Greetings from Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex

zethacat

0
LifeTime Supporter
Hey all,

From the Dallas-Ft. Worth area here, and I am considering having an IGP installed in my yard, despite having a neighborhood pool. Our HOA pool is only open for roughly 3 months of the year. During that time the pool is pretty busy, and it's also usually over chlorinated and doesn't have much shade. My yard already has a large covered patio with flagstone and a decent amount of landscaping with trees and flowers so I wouldn't need much decking around the pool, but I am on the fence about whether to do salt water because of this. Aside from not being so sure I want to deal with having to seal everything yearly, I am worried about how the salt will affect other aspects of my yard as well. Patio furniture, grass, flowers, etc.

My vision is to just have a pool my immediate family will use mostly, which consists of myself, my wife and two young children. If you look at the video, I was thinking of putting a basic 14x30 rectangular pool with an average depth of 4.5' without anything fancy other than a heater just off the patio where that poor little tree is, so I will only need the minimal amount of decking. If you look at the drawing, the drawing shows a walkway to the pool from the patio and then decking around most of the pool. There is an easement on the north side, but I plan on putting some decking over it anyway. I just can't envision the pool without at least the minimum amount of decking all around.

My budget is pretty tight.. I can't see myself spending more than 40K on this from start to finish and that's on the high end for me. I'd feel more comfortable financially with less.

What do you all think? :wave:
 
Zethacat, I am new to the site and like you doing research. Your design looks good, what I have been told is the rectangle shaped pools are more expensive. My neighbor behind me has one. If you go with a freeform pool you can hopefully reduce your cost. I would also ask in the forum about heater and how expensive it can be to heat a pool. I look forward to following your post and seeing what you find out. I agree with your price point that would be my max. I don't want a spa, because I would not use it. But I do like the look of them. So much to learn...
 
Welcome to TFP! :wave:

A heating cost spreadsheet for heating a pool/spa with a natural gas heater is available here: http://www.troublefreepool.com/natural-gas-heating-time-cost-calculator-spreadsheet-t60600.html.

The short answer on heating a pool is it can take a little while. Your planned pool is about 14,200 gallons. To raise the water temperature 5°F (assuming a 400K BTU heater with an efficiency rating of 80%) will take between two and three hours depending on ambient air temperature, sun hitting the pool, whether the pool is covered, ground temperature, length of plumbing run, and wind. With my pool, the heater is more valuable for heating the spa since it will do that in short order. Since I do not see a spa in your plans, I would take the time to do an analysis on whether a heater makes sense for you.
 
I would never give up my salt system. Never. No effect on my grass or plants at all. I hear if you have a soft stone coping or deck it can cause erosion to the stone, but since I don't have stone, I don't know.
 
If you are concerned, ask an experienced gardner about salt sensitive plants. I was worried about this too, but have come to find out that Robbie is right. I have St. Augustine and was worried about it and my trees. No worries with that it seems, just ask about delicate flowers or salt sensitive types.
 

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:wave: Hi neighbor! We have a salt water system - LOVE IT.. so far. Many of the pool builders we talked to didn't care for the salt... but I wouldn't be without it! I backwash on my new (last year) sod and 3 crepe myrtles and they suffer no side effects.

We added a spa that we can heat up for the colder seasons - but... like today, you COULD get in the pool if you wanted to. Water is in the low 80's. Next week it could be cold.. but the spa is a great backup for year round fun.

Your yard is beautiful.. it will be even prettier with a pool!

Good luck! I'll be watching..