Can I make lemonade out of this lemon: 50 year old pool?

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M

Mconlon

0
Jun 22, 2018
1
cumberland, md
I inherited a circa 1964 house with a concrete pool. This was our family home growing up with plenty of great memories of summers by this pool. At first I was just overwhelmed by this big clean out nightmare and assumed I would let it go to an as is sale, but gradually I have started to think about rehab of both house and pool and making this mid century classic into my retirement home.

The pool sat unused and uncovered for over 10 years. We know it leaks because the swamp fills to about 4 ft and stops. All equipment is trash and I really don't know where to start. I basically have a cracked concrete lined kidney shape hole w fiberglass sides, surrounded by my dad's hand built block privacy wall. Money will definitely be tight, but I am handy and frugal, so where do I start? I plan to call a pool company for an eval, but want to learn more from people who have actually undertaken this process. I don't have pics right now but will post soon if anyone is interested. Am I crazy to even contemplate this?
 
:wave: Welcome to TFP

Anything is possible and there have been some really interesting restorations on these pages over the years. Your first job would be to find the leak. If the pool seems to maintain a set level I would guess that is where a pipe is broken or you have a substantial crack somewhere. You might need to pump it out and put in clean water to see where the dye is going. Before you start buying pool equipment you might get a cheap sump pump just to drain and or circulate the water until you have the leak located and find out how much $$ it will be to repair.

That or if you are handy you can use water pressure, air pressure or vacuum to test the lines one at a time. You'd need to fabricate an adapter to apply pressure or vacuum to the lines but it's what they do for home construction before they turn the water on. Just ideas of adapters --> pressure testing plumbing - Google Search
Just depends on how your valves are set up. Need to plug one end and put the adapter on the other and check them one at a time.

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Do it! MidMods go with pools like pools go with um, water. I spent over a year looking for a MidMod project house. I realized that my imagination has limits, but fortunately plenty of other people know how to uncover true potential.

I considered (and quickly rejected) this mess. I knew it had potential, but I couldn't see it. Someone else did, so a few years later it's back on the market for double the price. I hope they had some good parties before they decided to list it.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Ann-Arbor-MI-48104/24709748_zpid/78976_rid/42.278817,-83.687003,42.245659,-83.723567_rect/14_zm/
 

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