Fishin Texas Aggie 05 said:

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The pool is fiberglass, how much of a red flag is that?

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Ours is fiberglass. Works fine.

Should have visited troublefreepool.com

My pool is 15 years old. Use a pool service company weekly! Otherwise you will see others enjoy the pool and you will be burned out by being the pool maintenance director. You can replace pumps and lean filters but leave the chemicals and scrub to a service so you can enjoy it too.

Some people use a heat exchanger between the pool and the air conditioner. Essentially, they use the waste heat from the air conditioner to heat the pool and since the water from the pool is normally cooler than the air, it makes the air conditioner more efficient.

We have a saltwater pool and I maintain it myself. It is quite a bit of work but we have a lot of trees that makes for an annoyance when leaves fall. If you get salt, make SURE you have the proper sealant on your flagstone if you have it. It will eat it quickly. The sealant I bought is well worth the money (150.00/gal)

Super fun in the summer for the kids and if you like having people over.

Sucks bad when the pump goes out. Make sure you have a good variable speed pump for energy efficiency. Salt cells aren't cheap either.

Potcake said:

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We have a pool and do everything ourselves except clean the filter. Also have our backflow preventer certfied every year. It really isn't that much work. Shock it 5-6 times a year, 2-3 backwashes, chemicals, and brushing it, which I just consider as a workout. The leaves in the Fall suck because we are surrounded by tees that all lose their leaves at different times.

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That's the key though. We've had our pool for 3 years and have never had to shock our pool. We let the pro do it and it stays in great shape.

Shocking it isn't a big deal, brush it and throw the shock in, run pump all night, swim next day. I get why people use a service but we have dogs and the logistics would be difficult. Already a pain to coordinate with mosquito control system guys.

Go to Trouble Free Pool...

Had a pool. I live in the country. It was costing us $300+ per month plus $800+ 3 or 4 times a year. Said screw that and remodeled everything. Spent $20k. Still cost $300/mo and still cost another $1000 or so 3 times a year. $40k later said **** it and let it rot. Then laughed when the Brazos rose up 50' and filled the whole mofo with dead raccoons, a cow, fish, and lots of live snakes and mud.

Now it's all covered up with a deck and palapa.

We spent $200 on a 12' Walmart pool and had more fun with that than we ever did in the real pool


Buy a Walmart pool.