Recent content by TimZ

I'm in southeastern PA (southern Chester County, close to the border with Cecil County MD). I'll relate a story from my pool builder when we were considering the open-spa-all-winter option. They had a client who insisted on building the pool and spa so that the spa could run while the pool was...

Any idea what it would cost to get rid of it? I'm guessing that's not cheap either, and may factor in to your decision. You said the previous owner had been negligent, but do you know when the last time was that it was running?

1. From what I can tell it looks like you have a colored plaster or pebble surface. Depending on the color, it makes the water look darker. You can see some of the different effects here Pool Finish and Color Viewing Room...PICTURES & details only please 2. Those look to be efflorescence from...

Evidently this came out of a class the pool company employees took with Orenda. They pointed me to an Orenda article called Proactive Pool Winterization. The article recommends raising both CH and TA to set up for maintaining a good LSI at lower water temperatures. That makes a certain amount of...

We've used our pool company for opening/closing since it was built in 2020. This year, the closing paperwork has new guidance for gunite pools. They say to raise CH to 600-800 ppm and lower pH to 6.5. I think what they're trying to do is to (1) make sure there is ample calcium so that there is...

We have both a Pentair MasterTemp 400 and a Pentair UltraTemp 140 for our 30k gallon pool. We don't have natural gas, so the Mastertemp runs on propane, which was a big motivator to get both. In our area natural gas is much cheaper than propane, so I'm not sure we would have done both if gas...

Have you considered enclosing your whole patio space in the fence? That would tie your outdoor living into the pool area and maybe give more flexibility with usage of the space. For example, without the fence you could probably have a few western or southwestern facing loungers under the windows...

That is not as clear cut as "common knowledge" would indicate. See e.g., Prevention of spinal cord injuries that occur in swimming pools which found that 76.8% of spinal cord injuries had no diving device compared to 8.6% with a low diving board. Over 95% of injuries were in depth <= 8 ft, with...

It might be a reasonable first step to measure this depth. If you're off on your estimate and it's only, say, 8-8.5, then that will mean less of a difference across the depth profile to go to 6-7. Kids will jump / dive / do crazy stuff. In my opinion it's safer to have some good depth for them...

Alternate perspective: if you are NOT a die hard spa fan that includes use during the winter, it's an attractive feature and fun hang out spot. My kids (6 and 4) love playing in there even when it's not in spa mode. Not sure how costs break out for you, but for our gunite pool in 2020 it was...

Have you considered having a raised bond beam on that side of a shotcrete pool and using that as the retaining wall? If you're putting the pool as close as possible to the wall it might make everything look more planned out, and then it's one project.

Our yard has a similar amount of slope, maybe a little more. We built an in-ground pool that basically split the difference in elevation: built a short retaining wall on the high side and then graded dirt from the dig up to the low side. We put all pavers on the high side, with just stepping...

Insurance is a big one, many people recommend getting an umbrella policy. If you're adding a fence, there's additional effort trimming and/or weeding along the fence line. Extra sunscreen since the whole family will want to spend more time outside. Pool toys, etc.

What are the dimensions of your tanning ledge? Is it big enough for the way you plan to use it? What depth will it be at? The way it's drawn makes it look like more of a swim-out bench than what I would think of as a tanning ledge (that could fit chairs, etc.)

You might want to shop around a little for the opening and closing if you aren't locked in yet. Our opening and closing last year were ~$500 each and that includes an upcharge for removing/installing the pool cover. I'm sure it varies by location, but ~$1500 each seems really high.