Community Chat

[lulu2]

If you have a liner pool with stainless sides and vermiculite bottom, if you permanently  empty it, won't the sides collapse?

I cannot imagine using the space under the pool for storage.  I would think it would be moldy.

[tends2dogs]

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@ciao_bella wrote:

Very interesting!!  I'm wondering where the rain water would settle?  I have a trex deck and the planks are not water tight.  Wouldn't the rain runoff seep between the planks and start accumulating in the pool?   Unless some kind of permanent seal or barrier is placed under the decking, seems to me it could cause potential issues down the road.   Might be good questions to ask the contractors before making any decisions.. 

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I thought the same thing about the water that gathered in the bottom of the pool.  Wouldn't it smell, draw mosquitoes?  I certainly don't see how you could use it for storage.  Trex isn't cheap and that is what it looked like they used, not to mention all the wood framing.  I would love to see what the price would be compared to just filling it in.  Dirt is cheap. It looked nice though!

[foundinlv]

My husband had the same questions about this deckover; how do you keep out water and insects and if you drill holes into the concrete on the inside walls to attach the decking won't that ruin the pool if one plans on using it again?   

[Meowingkitty]

They told us that you can put a pump down there (the kind you use to drain the pool when it needs repair) and run it to get the gunk out. It was $6,000 to fill it in and I think about the same for the deck. We chose to fill it in because something didn't seem right about the deck and the fact we only found that the did a few a year and many more chose to fill the pool in instead. How they stay in business is beyond me. We went with our gut feeling plus with the Arizona heat we didn't know how it would hold up. 

[wismiss]

I questioned some of the same things others of you have mentioned after I watched the video.  I do think it looked nice, but I think I would want the grass, especially if you have a nice deck that was near the pool at one time.  I also wondered about the rain seeping into the pool, how you could store something down there when it was wet, wouldn't it attract rodents, mosquitoes, and other varmits, and my biggest question was how could they drill holes into the pool and then if you changed your mind use the pool once again?  I looked on the net and they said the average cost of filling in a pool is about $7,000-$10,000.  If you have filled in your pool, did it settle and then you had to put on more dirt?  If you did have to do that, how many times did you do that before it stopped settling?

I just looked on line at another house for the same price without a pool and the house wasn't nearly as nice nor in as good a location as the one with the pool.    I called a company and they charge $250 each for opening and closing the pool, $75 to begin with for an inspection with $150 per hour to complete the inspection.  They told me that the average cost of a pool in a year for everything was about $1500-$2000 per year and that did not include any repairs to any part of the whole system.  That's quite a bit for only 3 months of use.  If I had an extra $10,000, I think I would make an offer and fill it in, but I don't, so maybe some nice family with children will be able to buy it and enjoy the pool.

[raven-blackbird]

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@kittywhipped wrote:

https://vimeo.com/62843183

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So what do you do when you use that space as storage and it rains..........and what about bugs and other critters.........I don't see this as a very good option.....................................raven

[faeriemoon]

Very interesting concept!

Maybe not the solutiion for everyone, but certainly for some.

[missy1]

Seems more economical and practical to just buy a home without a pool, imo.

[Meowingkitty]

It has never settled or sunk in five years. The company brought in the dirt and a bobcat. First they broke up the pool and the cement, punched holes in the bottom and filled it with dirt a little bit at a time. Then he went over it many times with the bobcat to make the dirt firm. It took about four days. Then we had five tons of rock delivered to put on top. This is Arizona so we don't do grass much out here. The guy even purchased our old pool filer so we didn't have to try to sell it ourselves or dispose of it. He just readjusted the final bill. It was about $6,000 to fill it in but when we priced the cost to bring it up to snuff it was about $7,000. We never used the darn thing. It was just one problem after another so it was better for us to fill it in and we have never regretted it.

I don't know about this whole opening and closing thing that people do with pools but we would go through at least two large buckets of chlorine a year at about $150 a bucket, plus shock, algicide and who knows what else. I think in the summer months it would cost about $100.00 a month for chemicals. Then you have the every weekend where something goes wrong and you have to go off to the pool store for some overpriced part.  Our electricity bill dropped $200.00 a month once we got rid of it. Having a pool isn't cheap.

[foundinlv]

We use our pool practically every day (less in the winter) so the additional cost is worth it to us.  I have always found swimming easier than jogging or power walking as I usually get shin splints.  In fact, I can swim laps forever some days but we may have the conversation to remove it if for any reason we are unable to use it.  We have an electric clothes dryer and that pulls a lot of juice.  It's from the 80's,..an Amana and still works so we never got around to buying a gas clothes dryer which I would prefer.  The electric dryer definitely goes first.