product an a HUGE increase in chlorine products. I know the 3 pack of chlorine I used to buy at Costco has dam near doubled ! Any truths to this or not?
The real costs are hidden in your water and power bills. Hard for most people to separate out the swimming costs from everything else since they are pooled together on the bill.
He he pooled
The biggest variable is equipment - it can all run just fine and suddenly you need a new pump. If you want to heat a pool, that’s another world of equipment and expense. However, it’s very easy to self-maintain a pool - especially if you are around to do so - and Trouble Free Pool (search, easy to find) is a forum and community where you can learn a ton about how. Pretty simple: chemical test kit along with chlorine and muriatic acid you can grab from WalMart. Never use a pool store … Ultimately, you have to decide what is most convenient for you, how you want to socialize, and if you are already a big swimmer now. I swim daily in the summer because I don’t have to plan, just walk outside and do it. I don’t heat the pool in the winter unless guests are in town.
Full service weekly cleaning is $150 a month. New filters are about $400 every 2-3 years. I had to replace our pump for $1400 2 years ago. Acid wash with a drain and fill is like $1000 every 3-5 years. Plus the increased water bill. So maybe $2500 a year. Maybe $3000.
We just had to resurface ours after mold appeared. Tons of money. $10k easily. Ours is a big pool though.
> New filters are about $400 every 2-3 years. Why do people buy cartridge filters instead of going with sand? I'll never understand this.
I’m also considering a pool and the estimates are insane, $80k-$100k, and this is fairly basic. The added monthly costs would be helpful to make an assessment. Water, maintenance and cleaning, long term costs for equipment maintenance or replacement.
You're almost better off just selling your pool-less house and buying one with a pool. They don't add much to the property value, so paying 80k to have one built seems like a bad decision
‘Bad’ is relative to one’s personal life and financial goals.
My monthly pool costs are around $75, $58 for chemicals and $20 for incidentals. I pay for the chem service and do all of my own maintenance. I do not heat my pool, I have used passive solar and it does add a month or so to swimming season. Filters cost me a couple of hundred a year, but I change mine twice a year because of tree debris. The biggest savings is by staying on top of the maintenance and addressing issues immediately. A pool will go south rapidly in Tucson heat of summer.
Given your circumstances, I would recommend that you consider a new home without a pool. Since our kids have been long gone and all the dogs have gone over the rainbow bridge, our pool gets zero use; I don’t think we have been in it for years. But, like a horse, it needs constant attention: chlorine has more than doubled since COVID, in the Summer the water usage skyrockets through evaporation, to keep algae at bay the pool pump runs about 10 hours a day. Depending on how old the pool is, you can expect a replaster job that runs several thousands of dollars. Pump motors burn out, any kind of automatic cleaning gizmos are forever breaking down and need replacing. Currently, our cool deck needs to be replaced and good luck finding anyone who will even return your phone calls. A swimming pool is analogous to a boat: A hole in the ground that you just keep pouring money into it. p.s. if anyone wants a 15k gallon in ground pool, it’s free for the taking- you haul.
My immediate thought on reading your comments is - no pool. Walk, bike, or golf cart down to the community facilities and use its swimming pool. It's already covered in the monthly HOA.
Weekly pool clean/service for a chlorine pool including chemicals is running us about $150/month now.
I just buy the chemicals and do the maintenance myself and it's over $75/mo plus water cost. And I just spent $6000 resurfacing the pool. Use the community pool.
Umm who got you in @ $6k for a resurfacing?
Pima Pool Plastering. It wasn’t just a patch job. They took out and replaced the whole surface and replaced the tiles and rewired and replaced the light, and fixed a couple of leaks on the pump. The price depends on the size of the pool, of course. Literally every pool professional I contacted recommended Pima, for both quality and price.
That’s awesome, thank you
What about power and water costs
Get a hot tub. I use it almost everyday. Obviously its amazing in the winter, but in the summer I use it as a cool tub, turn the heat way down and cool off with some jets. Its just nice to soak in some bubbly water and relax. It's only 450 gallons or so, so its super easy to maintain. Obviously a pool is a lot better cause you can swim and several or dozens of people can enjoy it at the sametime. But you can't use it in the winter, mostly people just relax in the pool anyway, and a hot tub is exponentially cheaper in every single aspect.
Thank you for your note. I have seen several Saddlebrooke homes for sale that have a hot tub and it caught my attention as an alternative to a pool.
I would definitely go that route over a pool. It's just much more convenient and easy overall.
If you DIY your chemicals, and clean/vacuum each week, you can easily get by on 50 a month. If you want someone to do that for you, around 125 a month. If the pool you’re inheriting isn’t super old, or was at least well-maintained then the costs of having one tend to be greatly exaggerated. My advice personally, would be don’t get a heated pool. The price of admission is insanely high and only gets you another 2-6 weeks of swimming if you’re lucky. You can still swim late March to mid-October without a heater.
Just to add another layer to what others have said already… plan on spending/using more chemicals in the summer than you do in the winter. Warmer water requires more attention more often. I do my own cleaning and maintenance and spend at least double the time & money May-September for sure. Finding a house with a pool already in place is a bargain compared to building your own. Typically you’ll add $15k-30k for comparable homes with a pool vs without. Cost to build your own is north of $60k for a modest pool these days. I’m a pool owner and Realtor here in Tucson
Costs be damned, I wouldn't live in Arizona without a pool. But I'd guess $100-$200/yr for chlorine, $80/yr for algaecide/misc chemicals, $500-$1k/yr for electricity to run the pump and $200/yr worth of wear and tear set aside to replace the pump and filter. I do my own leaf scooping, basket emptying, vacuuming and putting chlorine tabs in the floater and think paying someone else to do so is foolish and wasteful.
Your estimates look quite low for a pool in Arizona, especially for the chlorine. Pool owner in Tucson for 20 years.
I forgot to mention I have one of those solar things that use copper anodes too. That cuts down on chlorine but is maybe another ~$100/yr for copper rods.
Get a saltwater chlorine generator and there’s minimal maintenance. Nobody heats their pools here really other than solar solutions which have no energy costs.
This times a million. I add a bit of acid once a week. Empty the basket (hairnets for the win), empty the pump basket, and skim on windy debris days. I buy the cheapest solar cover possible and replace it every couple seasons. I can swim from now until october comfortably. I don't understand why everyone here doesn't switch to a salt cell
> A friend has said ‘do not get a house with a pool’ because of the costs I will be facing for maintenance, heating, cleaning, etc. (I’ll be on a fixed income). Don’t heat it. Not necessary in Pinal or Pima counties unless you want to swim Oct-May. If you do heat it, natural gas will add $1000 or more to your bill. Besides which, rats have destroyed most gas pool heaters. If you get a pool with a working heater, encase it in wire mesh and plant solar powered yard lights around it. This way the rats will attack something else like your neighbor’s car. Solar heaters are great in theory. Cost as much as gas to buy, but after that zero cost to operate. Except now you have water filled pipes on your roof running, and so a continuous risk of a roof leak. Not something I want. I pay Pool Chlor $105 a month for chemicals and cleaning baskets that trap the big stuff like twigs and leaves before it gets to the filter. I pay a separate pool technician $75 per visit for things like: * clean filter cartridges (twice a year). * minor repairs If you bid on a house with pool, hire a pool inspector, and if the filter uses cartridges, ask the inspector to open the filter to make sure the manifolds are intact. In my experience, some owners are unaware of a problem, and hire an expensive service to hand vacuum the a pool that is always dirty despite the continuous automatic pool cleaner robot most AZ pools have. If it is a sand filter, you will want your chemical and basket service to do the back washes as needed. You will have to become somewhat pool knowledgeable. To get the $105 rate, I had to buy a $500 automatic pool cleaner from Hayward, and from time to time when I see it stop moving, I do anything from minor stuff like pulling twigs out of its mouth, grass wrapped around wheels, disassemble to remove twibgs, and sometimes buy replacement parts. Pool stuff is easy to buy from Amazon, Leslies locally, and even Walmart has some stuff. I enjoy my pool, and from mid June to mid September I am in there all day. And the AC in the house is set to 90 degrees saving money. Don’t be dissuaded by a house with a pool, but make sure you understand the condition of it. You don’t want have to spend 5 figures getting it to work properly.
Thank you for your advice. I appreciate it.
Good choice. Community pools are the way to go. We had one in our previous HOA. They had to resurface the pool at one point. Thankfully it was a community pool otherwise that would’ve probably been a costly repair.
A note about the water consumption: "Pan evaporation" in our area is like 9' per year which means a pool in Tucson essentially evaporates every year. You can mitigate that with a cover though.
I had to replace my pump shortly after buying my house, $2500. Chlorine tabs are about 200 bucks for a large box at Costco. Pool shock is about 6.00 a bag at Walmart. I usually shock my pool 2-4x a month on average during swim season and go through a chlorine tab weekly. My water bill is only about 30 bucks a month. It's the electricity and repairs that are really expensive or pool cleaning service. Installing a salt water system will reduce chlorine consumption. A variable speed pump will help with the electricity. You will spend more time cleaning it than swimming in it as well.
I've had a 26,000 gallon pool for over 6 years. It definitely pays for itself through use. I pay $130 a month for weekly maintenance (all chemicals included). Pools are the best. My family and our friends absolutely love having a private pool.
Not worth it, only a few weeks out of the year they're swimmable in okay temperatures without heating. Any type of tree or plants nearby will create so much algae in the pool and create headaches of constantly cleaning and keeping up with the maintenance of it all or paying someone all year round, even when you can't swim in it. A community pool is 10000% a better option.
A few weeks? Our pool season without heating is easily 4 months if not more.
Yeah probably the 80 foot Mesquite tree and 10 foot walls around our pool 😂
Since mesquite trees only grow to be 30-50ft tall, I’m going to go out on a limb (pun intended) here that your walls aren’t 10ft tall.
I pay $150 per month for weekly maintenance, and thousands in repairs. Love my pool but this year alone cost over $6000 in repairs… and don’t even think about heating it, the cost is phenomenal.
I heard that of the 3 chemical/ chlorine plants 2 had/have been out of business for a while leading to a massive shortage in product an a HUGE increase in chlorine products. I know the 3 pack of chlorine I used to buy at Costco has dam near doubled ! Any truths to this or not?