Pool Maintenance - DIY or DIFM

Hey fellas-

we're about to enter year 3 of pool ownership, and my pool guy is about to raise the rates ~10% to $150/mo. Between that and paying $150/qtr for filter cleaning, its $2400/yr.
It's been nice to not give zero thought to keeping the pool maintained and swimmable. I've DIY'ed a new filter housing pressure gauge, lubricated gaskets, and rebuild of the pool vacuum.

Is the mental load of maintaing and worrying about the pool heavy? I know a lot of us are tinkerers, and gearheads, are you able to not get caught up in it an all consuming war on water chemistry and cleaning?

For what I estimate about $600-800/yr in chemicals plus what I think would be ~15min a week of maintenace, I'm tihnking about making the switch to DIY. What am I missing or not thinking about?

 

What I have you could hardly call a pool. 18' above ground 54" tall. I will say one thing my mud puddle sized body of refreshment shares in common with all pools it it's a leash keeping you home. Maybe a few days you can get away but after that you'll need someone to come and look after it.

A few years back chlorine tabs over doubled in price and haven't come down much if any. I spend over $100 a season on 3" tabs.

 

It’s a lot of work honestly; balancing chemicals and making sure things are properly maintained can be a pain. Once you do it a few times it becomes second nature. The hardest part (for us anyway) is getting the chemicals balanced after we open the pool for a season. There was one year we couldn’t figure out the chemicals because the pool wasn’t holding chlorine. Hired a guy to come out and troubleshoot and they tested the water to find that there was some bacteria or algae that somehow got into the pool and was acting against the chemicals. It took days and lots of money to finally get it back to baseline and holding the chlorine. It was eventually tracked back to our friends kids who went swimming in the bay the day before and brought their suits in without washing them. It introduced something that was a bitch to get out

We pay A LOT of money every year to pay for the chemicals to do it ourselves. Paid to get a loop loc cover last year (we have aging dogs and they’ve slipped in a couple times with just the tarp - luckily we always watch them and are able to help them out) and a heater this year hoping we could use it more out of the year, which has been an absolute nightmare. The company that installs it subcontracted a plumber to hook up the gas. The install was done, the gas was hooked up and we haven’t been able to use it in the three and half months we have had. Spent over $5k for it and the installer insists it isn’t the heater and blames the gas flow situation, the plumber came back and tested the lines and said the gas is more than adequate and blames the control board on the heater. They’ve finally agreed to cover the control board but the labor apparently isn’t included on warranty repairs so they’re trying to stick us with a $400 labor charge. I am fighting it since we have never had a working heater…..

 

Pool ownership issues can only be resolved with high explosives.

 

living in Phoenix, its like standard issue to have a pool. Like having a northface jacket in PNW. Since having it, we've been enjoying it. It gives us all something to do, to relax by, cool off and such.

The pool here stays "open" year round. We can swim march-november (albiet the edge months are cold). so there are fewer "startup" and "shutdown" needs than seasonal location.

@Retired...finally puts one part well - it keeps you home. We've taken multiple 1-2 week vacations and not had to worry about will it be green when we get back.

 

I have an in ground pool that is salt water. I probably spend 100 per year on salt and maybe 10 on muriatic acid and 40 on Cyanuric acid. That is it. I don't close it because opening can be a bitch. I leave it open year round. In the winter I can turn the LED light on and watch it change colors from inside the house. I probably spend 15 minutes per week on pool maint, UNLESS a storm comes through. Then all bets are off.

 

Ease depends on your chemistry and geographical environment. My chlorinated pool in Texas, and variable speed pump, Polaris sweeper and DE filter system requires about 25-30 mins of maintenance a week. DE filter flush every quarter, filter clean out every 6 months. Auto runs 24hour low speeds during winter freezes. Its always looks and swims great. As long as there are no significant weather events, its easy going. Never had a pool maintenance person, except for major repairs. Biggest cost is chlorine. Once the basic chemistry is understood and maintained, its fairly simple for me.

 

I can tell you if you don’t know what you’re doing pool chemicals can hurt you bad.

Some you MUST put water in bucket first then slowly put in chemical. If some other way around, and too much you risk it blowing up in your face.

Also depending on pool components if you just dump it in risk bleaching or damaging bottom of pool or pool liner etc.
You have to pay attention to instructions.
There lot to learn.
Company I work for does lot of pool maintenance too, and when the pool guys get behind I get pulled off to help them catch up.

I dislike doing it enough I would never get a pool.

 

this is how I feel it would be for me. I've got a cartidge filter, so no messy DE to deal w/. Grew up w/ a DE pool so I know the effort.

 

Me and my wife were overwhelmed at first with all the chemicals we had to balance with our pool when we first moved in.

But now it’s second nature. We clean (vacuum, brush, empty filter baskets) it bi-weekly and we clean the filter housing every 6 months (more if we let pets in the pool).

and every week we test for chlorine and acidity levels and balance it out.

Also every two weeks we take a sample to Leslie’s and get it tested. Their results are a general guideline but it isn’t necessary to get it to 80% or higher. Conditioner level will high for example if you use a chlorine tablet recently. Or if you’re chlorine is too high you don’t need to buy their recommended product to dump in the pool as it will go down on its own.

 

we get a few haboob dust storms every summer. and it usually is something our pool cleaning machine will tackle in a few hours, along w/ manual net skimming and emptying the basket.

 

Gotta agree with the salt system. I have a 20,000 gallon in ground pool and barely do anything. I usually forget to add acid every once in a while. I take the water to the local pool store about twice a year just to make sure it’s good. The salt system is basically set and forget. Just clean the small filter it has when it gives you a warning. I spray the cartridge filter out every other month and add a few cups of acid when I remember. The salt system is also easier on skin and hair. Much softer water.

I’ve had a pool here in Miami since the 80’s. We use the pool year round. Before the salt system about 15 years ago, it was a hassle. I had to go get chlorine weekly and the jugs always leak. Ask me I’ve replaced 3 rusty tailgates because of this.

I did get a new pool vac recently. One of the electric plug in types. I’ve had suction side vacs as well as cordless ones. They don’t compare to the maytonics dolphin series of pool vacs. Drop it in for 2 hours a week and it’s clean.

I was out of town for two months and when I came back the water was good. Dropped the vac in an cleaned the filter. Went swimming that night.

 

It can seem like a lot at first but paying to have someone maintain your pool is a complete waste of money. It's not that hard and takes very little time once you get the hang of it and you definitely can save a ton of money by not buying every little thing you might need from the pool store. For example, if you have low hardness and need to raise it the pool store is going to sell you Hardness Increaser which is just calcium chloride. But it's very expensive from the pool store. Instead you can use Prestone Driveway Heat, because it is pure calcium chloride and way cheaper. Troublefreepool website will be your best friend. I recommend getting one of their test kits and learning how to use it.

 

Thanks! Told the pool company sianara. I've spent a couple hours on TFP now and bought a test kit, and some initial chemicals. I'm hoping to save those $.

 

DIY. Pool chemistry is not really that hard. If you want less maintenance, convert to a saltwater pool. You won’t regret it. I haven’t added chlorine to my pool in probably a year.

 

Had pools at every home since 1988 and late last year bought a home with a pool at the community clubhouse.
I maintained every pool and it’s no longer worth the effort now that kids are grown and gone and it gets little use.
The last pool was fiberglass and ~20 years old when we sold the home. Salt system made that part easy, but had a lot of debris both from neighboring and our own trees/vegetation. I ended up spending 3-4 hrs/week keeping it up and grew to hate the damn thing rather than enjoying it.

 

3 weeks in and its going well. my wife has jumped in to help take charge.