New Home Build Pool Question?

[Black Ice]

I started looking at plans last summer and ended up signing a contract to have a new house built towards the end of last year. So the wife has been saying she wants a pool so now I’m starting to look into getting one built and have a few questions? I know nothing about pools FYI.


1. What you get a heater and chiller
2. Salt or Chlorine
3. Hot Tub or not
4. How far away from the house would start the pool? Some people don’t have grass between the pool and back porch and some do. I like the idea of coming off about 10 foot from the porch and putting down a rock of some sort kinda like this:

Pics won’t load for some reason.

5. What shape pool.
6. Would you do a water feature


Here are some pics of my back porch area.









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Rear load garage and that door to the right is my outdoor full bath.

[TexasAg2002]

Heater Yes Chiller No
Chlorine- Salt is better on skin but tears equipment and pool surroundings up. A lot of pool companies wont even put in a salt pool.
Hot Tub for Sure
Depends on how much room you have but think about bare feet and loose gravel getting into the pool after someone walks on it.
We did a rectangle pool with hot tub.
We like the water fall. It gives you some relaxing water noise when in the back yard. If you do an elevated hot tub, water will fall into the pool as well.

[parkchief100]

We too are building at the moment. This is our pool that should go in in about a month or so.

[Black Ice]

We too are building at the moment. This is our pool that should go in in about a month or so.

That’s nice! I’m building a pretty modern home so I’m thinking a rectangular pool would probably go better.


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[bps3040]

I started looking at plans last summer and ended up signing a contract to have a new house built towards the end of last year. So the wife has been saying she wants a pool so now I’m starting to look into getting one built and have a few questions? I know nothing about pools FYI.


1. What you get a heater and chiller- Heater for sure. Chillers are nice, but costly. I use aerators to cool my pool. I have 8 in tile band and run pool at night. My stays between 88-90 in summer

2. Salt or Chlorine- Salt sucks Chlorine. The real reason people like salt is for the way the water feels. You can add Supreme Plus to your pool and get same affect. Plus is it is good for your pool.

3. Hot Tub or not- Hot tub, especially if you are already putting on heater

4. How far away from the house would start the pool? Some people don’t have grass between the pool and back porch and some do. I like the idea of coming off about 10 foot from the porch and putting down a rock of some sort kinda like this:- Personal choice....put it where you want it

Pics won’t load for some reason.

5. What shape pool.- Grecian/formal are in right now, lol, freeform are so yesterday!. One of my customers told me that, lol

6. Would you do a water feature- Yes, sound of water is relaxing

Good luck. If you have any other questions. I am in the business, since 81', ask away


Here are some pics of my back porch area.












Rear load garage and that door to the right is my outdoor full bath.

A wise man’s heart inclines to the right, but the heart of a fool to the left.
Ecclesiastes 10:2

[JayB]

I like the pictures of the pool you posted. Do that!

No rocks to walk across. I prefer to be able to walk all the way to pool without grass/rock underfoot.

We dont have a hot tub. Sometimes I think it would be OK...but we get more room to float/play. Ours is 10 ft deep....so diving is allowed. Kids LOVE to dive.

We dont have heat but still use pool about 8-9 months. always upgrade pump and filter first.

If you put in features, put in features that you use while in the water...bar stools. Sun deck. lounge chairs.
Choose coping that fits the area...along with tile that gives the water the color you want the pool to be.

We bought the Dolphin pool sweep. It is a separate unit and does not work off pool equipment. Way better than the polaris type that run off the pump.

Dive board or rock is great.

[buck40]

Mine looks very similar to the above pictures, in fact it may be almost exactly the same except we have a slide coming down from the rock. Whatever you do put the spa CLOSE TO THE HOUSE. We did not and regret it every time we walk around to the hot tub, especially when it is cold outside.

A Couple other thoughts...

--Put poles around coping for umbrellas or volleyball nets or basketball goals.
--no opinion on chlorine vs salt except if you have a lot of natural rocks--stay away from salt as it corrodes the rocks.
--chiller seems too expensive to justify IMO. Everything breaks sooner or later and thats just one more thing. Also we use some pvc pipes to cool the pool if needed. Google it but it uses evaporative cooling to drop the temp enough to make a difference...and cheap. I made em for $40
--Get a robot cleaner
--Don't ever set foot into Leslie's Pool Supply unless you have $200 to burn.

Just my opinions.

[txhunter90]

Do not have experience, but my FIL just built a pool that is salt water. His only complaint is that the pool cleaner thing, is constantly throwing salt water on their ac unit outside. So he is afraid of long term exposure of the salt water being thrown on this unit and various parts of the home. He is going to build something around it, but just a thought as well. He said he would have moved it over or done something different. He just does not want chlorine.

[Mike D]

I started looking at plans last summer and ended up signing a contract to have a new house built towards the end of last year. So the wife has been saying she wants a pool so now I’m starting to look into getting one built and have a few questions? I know nothing about pools FYI.


1. What you get a heater and chiller
2. Salt or Chlorine
3. Hot Tub or not
4. How far away from the house would start the pool? Some people don’t have grass between the pool and back porch and some do. I like the idea of coming off about 10 foot from the porch and putting down a rock of some sort kinda like this:

Pics won’t load for some reason.

5. What shape pool.
6. Would you do a water feature

1. I wouldn’t spend the $$ on a pool chiller but there are some relatively inexpensive heat exchanger units that we are considering. If you get a hot tub you will have a heater. I wouldn’t get one just to heat the pool. That gets expensive quick.

2. We went chlorine as salt is destructive to pretty much anything it touches.

3. Absolutely get a hot tub. I didn’t see where you mentioned if you have kids but my wife and I love our hot tub. Plus it can be used tear round unlike the pool.

4. I wouldn’t want it too close to the house but I also wouldn’t want to have to walk across rocks to get there/back either.

5. Too subjective to answer but I believe our pool builder told us you get more bang for your buck with a free form pool vs a square/rectangle.

6. Our hot tub is elevated so that is our water feature. We also have bubblers in the tanning ledge. The cave/grotto looks cool but that rock work and extra plumbing gets expensive.








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[texaswoods8]

As a pool service guy I'll throw in my two cents.
First off a salt pool generates its on chlorine some people think a salt pool doesn't use chlorine but that isn't true. Yes salt water is corrosive but used in the right application I like them.
Things to consider if you want to go the salt route is what you use for coping and decking. There is sealers out there designed to seal decks from salt pools. As far as a cleaner splashing water out they're probably referring to a Polaris type cleaner that runs on it's on booster pump. Polaris has a newer model called the Quatro sport that doesn't have a tail they work awesome.
In regards to where in the yard I would not have a tree over it if you can avoid it. Lot's of extra work.
Shape is completely up to y'alls personal preference.
Don't let anyone talk you into an infloor cleaning system, a lot money that just moves dirt around.

[Buzz]

Wife and I started looking at pools as well. We're thinking of going with fiberglass instead of concrete, from what we've research less maintenance costs.
Anyone have an experience with both?

[Black Ice]

Wife and I started looking at pools as well. We're thinking of going with fiberglass instead of concrete, from what we've research less maintenance costs.
Anyone have an experience with both?

I’d be interested to know this as well.


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[axisbuck24]

Wife and I started looking at pools as well. We're thinking of going with fiberglass instead of concrete, from what we've research less maintenance costs.
Anyone have an experience with both?

I have a fiberglass pool and love it so far and definitely would recommend the company who installed ours.

[BlackoutRam2500]

I had plans to put one in this spring but pumped the breaks because of oilfield crash. Probably going to pull the trigger around Thanksgiving.

Heater, chiller, and hot tub... if you are spending that much money on a luxury item bite the bullet and get most, if not all, of what you want. We are going chlorine and the salesman had us interested in a UV system. We are also doing pebble sheen so my kids feet don't get all torn up. Not going for the self cleaning option because that's what kids are for.

You should check out a guy named Mike Farley on youtube. He's got some great design ideas. Our house is modern as well but we back up to the forest so my wife wants that tropical lagoon feel.

Got a lot of slope on my lot so our design looks something like this

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[RJK70]

1. What you get a heater and chiller. Heater for sure. No chiller
2. Salt or Chlorine. Salt for sure so much better. The salt used to be hard on equipment but that’s a thing of the past. All the equipment is now made with stainless steal.
3. Hot Tub or not. Yes for sure, we use ours all the time. Sucks to clean a pool all winter and not be able to use it at all.
4. How far away from the house would start the pool? Some people don’t have grass between the pool and back porch and some do. I like the idea of coming off about 10 foot from the porch and putting down a rock of
I like the idea of having it away from the house. We did a different style then you are looking at but wanted to share some pictures. Had installed one year ago.



I’ll try to post some pictures of the landscaping too. We have lights all throughout the yard. Also have a good size koi pond and water fall closer to the house. We already had a covered porch and outdoor kitchen and just added the pool.


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