Cost for an inground pool?

[rsschneck]

I think the cost will depend a lot on where you live and how many pool builders are in the area.

We got 3 estimates and our friends got about 10 estimates before we went with the same pool builder last Spring.

Our pool is custom gunite/plaster with UV light, nature 2 stick, chlorinator, dual pump, 3 sheer decents, 2 disco tech lights for at night, bubble on the sun shelf, sundeck, auto fill, heater, etc. We spent around $50,000 and that included fixing the fence where they brought in the big equipment, re-running the sprinkler system, new backflow device and misc. landscaping to get the yard back up to par.

We wanted a pool that pretty much took care of itself so we added many extras. We had bids from $47,000 to $80,000 for the pool. The extra expense of landscaping, etc. was on top of that.

 

[lorilori]

Thought I'd chime in since you originally mentioned fiberglass. We're in NC and have a Viking fiberglass 14 X 28 pool, had it installed about 4 years ago. It is fabulously low maintenance and the entire process was fabulously quick. We ordered it in February, pool company came out one day in April to map out the placement and came back the next week to dig the hole and put a temporary fence around it. It was delivered 8:00a.m. the next day on a huge, huge truck looking like a giant bathtub (amazing to watch the crane swing the pool around and get it into our back yard and into the hole!). The guys from the pool company worked the rest of the day hooking everything up, pushing all the dirt back, etc. and filling it. The next week we had the concrete patio poured completely around the pool with an extra area for our gazebo. The kids were swimming a week later! The best thing about fiberglass is the lack of problems with algae, etc. that I see with the vinyl and gunite pools in the neighborhood. Good luck; best 'investment' we ever made! Oh! Forgot to add cost: $24,000 including extra concrete but not including fence which DH and I put up ourselves.

 

[penn19]

my first thought when I saw this was .... "your sanity".
i swear to you i never thought a pool would be like that - but for my husband and i, it was.
we bought our house with the pool. At the time we had a 3 year old daughter. i later had a baby while we were in the house as well. it was very very difficult for me - safety wise - to relax around that pool. even when my daughter began to be an accomplished swimmer. we had a pool that was built for diving and was very deep at one end.
if you get a pool, you need to have a privacy fence and also a wrought iron fence around the actual pool itself. child latching locks. also your children need to be in swim classes - formal ones - and everyone in the house including adults need to know how to swim and perform CPR. you should also have a landline so you can reliably call 911. you need to buy the hook and the life ring.
if you have a party, liability wise - you should hire a certified life guard.
getting insurance on it can be a nightmare.
the pool adds absolutely no value to the house and in some cases can actually take away from the value of the house - if pools are not popular or are high maintenence in your area (like up north).
the cost of chemicals is outrageous
the cost of maintenence on the pool is not cheap (someone to come and open/close - PROPERLY - and inspect it each spring is a couple hundred a pop).
plan on spending at least an hour every other day brushing / cleaning the pool. during high season (july/august) you pretty much have to be adjusting the pool chemicals daily and brushing daily or you will get algae.
plan on having kids trying to get into your back yard without permission to swim. yup, happened to us - even though we had a pad-locked 8 ft high privacy fence.
when we tried to sell our house, the market was bad - so the house did not sell. we eventually turned to renting. it took us a bit to find a good renter that would agree to proper upkeep of the pool, and also - we had to get a special policy / rider because if liability for the pool.
i have to say that my next home - when we build - i will not have the pool. yes it was fun and my kids have some nice memories, and we used it a lot (never every day but at least a few times a week). however, it was very hard to control. vacations were a nightmare because we couldn't always find someone to come check on the pool, and you cant just turn it off and go. we had many people watch our pool and only 2-3 could figure out what to do - even after we showed them what to do. we usually came home to a green pool requiring us to dump in hundreds of dollars of chemicals. i always had bad dreams that i would come home from vacation or after a day at work and find a child dead in the bottom of it.
so... all i can say is - never again! we might live in a community / HOA with its own private pool, but we will never have our own pool - unless we have a full time live in pool boy/lifeguard/security guard... again!

For some reason this got me thinking about "The Good Old Days" thread. Back in the day (We already had a pool growing up) kids used to pool hop. We used to have raft fights, jump off the sides of the above ground pool, and all other sorts of reckless fun!

 

[holden]

It's so funny that this thread resurfaced! Our landscaping was completed a few weeks ago on our new pool! We chose fiberglass. It's beautiful. The pool has 3 areas: spa, raised tanning ledge with waterfall, and main pool. The final price with everything (fence, landscaping, deck, etc.) was $80,000. The quote (not incl. landscaping) was $60,000. We changed a few things which increased the price. We only got in the spa one day because there were a few issues and then we had to close for the season. Hopefully we can open it in May and get in asap!

Thanks for all of your feedback. We are thrilled with our new backyard.

 

[lucigo]

It's so funny that this thread resurfaced! Our landscaping was completed a few weeks ago on our new pool! We chose fiberglass. It's beautiful. The pool has 3 areas: spa, raised tanning ledge with waterfall, and main pool. The final price with everything (fence, landscaping, deck, etc.) was $80,000. The quote (not incl. landscaping) was $60,000. We changed a few things which increased the price. We only got in the spa one day because there were a few issues and then we had to close for the season. Hopefully we can open it in May and get in asap!

Thanks for all of your feedback. We are thrilled with our new backyard.

Hope you enjoy it! Send us some pictures!!