Swimming Pool Install Thread

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insane

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#293127 31-Dec-2021 11:10

Has anyone recently or semi recently installed a swimming pool?

I'm strongly leaning towards fibreglass and salt chlorination, and approached Compass, Aquatecnics and Narellan to see what they can do.

Has anyone bought through these people or someone else and has a positive or negative experiences to share?

Budget is about 100K for pool, pumps, heating and fencing / landscaping / paving / decking. Would that be enough or do I need to spend more for a + - 8*4m pool?

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#2840776 31-Dec-2021 11:50

Yep just waiting on the last couple of touches to go through on mine

Contact Ritchie at Pool Spec, he deals with Barrier Reef Pools

We went with the Venice 7.5 fibreglass pool, and with basic landscaping and a 9x2.5m deck and it was more than you have budgeted for. You might be pushing it to get it under 100k. would likely be just the bear basics.

We went with a better quality (more $$) composite deck, colored concrete with tile cuts, pool robot, in ground pool cover roller box and a better quality Freshwater system.

We are waiting on a pool cover and the pool fence before its completed.

I personally stayed clear of Aquatechnics as they were pushy at the start but then failed to communicate for months. This was back in 2019 pre covid. Murellian

Happy to try answer any questions you may have

Here is a couple of photos of our almost completed pool:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IQj45K_Niub7I-5DJ3wHneagdVZ6RzGy/view?usp=sharing

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2840778 31-Dec-2021 11:56

Our pool was refurbished about three years ago. We didn't use the companies mentioned, but there was a significant variation in price so you definitely want to shop around. A complete overhaul of the surface and solar heating was probably around $10k all up.

We have a concrete and plaster pool. Concrete gives you much more flexibility around pool design, although the initial outlay is probably a bit higher. It was 25+ years between installation and resurfacing. Despite land subsidence in the area, the pool remained structurally sound. I'm not convinced a fibreglass pool would last as long, but I've had no experience with them.

You probably already know this, but anything designed for use in and around swimming pools comes with a stupidly high price markup. When it comes to cleaners etc., definitely shop around. Old fashioned cleaners which operate using water pressure and remove debris into the skimmer basket are a lot more convenient than fancy robotic units that need to be removed to be emptied. They're a lot cheaper too.

On salt. We tried it for a while, hated it and went back to chlorine. I'm told the new systems are less salty and more automated.

barclayg

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#2841006 31-Dec-2021 20:54

We went with Freedom Pools, and had a largely positive experience. Have heard of not-great stories to do with Aquatechnics.

Other thoughts:
- auto-cleaners are expensive and don't save much (you still need to do manual)
- pool covers definitely make a difference (but they prevent the skimmer doing it's job properly)
- a sock in the skimmer basket is good
- we got a power-saving pump, and it does help with the power bills
- Terry from PoolScapes, who many installers recommend to do the coping, is a GC. He's seen a lot (including failed installs) and would be a great source of info on what companies to go with.

insane

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#2841027 31-Dec-2021 21:53

Wow cool, thanks for sharing this is gold!

I was looking at the Vantage cleaning system but not sure how that works when leaves are just floating on the surface and not sunk yet... As @barclayg said it could still require manual cleaning, at which point it's perhaps not worth it. Also agree with with the sock, used to have one that floated midway on the cleaning pipe and caught a lot of leaves etc.

@SirHumphreyAppleby, I was of the same opinion re robots, had good success with a barracuda/creepy crawly before in a much larger pool so imagine that's move convenient than a expensive and heavy robot with a power lead in the water. I might retract this after the first time it goes green and needs a scrub :P

@jase2985, thanks for the DM, that was really helpful!!

Also what did you do for your pumphouse, did you build a small shed or use an existing enclosed area? I'm semi concerned about noise and don't want to piss the neighbours off too much more - already have two heatpump compressors not far from the boundary..

Jase2985

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#2841074 31-Dec-2021 23:55

We have a sock on the skimmer basket and its awesome, it filters most of the stuff before it gets to the filter, i clean it twice a week, and get a lot of stuff out of it.

Our robot has a caddy with wheels so its easy to move round, the legnth of the robots cable means that the control box can be left in the shed where the power point is.

you can see my pool shed in the left of this picture, its a 1.8x1.5m Garden master shed that pretty much matches the house colours, so a bit more expensive than s standard one, will be hidden by a fence when i can finally get some more fence pails.

Our pump runs for 6 hours a day, 8am-11am and 6pm to 9pm. i might run it for a bit more in the afternoon, with the chemicals off, if we are using the pool all afternoon. the heat pump is also set to run with the pump, but its currently turned off due to not having the cover yet. we went with the heat pump to extend the pool season, as when the pool was first installed and it lacked the bond beam or much round it, you could see our 9y old shivering after swimming for about 20 mins. to be fair it was about 21 degrees in there and the end of october but still having it at a warmer 28 degrees then would be nice.

insane

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#2842209 2-Jan-2022 23:36

I've also seen several companies saying that yearly running costs are around $1000.

That feels too low to me when chemicals and electricity is taken into account, especially with a heatpump for water heating.

How much is it roughly costing you guys (noting that you've all got different systems etc)

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#2842229 3-Jan-2022 06:46

insane: I've also seen several companies saying that yearly running costs are around $1000.

That feels too low to me...

That's definitely on the low side. The place I'm living in currently has the pool semi-managed. A company visits the site at a cost of roughly $70 per month, tests the water, make any necessary adjustments and provide the chemicals needed to maintain the pool for the rest of month. Fully DIY would be cheaper, but if you get it wrong often enough, the costs would add up. IIRC, when we emptied the pool to resurface it, it was over $100 in chemicals to bring it up to a swimmable standard.

The pool is by far the biggest power user in the house, but we do have two pumps (main and solar), both of which are quite old. There are potentials savings to be made by moving to variable speed pumps, but these tend to cost more and there is little sense pulling out a perfectly good pump to replace it with a more efficient one. When a pump dies, it will, in theory, be upgraded. The whole house is on solar now, and when the pool gets most use (and the solar heating kicks in), is also when we have the most sunlight, so the system is sort of self adjusting. I'll need to look at the numbers to decide if an expensive pump is worthwhile compared to a cheap one given the power costs are offset by the solar.

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#2842236 3-Jan-2022 07:26

We DIY pool chemicals and maintenance. For the salt pool, the most important measure is chlorination and, as long as you're checking weekly, is fairly forgiving. Salt is the main consumable (a handful of bags per year), and is pretty cheap from Bunnings/Mitre 10.

Other chemicals (e.g. total alkalinity, ph, etc.) can be tested less regularly by taking a sample into the local plumbing store and/or Mitre 10, etc. They can sell you whatever you need. I don't think we spend more than about $100/yr on these. BTW, these "free" tests are designed to sell you chemicals - not all of the chemicals on the printout (read: algicide, cyanuric acid) are necessarily essential.

If you're DIY, the biggest cost is your time. A vacuum will take the best part of an hour and will need to be done about weekly. If you're West Auckland, hit me up and I can give you a free demo 😀

For us, pump electricity use is the biggest cost. Obviously it'll depend on the pump you get but, for us, the back-of-envelope looks like this:

Pump size: 2kW
On for: 8hrs/day (can reduce in winter)
Daily Power Consumption: 16kWh
Price of power: 0.24/kWh
Power cost (daily): $3.84
Annual Cost: $1401.60

This prompted us to get solar. We don't have a heater, and I'd hate to think what that costs.

We've also had a pump breakdown (still under warranty, thankfully) and expect to have to replace the sand in the filter in a couple of years. All extra costs.

Other hidden costs would include evaporation (you'll probably need to be topping it up from the garden hose a few times over summer). Not major, but it can hurt if you're on tank water.

Jase2985

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#2842305 3-Jan-2022 08:52

My constant speed pump runs for 6h per day at .9kw so about 5.4kw of power per day. at 28c/kwh thats about $1.50 per day.

Chemicals, we have only had the pool in for about 3 months now but all ive brought in that 3 months is 1 bag of Soda ash at $20. We have used about 1/5th of the 20L of Acid ($85 per container) we got with the pool (auto dosed) and the electrode and oxidiser cells should last at least 2 years and up to 4 years, at a cost of about $1200. A 4 in 1 test kit and a copper test kit once a year or so and that's about it.

The heat pump, which we haven't had running yet due to the lack of a pool cover, only runs when the water temp is below the set temp, and also only when the pump runs. it uses 2.2kw per hour. im not sure how much it will be used if we are able to cover the pool at night. but i do ahve the ability to monitor my power so im able to get a good indication in the future how much its used. I might look to install something to constantly monitor the temp of the water too.

$1000 is doable but it all depends on a lot of variables i think ours would could in close to that without turning the heater on.

insane

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#2846484 10-Jan-2022 22:09

That's interesting, ok so $1500 per year sounds like a better number to bank on without taking into consideration running the heatpump.

Also wondering whether it makes sense to go with one of those solar companies that do a Tesla battery and use that to reduce the hit of running a heatpump for the pool?

Do those deals from companies like SolarCity still stack up where you pay them monthly and hardly pay much of a power bill?

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#2846511 11-Jan-2022 00:34

Pools sound like a lot of work and a lot of money. Hope it's worth it!

Or why not one of these and chuck a fence around it for less than 1/10th of the price! 😄

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insane

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#2846524 11-Jan-2022 07:18

sonyxperiageek: Pools sound like a lot of work and a lot of money. Hope it's worth it!

Or why not one of these and chuck a fence around it for less than 1/10th of the price! 😄

I had something similar before, but round. I get the cost savings but I need to replace a deck, do landscaping and I want it heated so it's killing two birds with one stone. And the wife hasn't heard of that size being an option - and hopefully won't :)

I'm also slightly terrified of a liner pool (and was the last time). If it pops it'll flood my granny flat without question...

Lastly I really need it in a particular area of my property or it gets covered in leaves from my neighbours huge mature trees (oak, macadamia nut and pohutukawa on the fence line). So I need to do significant landscaping and retaining now to dodge some underground services so either way it wouldn't be cheap.

If my garden was perfectly flat, and I didn't have the neighbours trees etc I'd consider it for a year or two as a long term trial to make sure I really want to maintain a pool again.

Jase2985

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#2846531 11-Jan-2022 07:43

insane: That's interesting, ok so $1500 per year sounds like a better number to bank on without taking into consideration running the heatpump.

Also wondering whether it makes sense to go with one of those solar companies that do a Tesla battery and use that to reduce the hit of running a heatpump for the pool?

Do those deals from companies like SolarCity still stack up where you pay them monthly and hardly pay much of a power bill?

well when you are charging your batteries you could be heating your pool so i dont know much much sense it make to heat the pool from the batteries? if you get a decent thermal cover it should keep most of its temp overnight.

insane

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#2846534 11-Jan-2022 07:50

Jase2985:
insane: That's interesting, ok so $1500 per year sounds like a better number to bank on without taking into consideration running the heatpump.

Also wondering whether it makes sense to go with one of those solar companies that do a Tesla battery and use that to reduce the hit of running a heatpump for the pool?

Do those deals from companies like SolarCity still stack up where you pay them monthly and hardly pay much of a power bill?

well when you are charging your batteries you could be heating your pool so i dont know much much sense it make to heat the pool from the batteries? if you get a decent thermal cover it should keep most of its temp overnight.

Fair enough, so perhaps Solar without a battery?

Do they still do zero $ upfront, or are those days over?

Jase2985

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#2846536 11-Jan-2022 07:54

no idea on those companies but solar would help offset the cost of the heating/running of the pool

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