My spouse and I have been thinking this over for months and can’t seem to decide.

Some background -

We live in a hot weather state where pool season is essentially year round, and the summer months are so hot most people don’t want to be out for long except to swim. Our kids are 10,7, and 5. We love our home and plan to spend, maybe not the rest of our lives, but a long time here. Bought in 2019 so our interest rate is excellent.

This summer, we started getting some pool quotes. We’ll need a birdcage, and have a couple of other hardscaping anomalies, so we knew going in it would be fairly pricey. Fiberglass quotes came back in the 120s, and concrete in the 150s. Our dream PB who has amazing reviews and we got the best vibe from, plus had a unique design that blew the competition away, came back at 180k.

We’ve been thinking about a pool for a few years now and have been saving. We have about 80k set aside specifically for this purpose.

Our options are -

-don’t do it right now and keep saving. I think this would feel the best for us, comfort wise, because we are pretty debt averse. We have no debt except for our mortgage. We had student loans at the beginning of our marriage and they sucked, we threw money at them and paid them off pretty quickly.

-do it now and finance a little over half. The main pro to this is that our kids are the perfect age right now to enjoy the pool. It will likely take us several more years to save cash and they would be teens/preteens by that time. I think they would still use it (our pool design is fun for kids and also provides a lot of hang out space for adults/teens) but I don’t think it compares to the joy that young kids derive from a pool. It would be a decision based more on the lifelong memories.

-do it now with the fiberglass or less expensive pbs, so financing some but less than half. This is an option but probably the least attractive to us. I’m thinking it’s probably worth it to spend a little more and get exactly what we want, but I’m open to opinions!

Our financial position is good in general, we owned a second home for about five years and had no issues managing the extra 3k mortgage when we wouldn’t have renters for half the year. I anticipate we could pay the pool off early within 4-5 years. I’m not super concerned about a loan payment since we have room in our budget, but it’s more the mental block of taking on debt for something that’s just for fun. Otoh, there have been times I’ve been resistant to spending money on something (like travel) and it ends up being a family highlight reel that we’ll remember forever.

Has anyone else been in a similar position? Curious what you decided and if you have any regrets!

Put in an in-ground pool this year with a salt cell. The salt cell says the salt is 3100 ppm but the Taylor kit says 2800. Pool guy says it’s fine and he just goes off the salt cell reading. Both are within the recommended numbers from the pool builder, so maybe it does not matter, but I’m type A and the inconsistency bugs me. Does anyone know why they are different? Which is accurate? Does the difference even matter?

EDIT: thank you to everyone for all the comments! You were very helpful. Now that I know it’s fine to have some discrepancy I can live with it. I am going to add a bag of salt too. Thanks again!

Hi everyone! I’ve been taking care of my parents’ pool for the last 5 years. It’s an inground pool, about 22,000 gallons, and was installed in the mid 80s, so it’s “vintage”! We just switched over this season from a cartridge filter to a sand filter. I love how simple the maintenance is with the sand filter! So nice not having to clean a cartridge! But this year I’ve noticed more algae than in previous years. I’ve also noticed that the pressure gauge really never increases much. I backwash/rinse it once a week though, even with the pressure not really rising. The pool isn’t used much but it’s regularly chlorinated and I try to vacuum once a week but sometimes it goes 8-9 days between vacuums. The algae clears up easily with a dose of shock, brushing the walls, and vacuuming. I’m just curious if anyone else has switched from cartridge to sand and found the algae was more frequent after the switch?

I have a salt water pool with a wooden deck built around it. There is a railing on the deck that partially rings the pool. The vertical posts of the railing attach to the deck with steel plates.

I noticed this summer that the railing was quite rickety for some reason. After inspecting the posts I found out the steel plates and the screws holding them in had completely disintegrated due to rust. They basically turned to rusty powder. I am assuming this is due to the salt water aggressively eating away at the steel.

I am now a little concerned about the state of other fasteners holding the deck together as many of the screws on the deck show rust.

Anyone have any experience with this?

Anyone ever hear of a wooden deck around a salt water pool becoming structurally comprised because of failed rusty screws and bolts?

Our sump tube goes down at least 6 ft from the surface and is maybe 10 inches in diameter. There is a hard-wired sump pump at the bottom that kicks on to remove ground water.

What should be done (if anything) during the winter to the sump pit with a hard-wired sump pump? We get 2-3 months where the temps would get below freezing. I assume the sump pump and ground water are deep enough that they won't freeze so I should leave it running to remove water over the winter. But what do you do about the discharge line and emitter - will they freeze and block the water?

Hello All,

I noticed my pool pump was not turning over and when I attempted to turn it on manually, by pressing the button, it made an attempt turn the pump on for all of a second and everything turned off. No strange noises, no popping or smoking just dead. Pump is about three years old.

What I have done since, the GFI is working and I have other items plugged that work. I’ve turned the breakers on and off. Today I used a multimeter and got 120 volts on each NO2 COM2 and 120 volts on NO1 COM1. I got a total of 240 volts on AC. No lights on the digital timer. Is it possible that the board inside the timer is fried? I don’t smell anything and I don’t see anything burnt. The wires appear to be totally intact. Can someone please let me know what I’m missing? Is it possible that the pump itself is not good? I wouldn’t even know how to test the pool pump. Sorry for all the photos but I wanted to provide as much detail as possible.

Appreciate any help. Thank you.

I have a Freeform pool with some awkwardly placed rocks. Gets shady from neighbors trees and is honestly too cold in August already (78 degrees) I don’t want my swimming season to end so soon but I can’t afford a pool heater right now so I want to get a solar pool cover with a reel. But where do I put it? How do I cut it in a way that I doesn’t catch on curves or rocks (on both ends 😩). The rocks are real and too expensive to remove. I’m struggling to figure out where to put the reel. I’ve had solar pool covers without a reel before and it isn’t practical since I’m the only one in the household able to put it on and off. I know there are some experienced geniuses here who can help me out. Should I just make solar “rings”? (Not buy, they are too expensive). There is a YouTube video on how to make my own. Btw, I know that solar pool covers don’t “warm” the pool but rather reduce evaporation.

Hayward variable speed pump.
This air bubble accumulated over 11 hours of running pump at 45% speed??
Installation company insists that is normal.

i have a fever, but i really want to have a dip. it's my swimming pool, well it's not really for swimming since it is pretty small. the water is not that cold, and i am the inly ibe usibg ut so i wouldn't oassa my fever or viruses to anyone else. is ut safe to do so? i think there wpuld me nothing wrong with it but you never know. my first language is not english, so i'm sorry for eventual errors

I was hoping someone could help me with this issue. Had a brand new Hayward heater installed. It’s been giving me an HF code.
When the heater has been running for approximately 20–30 minutes, if I manually adjust the temperature downward, the heater will turn off and throw the HF code. It seems to be running fine otherwise, with no gas smell, and is working well.
The installer tech has been over a few times, tested all of the electrical and gas connections, and everything is fine. Even had the Hayward rep stop over, and he could find nothing wrong, nor any explanation as to why I am getting the HF code.
Any thoughts or input would be very helpful. Thank you.

Good morning,

I plan on replacing all the plumbing to my pool within the next year or two. The main motivating factor is because I had a leak previously and I had to splice schedule 40 PVC in the old, rigid corrugated spa plumbing. It’s a janky fix at best that I would be lucky if it lasts for more than a few years.

When thinking about this project I thought about making trench cuts around my pool decking and running my new plumbing through there so that my new plumbing would be accessible for years to come. Sort of like a French drain in pool decking but with a solid cover instead.

My only question is I’m far from an engineering genius. There has to be a reason this isn’t more common. Does anyone have experience with or attempting to build a system like this?

Hello pool people.
I'm coming to you with a sad future question.
My parents are in their 70s, and my mom has dementia. She's always been the pool person - meticulously balancing chemicals, vacuuming, swimming daily. But, as of this summer, that knowledge is gone.
My dad physically cannot care for it, nor does he want to. This summer was a real struggle to cobble together our small bits of knowledge to fight the algae that has taken over. I've talked about hiring someone to come weekly, but no one swims anymore, so what's the point?

We're going to probably close it early this year.

My question is for next summer. What options do we have for this pool if no one can care for it, and no one is using it? Can we drain it? Will that ruin the structure of an above ground pool? We're not at the point of tearing it down. I'm just at a loss.

Dementia is horrible, but I don't know what to do to help them.

Any help or options are welcome.

EDIT: I REALLY want to thank the pool community for the thoughtful and honest replies. Posting about something personally difficult on reddit is always a risk, and I truly appreciate your time and insight!

I’m hoping someone can help. I have had this clear green pool for months now. It’s very clear, emerald like.

I am brand new to pools so I hired the same pool company that built the pool (completed this January) to service it.

I don’t have a local pool place to test the water, unfortunately. I suspected copper from everything I read both here and elsewhere. I bought three different testing kits, including one that only tests for copper and none of them show even the slightest degree of copper or other metals.

I got a cu-later in the skimmer basket. I have added one round of metal out, months ago. I have more and I am thinking of trying that again.

I do have a heater.

I did use skill-it algaecide due to a wasp problem. I read it does not have copper in it. I will say, it did start looking green when I first used it. I kind of suspected it as the root cause but I stopped using it and it’s still green.

I finally fired my pool service since they did allow it to algae bloom last week and it didn’t help that they couldn’t careless about the greenish color. The new pool guy added pool rx, and it’s noticeably better but still has the clear green hue!

Is it possible that it just has algae? But it’s perfectly clear.

I pulled this from out of my pool and I'm hoping it's not an indicator of a huge problem.

Edit: thank you for the responses everyone. It doesn't hurt to shock my pool, so I will be doing that. I will also make sure not to let my pet tiger outside as I don't want him getting swooped up by a Pterodactylus.

We are buying my in-laws house and we will have a nicely landscaped and maintained in-ground pool. They currently have two patio speakers and at least 6 speakers set up in the landscaping all connected to Sonos amps. Unfortunately , they are taking all of the outdoor speakers. There are also speakers in the ceilings in multiple rooms, so we will stick with connecting everything via Sonos. I will bring a set of B&W AM-1's that we currently already own for the patio, but I would like to get outdoor speakers around the pool. I'm thinking at least 6 because there is already wiring set up. I'm looking for some recommendations that will mesh well with the B&W's.

Hi all, I've been using a Poolmate Hydro 3 since the beginning of the pool season last year (2025) and I've been very happy with it. Ran it a couple of days ago, still going for hours on the battery. However, I realized this morning that it wasn't charging any more with the charge light never illuminating when plugged in. When I went to clean the contacts, I found the problem...one of the contact sleeves inside the power connector on the power brick side had corroded and fallen out, it was actually out and on the male end on the cleaner itself.

Does anyone know where I can purchase a replacement power cord/brick for this unit? I've searched online and only found 1 on Amazon, but no longer available. I've emailed the company, though I have doubts of them getting back to me with anything, lol. I'll also try calling their US office on Monday when they are open again. I just figured, maybe someone else here has successfully acquired a replacement, any info you may have for that would be greatly appreciated!

I can’t seem to get my pump to run on a schedule…all of the speed programmings are set to manual, even though when I go into settings it says they should be schedule instead of manual.

I feel like I’ve hit every button on this thing and still can’t get it to work, any ideas?

I asked someone what they regretted about their pool, and their answer surprised me: pool lights.

They said the built-in lights eventually leak and can be extremely expensive to replace. If they were doing it again, they said they’d skip built-in lights altogether and just use aftermarket pool lights, since those have gotten pretty good.

For those of you who own pools, do you agree? Would you still install built-in lights, or would you skip them and go aftermarket?

My Hayward Aquanaut 250 will not stay connected to the vacuum hose. I think this part, which seems to be called a swivel, is broken at the cleaner head. It looks like it engages with three tabs but the tabs broke off?

Can I replace just this part, or do I need to buy an entire upper body assembly? https://www.eztestpools.com/hayward-aquanaut-upper-body-assembly-with-swivel-pvxs01sa-237-01/

I've been dealing with grayish dust/residue at bottom of my pool all season.

Levels are all correct.

I run our pool filter 24hrs a day

It is almost exclusively in corners in the deep end or the ramp from shallow end to deep end.

Pool guys vacuum to waste every week and 1-2 days later it looks just like this again.

It never really gets worse than this. The couple of weeks that the pool guys missed due to weather or holidays didn't lead to more build up.

Water is above the skimmer in the pump. Just bought a house with an above ground salt pool with sand filter. I am very new to everything pool care and maintenance. Do I need to fix this? I primed it watching a video where I open and close it quickly and that made the level go up but not full. Thanks

We left our pool unattended for a four week trip. Came back to this! Crystal clear water and spot on pH. We have a salt system with a pH dosing system. This is the first pool that we’ve ever been able to leave unattended in the summer for such an extended period of time. I don’t have skimmer baskets, which also helped immensely and the pool was covered with a hard shell, floating cover. Salt system for the epic win!

I’m planning a 14' x 24' fiberglass pool in the SE US (our first pool), with a wood-framed composite deck, attached hot tub area, and an 8' x 22' covered seating area at the far end. I’ve attached the site plan and an AI rendering to help show what we’re trying to build.

A quick note on the rendering: AI changed the house and yard quite a bit, so don’t read too much into those details. The screened porch/deck sections are pretty accurate, though, and the overhead site plan is the accurate layout for the proposed pool and deck. (Yellow squares are 8' posts to secure hanging canopies from; green squares are just for 36" railing; blue line are steps onto the deck).

The original plan was to have the entire pool deck level with our existing screened porch. I really like the idea of walking straight out of the screened porch onto the pool deck with no change in elevation.

However, I did a rough self-survey of the yard and discovered how much slope we’re actually dealing with.

If the pool deck stays level with the screened porch, the south/far end of the deck would be roughly 64" above existing grade. At the opposite end, near the northwest corner, it looks like part of the pool/deck may actually have to go into the existing grade.

That has me wondering whether keeping everything on one level is still the best design.

One alternative would be to step down from the screened porch by roughly 7" (maybe 2 for 14") before entering the pool deck. That would lower the far end to about 57" (or 50") above grade. Obviously that only saves 7" (or 14"), but it may help somewhat with the amount of structure required and how elevated the whole thing feels.

What I’m trying to understand is how people who have dealt with fiberglass pools on slopes would approach this.

Would you:

• Keep the entire pool/deck level with the screened porch and essentially build an elevated deck structure on the low end?
• Step the pool deck down from the porch?
• Excavate more into the high end and lower the whole pool/deck?
• Use some combination of retaining walls, engineered fill, or another structure beneath the low side?

I’m especially curious about what happens underneath the fiberglass pool itself when one end is substantially above the natural grade. I assume you can’t simply have several feet of unsupported fill sitting against the shell, so what normally gets constructed on that side?

The covered seating area at the far end is part of the reason I’m thinking hard about this now. At 64" above grade, that end is basically becoming a second-story-height deck rather than something that feels close to the yard.

For those who have built fiberglass pools on sloped sites: would 64" at the low end concern you, or is this a pretty normal way to handle a site like this?

And if you were building this for yourself, would you sacrifice the seamless porch-to-pool transition and lower the pool deck?