Swimming Pools

I have a friend who has one and says it is a pain as the levels of everything have to be just so. This means it requires much more looking after which if you are not living there means you have to pay someone to come out to see to it more often. She has switchec back to Chlorine.

Sorry to hijack your thread, pags, but I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw your posting title on the forum.  I was just about to make a posting of my own enquiring if anyone had experience of above ground pools.  If there is stuff already hidden away on the forum then I will search it out now.  In the meanwhile, any comments would be helpful. We have a garden apartment with two terraces and a patch of grass.  I love sunbathing, but get too hot, and a mini-pool would be fantastic.  My husband isn't too keen on the idea as he thinks they are an eye sore (true), but I am sure I can work on him!  He says he will report me at the next condo meeting and they will quash the idea!!!  Not so I am sure, as the neighbours have great sympathy for me, the poor hot, "rosata", English lady.  The pools I have been looking at online range down to about 10 feet in size.  Not a swimming pool certainly,  but big enough to float-out, glass of wine in hand, and cool off.  My sister thinks it is a great idea, and I am sure the grandchildren will love it too.  It stand about 4 feet high, and there is a ladder to climb up before lowering yourself in.  It blows up, fills from a hose, and you run a pump for at least 12 hours per day.  I imagine there is a night cover to keep the wild life out. Seems a lovely idea to me and I can pack it up and stuff it in the garage until it is needed again the next year.  Shouldn't offend the neighbours unduly.  Would be in use for the month of August only. Cost on sale about £100, but £250 plus on posh websites.

Penny, I wonder if the friend you refer to has a contract with a pool maintenance company who tell her just what's required to be done? Or perhaps she has a holiday let which means the pool gets a lot of use by people who don't pay any attention to the requests made by the owners concerning sun-lotion and so on? We've got an 18ft Intex above ground pool which is saltwater. This is our fifth summer with it. I'm sure I could fiddle about with daily tests and nudging various values up and down if I wanted to make pool maintenance a hobby in itself, but I can think of more interesting things to do. In fact, the water is crystal clear, lovely to swim in and the only "chemical" maintenance I do is dump some more table salt in if the chlorine generator displays a warning that the salt level is low (due to rainfall causing overflow, for the most part). Apart from that, I backwash the sand filter every week or ten days and switch on a robot vacuum cleaner when there are leaves and dead insects on the bottom. My opinion of the pool has not always been so positive, though, since I used the crappy paper filter system until last Spring. That was a major pain and a huge on-going expense, but buying an Intex sand filter has made life so much easier and the water a lot clearer than it ever was with the cartridges. FromNowOn, only you can know the regulations in your building, so I have no idea how viable your idea is from that standpoint. As far as the technical issues are concerned, if you get a 10ft pool, you'd probably be fine with a filter using paper cartridges as long as you make a point of coverning the pool all the time it's not in use. Just don't expect the filters to last as long as the manufacturer says they will. If you use a dark cover, this should reduce the growth of algae which is really the major pain. It will also reduce evaporation and that will reduce water costs and help to keep the pool at a comfortable temperature. Obviously, the smaller the pool, the easier things like covers are to handle and that means you'll probably use it more often. While I am a fan of saltwater systems, I'm not sure if I think that's a sensible approach for a small pool that's just used a few weeks a year. If you don't mind the chlorine and you can get to grips with the correct way to dose it, then it will have to be a lot cheaper than the chlorine generator. Al

Yes, it's a holiday lt so that could be why.

I do think that there's a big difference between our relatively small above-ground pool used only in hot weather by two adults and a child (and occasionally by one or two additional people), and larger, in-ground pools used by bigger groups of holiday letters who are determined to spend as much time as they can splashing in sunny water during their fortnight in Italy. I've spoken to someone who runs a B&B here and they have problems with scummy rings due - they're convinced - to guests using Nivea sun lotion. This in spite of the fact that they specifically ask guests not to get in the pool after putting on lotion and in spite of the fact that they're on-site keeping an eye on things at all times. I have no idea how well a saltwater chlorinator would cope with thick oils in the water. If Pags wants a pool only to be used by their family and guests, then I think it would be reasonable to look at saltwater systems. As I've said, we think ours is great, both from the maintenance standpoint and as far as the experience of splashing around in the pool is concerned. However, if the pool is going to be used by rental clients - particularly if Pags is not going to be in residence when the guests are - then I think a maintenance contract has to be in place. During a hot, sunny Italian summer, a pool can get in a pretty horrid state very quickly if something goes wrong and nobody is monitoring how the equipment is operating and how the pool chemistry is being affected by what people are doing in the water. Al

For rental pools a maintenance contract is essential.....guests will always jump in covered in sun-screen, however often they are asked not too, (and will always take their beer bottles down to the pool-side, even when plastic glasses are available.) They are on holiday!. This in very hot weather can turn a pool from crystal clear to sludge green in a matter of days. I know of one part-time resident here who had to refund his rental as he had not taken care of his pool and the guests refused to swim in it and de-camped to another property. So its not any use cost cutting with pool care. From my personal point of view we have friends with a salt water pool, which is just so nice to swim in, it is used by friends and family and they have never had any problems with it. The system (I am alittle hazy on this) seems to run on automatic pilot.....trouble free.

Even our (relatively) cheap Intex saltwater chlorinator has a timer which you simply set to run for a certain number of hours and it does it again every 24 hours. Power cuts can cause problems with timers, but it's not a huge issue. Most days, I just wander down to the pool in the morning to check the filter and chlorinator are running as they should be and to scoop out any leaves and bugs in the skimmer and that's the sum total of my pool care for the day. As for customers who ignore your requests that they treat your property with some respect and say, by way of excuse, "But we're on holiday!" that's one of the main reasons why we've never even considered B&B or rental. If we were desperate for money, I'd sell a kidney before taking on paying guests. Al

I tend to agree with Al. We have come to the realisation that renting a property - even a self-contained apartment, let alone a house with a pool and a garden - can be more trouble than a real advantage. We have had salt-water pools, fully automated and with a cleaning robot; however, every pool requires a certain amount of care and maintenance. If you live on the property and you take care of most of that maintenance yourselves, it is fine. If you rent the place, problems will occur. I would further say that a nice pool will be expected in a luxury property which is rented out. For an average property, I do not think that the trouble and expense are justified.  In any case, I do not think that renting out is worth the trouble, with or without a pool.

I think that if you are on site then renting out a house or apartment is a good source of income, we and many friends do it and whilst you might get the odd strange guest, most people do repect your property, and are a pleasure to meet. Sometimes its even sad to see them go!. It is satisying to share your knowledge of the area and to find them so appreciative of this part of rural Marche. Also this area does seem to attract the independant traveller, who wants to get away from the crowds and have a restful and serene holiday......meaning they are not going to find any nightclubs and come back drunk in the middle of the night. (as yet!) If the owners are not on  site I would be very hesitant to let, unless there was a really good management system in place. 

I also think that if the owners are on site all the time, it makes a big difference, as Angie has said. The other alternative would be to have reliable caretakers, but then, you will be paying for those services. Would it be economically viable or justified?  

Thanks for all your responses. Very helpful. How much do you think I should expect to pay for a maintenance contract ? just trying to get an idea so that I can benchmark the various offerings.