Above ground swimming pools

5,394 Views | 44 Replies | Last: 5 mo ago by 62strat
rilloaggie
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AG
My old boss in college was a southeast Houston born, Jerry Reed looking sideburn having, white trash mofo. He had an above ground pool but he felt it made him look trashy. I always thought chain smoking cigs and looking like a worn out Jerry reed made him look trashy but I digress.

He owned a bobcat and decided he wanted an in ground pool. He proceeded to dig a big hole in the back yard and inserted his above ground pool below ground. It was high cotton until the first rain when the liner floated to the top and turned inside out. He then stuck a bunch of plywood and 2x4s in the ground as some sort of retaining wall in the hole and tried again. Same result after the next rain. I believe there were a few iterations after that but ultimately he shoved all the crap back in the hole and buried it, wood, pool and all. I don't think you cross the trashy barrier in an above ground pool until you end up with an illegal landfill in your back yard, personally. Ps: if you are house shopping and notice a weird depression in a backyard in Wheeler Ridge in Bryan, buyer beware!
IIIHorn
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Can you wave at the neighbors?


ac04
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SidetrackAg
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AG
Above ground is great. Spend $300 at the beginning of summer, then cut the side of it in the fall and forget about it.
aggieforester05
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AG
I had a pool in college and it was a PITA. I had a couple of different hot tubs at my old house since then. They were so much easier to manage. Sometimes you had to fix/replace components, but the water would stay clean with little chemical input as long as you kept it covered. The pool was a constant battle with leaves and algae.
IIIHorn
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SidetrackAg said:

Above ground is great. Spend $300 at the beginning of summer, then cut the side of it in the fall and forget about it.


Remember to prune the plastic palm trees.


Beckdiesel03
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AG
We have one and both the kids and us as parents like it. Just easy to go out and cool off in the evenings with little to no effort. We built nice stairs and a platform. I put the nice turf down around it. It's a work in progress. But yes, its not as nice looking as a real pool but for a minimal amount of money and work, we get a ton of use out of it. White trash be damned, I love it.
MAS444
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AG
I'm interested in something like this - basically a larger than normal hot tub/small pool. Mind sharing the manufacturer? Where is this located? Ours would have to work in a cold climate.
StinkyPinky
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AG
Mitch was a legend.
62strat
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AG
MAS444 said:

I'm interested in something like this - basically a larger than normal hot tub/small pool. Mind sharing the manufacturer? Where is this located? Ours would have to work in a cold climate.
I'm in Denver area.
According to the retailer, they sell about 100 of these or more a year all around the Denver metro.

There are a lot of manufacturers and retailers of them. Honestly I didn't do a whole lot of research, I priced them in 2019, then earlier this year we were at denver home and garden show looking at them again, and the price of this model was less than what I got quoted in 2019, and about 50% off retail price. I was skeptical, but I've gone in the showroom since I bought it and it's priced way higher. For reference, it's retail is $50k, list price in the showroom is about $40k, I paid $27k at the trade show. My 2019 emails the sales guy said it would be ~$30k for pretty much exactly what we got.

I have the "Helios". https://www.platinum-spas.com/us/swim-spas/

We wanted two temps; hot tub and pool. Surprisingly, a lot of them are one big vessel. That means either your hot tub is pool temp, or your 'pool' is hot tub temp. You can't exactly change the temp of 3k gallons of water very quickly. They also make them that are strictly the swimming component with no hot tub.

They are all 89" wide (so they fit on trucks), and there are generally two depths, mine is 60", then there is a shorter one maybe 50" or so. My water depth is about 48".

When were recently in St George utah, I swear I saw about 5 swimspa places in that little town.

A big consideration is power; mine technically needed a 50amp/240v and a 60amp 240v circuit. However, the swim side could work on 50amp as well (just can't have heater and all jets on), so I have two 50 amp 240v circuits I had to add to my basement subpanel. Luckily I had space it was close.

I work for a GC so got great pricing on electrical materials and labor and it was still $2300.

Other cost considerations;
burying it partially or fully in ground (you still need access to side panels though, so this is tricky)
decking
crane for delivery (my retailer had free delivery, but only included a truck crane to drop it a few feet.. I had to crane over house 110'.. it was $2k)
My retailer had a hydraulic hard cover lift option.. several thousand, we went for typical flip spa covers which were included.
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