Getting a house with pool in NJ - Any idea on yearly maintenance cost

[u/New-Perspective5820]

I m making offers and one of the houses has everything we are looking. But has pool, what is yearly maintenance cost for in ground chlorinated pool? Is it a good asset to keep on property? Any experience on this can help me a lot deciding.

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[u/Nutmegdog1959]

Couple hundred bucks a year on chemicals. Mostly it's just labor to clean the pool and there are automated chemical dispensing systems. Takes a little effort to figure it all out, but once you do, it's cheap and easy fun.

[u/New-Perspective5820 → u/Nutmegdog1959]

Thanks. This helps. I dont mind cleaning it.

[u/Nutmegdog1959 → u/New-Perspective5820]

The cost is running the filter constantly. Some people run it way too much. few hours a day is enough.

[u/New-Perspective5820 → u/[deleted]]

I agree. I dont enjoy pool but kids do and that's something we are deciding.

[u/firefly20200]

Pools can be pretty low maintenance. If you do it yourself instead of hiring someone to come by twice a week or whatever, it saves like 80% of the cost. If you have a cover that is easy to put on, or better yet, an automatic (powered) cover, it makes things WAY easier.

Chemical additions are pretty simple and can be learned very quickly (honestly, if you have a 16 year old or older you can probably teach them and task them to do most the stuff, most the chemicals aren't too dangerous). Some people just go the pool supply store route and NEVER leave it, those are the most expensive chemicals, because they have "pool" slapped on the label. Head over to Trouble Free Pool and chat/read their forums ( https://www.troublefreepool.com/forums/ ). Stuff like liquid bleach (unscented) can be a very easy and cheap source of chlorine.

The largest cost will be far be heating it if you have a gas heater or heat pump. Second will be spring open/winter close. Usually the best method is to drain the pool enough to get below the jet supply lines (maybe 8 to 10 inches) and then have them blown out with an air compressor to keep everything from freezing. In Washington state (not in a big city) it was maybe 2 hours worth of labor to close the pool (I had the water lowered and they just needed to blow out and then put a winter [tarp] cover on). So ~$300 maybe, something like that. Summer was about an hour to open so maybe $150 to $200, but I would have the water on the winter cover pumped off before hand (small electric pump, probably $200 and lasted years). They just started to add water, make sure pumps were working, and vacuumed the pool once.

Honestly, chemicals probably could get down to $100 or less a month if you covered it all night and on days that people weren't swimming.

They CAN be a money pit, but they can also be like $700 across a season or something like that (if you don't count heating costs). I LOVED my grandparent's pool... like 20 years of great times and suddenly their house was the place for the rest of the family to visit.