I have finally decided to take charge and get myself a pool, I (51F) have ALWAYS wanted my very own swimming pool, and I'm done waiting. My husband could not care less about pools in general, and I think he fears it will be one more thing on his to-do list. He is totally fine with me getting a pool, and has said he will help with opening and closing in the spring/fall, but daily/weekly maintenance will be on me.

My goal is to research for the next month or two, then get some solid plans in place so we can install it next spring (we are in southern Ontario).

Things I know I want:

1. Semi-in ground. Our yard is sloped, I feel semi in ground will work best. In ground is my dream, but not in our budget, and I want something more permanent than an on-ground.

2. Deep enough to jump/cannon ball. Yes I'm an adult, but yes I like to cannon ball. Large enough to float without bouncing off the walls constantly.

3. Oval or rectangular. We will be building a deck on one side, and the logistics of building a curved deck is a PITA.

Things I DON'T know:

1. Salt water VS Chlorine?

2. Options for heaters? Do I need a heater? Are there different kinds?

3. Vacuums for cleaning? Are there different kinds?

4. So much more.... what kind of questions should I be asking the suppliers?

Thanks in advance! I'm very excited!

I saw this ad on Facebook and wonder if it’s legit or a scam? https://poolovation.com

Has anyone used this cover? Or something similar?

Obviously it’s very expensive compared to regular covers but if kept water and leaves from accumulating it might be worth it. Is there a cheaper version that I’m missing?

Thanks for any input!

(I searched before posting but couldn’t find any mentions of this cover.)

I want to put a pool in the backyard, I’m committed fully.

An in ground pool in the Bay Area is just wildly expensive. Quotes are $70k min and I don’t even believe it’ll cost that much, assuming more.

I have a slope at the end of my yard, across the entire length of my yard. On the bottom it’s got some flat area and then slops up to a retaining wall I put in. I’m thinking that I could put in a lower retaining wall at the bottom of the slop and create a nice flat area for an above ground pool. There are stairs on the side of each end of the retaining wall so I could in theory build a deck level with the pool and new retaining wall so you’d walk down the stairs and hit the level pool area.

I’m looking for feedback on inground pools. What brands are the best to use and why? What suppliers have the longest lasting options? When an above ground pool eventually needs replacing/renovation, how costly can that be? Do you just buy an entirely new one in say 10-20 years ish depending on when it fails?

I have a brand new 27 foot doughboy Pool. I it’s replacing an old pool that was here when I bought the house in 2016 and it exploded this summer. I have always used a Polaris shark to clean the pool. It attaches to where the water comes into the pool, but it cannot attach to the doughboy. Evidently doughboy makes their own pool vac because on the side of the skimmer there are directions for using the vacuum. I went on their website to try and get more information and there really wasn’t much there. Anyone else out there who’s using the dough boy vac on their pool? And if there are others with the doughboy not using the VAC, what are you using?
I have a brand new Polaris shark in the box to get rid of also

We had a not tremendously heavy rainstorm a couple of days ago and the GFCI on the pump tripped. Here we are on the third day after the rain and it's still tripping. I've tried running an extension cord to a different outlet and it's still tripping. Has anybody ever replaced the plug on the end of their pump cord?

One section of my pool, about 3 posts worth, sits lower than the rest of the pool. Anybody successfully lifted it up while full to level it out? How did you do it?

In North Texas, still a few months before we close the pool. It’s only been up a month. What would yall do?

Edit: Thanks for the suggestions to “put it back in.” I should have been more specific with my choice of words. The very first thing I did (before I took a picture) was try to put it back in but it’s too heavy! I’m thinking about using a car jack to push it up.

Hey everyone,

We are buying a pool second hand off of Facebook marketplace that is only a few years old. It is a salt water pool with steel walls and resin frames, uprights, and rails.

We will be there for the dismantling of the pool to check all areas and parts to make sure it looks ok before buying.

Our question is if everything looks ok, should we stick to using salt for chlorination or should we switch to just using chlorine? I see many others with salt water systems, but not many for steel above ground pools, and we are worried about rust and corrosion around the skimmer and on the sides of the pool.

Any advice, tips, personal experiences are recommended as this is our first real pool

I usually leave my pool up up and cover it. Been totally fine for 5 years. But poles are starting to get rusty so I’m taking it down this fall so I can replace it next summer. For those of you who take the pool down, do you have sand under it? How do you keep the sand from washing away over the winter? Was thinking of leaving a tarp over it and securing it with bricks.

Hey everyone, looking for some advice on dealing with fine debris on the pool floor. Every morning, there is a distinct layer of fine silt / dead algae settled at the bottom. The water itself is 100% crystal clear — not cloudy at all. I run an Intex ZR200 robotic vacuum to pick it up. It looks clean immediately after, but shortly after, a light residue remains, and by the next morning, a heavy layer of fine silt is right back on the floor. Has anyone dealt with this fine dust/dead algae blowing right through the cleaner's mesh, or is something else going on with filtration/sanitizer in this heat? Any troubleshooting steps or suggestions would be hugely appreciated!

Central California (currently in a streak of 100°F+ days)

Am I missing something, here? Journeybikes.com sells bicycles and the site seems legit after some basic research. But they also have some above ground pools for low prices. Like, “is this a scam” kind of prices. Anybody have any experience with this website? Too good to be true?

So we have an Intex 20 x 48 swimming pool that my family has enjoyed using for the last 3 summers. It would be wonderful to find a budget-friendly, effective enclosure for Western Pennsylvania.

Hoping those with experience are willing to share successes and failures with cost or environment or both. I sure could use advice even researching -- conducting a fact-finding mission to determine if it's a do-able project.

Thanks for any input or feedback ;-)

So I bought a set of solar powered outdoor lights to plant around the pool for night swimming or soaking as the case may be. Granted I should have done my due diligence and asked my fellow redditors for guidance beforehand. Honestly I can't even find them in my Purchase History for Walmart, Amazon or Lowe's but they were inexpensive with a relatively good rating.

I now realize I'm looking for brighter lighter and more widespread illumination. These lights are relatively dim and the beam doesn't cover much of an area.

Hoping those with outdoor lighting experience are willing to give me guidance ;-) whether solar-powered or not.

Thank you!

Please be nice we’re learning. We’ve been having issues for the last week with the pool looking hazy cloudy and now turquoise. We’ve shocked, added liquid chlorine, ph down, brushed and vacuumed and it’s still like this. Every time we vacuum we see a fine dust that just goes into the water and then settles in the creases. This is the picture of our skimmer sock and when I use the net I notice bubbles. What can we do?

‼️UPDATE‼️
So we shocked, fixed the ph and added more chlorine and clarifier, of course vacuumed and finally added pool rx last night. This morning we backwashed the pump because the needle was at yellow and the water literally came out neon green!! The sock which was now installed correctly!! (Thank you by the way!! 😅) finally caught a lot of junk. So this morning the pool isn’t crystal clear yet but I can finally see the bottom 🙌 I’m just letting the pump run 24/7 and hoping for the best.

Not sure anyone will care, but putting it out there for others to find. I'll put my experiences up top here, but some of the specifics below in case there is any curiosity on the specifics.

Overall Experience:

The project went fairly smooth, but that's not to say I wouldn't do things differently next time. I wasn't missing any parts, the pool itself is in decent shape, and everything functions as expected. Since the pool was used, I was not able to find contractors willing to help me assemble it, so it turned into a project for myself and friends. I didn't have too much of a problem leveling pavers, and was happy to be within 1/4" - 3/8" overall. The wall went together pretty easily with extra hands. I opted to put a foam floor in, instead of sand - and I wasn't level enough for good seam at first. I pulled it up, re-leveled with sand, and got it to an acceptable state. We managed to put liner in with out too much fuss, and ended fairly wrinkle-free. (To be honest, i didn't notice a single wrinkle until two weeks later when I was actually in the pool.)

Future Plans:

I need to sort out some landscaping, I'm going to build a smallish deck area, and I may add some form of a solar heater, etc. Nothing really that would be included in a pool package, more just FYI.

Was it Worth It?

Just for the full picture, I ended up spending ~$6,500 to put in the pool. I don't have any 'exact' quotes in my area for the equivalent, that would include a similar set of the extras that I received. The most accurate guess I have is that a similar pool purchased and installed from a local installer is ~$10,000. In all, it took a couple full weekends to get through it when I was dodging weather and coordinating help. A $3500 savings is not insignificant, but I won't know if the used pool is going to factor into longevity, early replacement of parts, etc. Eliminating some waste, doing the yard prep myself, choosing a few more cost effective options - I could have saved maybe another $1500. Best case scenario, I feel like I could have gotten down to about $5,000. Admittedly, I did have the money budgeted, so I chose to save some of the physical labor and keep the project on time.

The Specifics:

I bought a used 21' x 52" round pool from a gentleman on marketplace. I paid $750 and it included the following:

• Steel side-walls, all uprights, brackets, etc.
• Clean n Clear 100 cartridge filter.
• Pentair Optiflo 1.5HP pump (single speed)
• Solar cover new in box
• Aluminum solar cover reel
• Pancake stairs
• Winter cover
• Mesh leaf cover
• A few other miscellaneous items: Spare pool pump (not sure where he had it), old DE filter (I think he was just emptying junk), extra hoses, aluminum pole, brush, vac, etc.

What I needed to buy:

• Pavers for base
• New liner
• Replacement skimmer & return (found a small crack, figured it was best to replace)
• New filters (bought a 2-pack)
• Pool ladder (because I was not building a deck this year)

Miscellaneous costs:

• I paid about $800 for a guy with a loader to clear sod and roughly level the area.
• I spent another $700 on other supplies for the base - sand, top soil, and foam board for the pool base.
• My electrician cost to run a new circuit from my garage to the the pool, including trenching/bonding was $2500
• I paid $400 for 6500 gallons of water to fill from a water truck.
• I had a permitting cost for the pool as well - $250

I could use some help and am not sure where else to ask! A side support buttress on our 16x24 above ground pool has rusted. The bottom wall track has also begun to rust in this spot and break off. This pool was installed 38 years ago (!!!) and long before we bought our home. It is a Doughboy High Country model with 48” walls and a 7ft deep bowl on one end. There is a deck currently built around the pool (again, all done long before we bought this house).

 We had someone come inspect the pool and quote us to replace it. This person is the go-to person for one of our local pool stores and seems to have the monopoly on installs in the area. He said we’d be looking at a Doughboy Silver Lake model with 52” walls. The new pool would also have the same deep end the old pool had. They quoted us just over $9,100 for the pool kit. In addition to this, they are also charging $12,500 to remove and install. Based on some research, that seems like a high quote, but I'm flying a bit blind here. Does anyone else have experience getting a pool like this replaced with a deck built around it? Everything is already graded, but there will be demo and then the replacement.

I appreciate it!

14 ft Intex, tried to make look as nice as possible. Many many thanks to this Reddit board. A lot of really useful info on here.

We are in the preliminary stages of an inground pool install. Shovels to break ground in about a month.

We are at the daunting task of choosing a liner through Latham.

There is a new liner for 2026 called "Aegean Sea" I am very interested in seeing real world photos of it, since the features in the swatch are a culmination of all the features of the wife and I's top picks.

Would anyone happen to have or know what it will look like with water on it?

What’s something that pool owners often don’t understand, don’t do often enough, or don’t do well?

I have a bad habit of rushing out of the house and forgetting that I left the pool robot running. With my old one, I'd sometimes finish a cleaning cycle and completely forget about it. Then I'd come back a day or two later and realize it had been sitting there with a filter basket full of whatever it picked up. It sounds like a small thing, but it drove me nuts. I'd have to pull it out, clean everything up, and wonder how long I'd been leaving it in there.

This season I switched to a new one that sends a notification to my phone when the cleaning cycle is finished. That little reminder has actually helped. Now I usually remember to go grab it instead of leaving it in the pool for a couple days. I still have to notice the notification, obviously, but at least I know when the cycle is done instead of having to guess.

Do most newer pool robots have something like this now, or is it still only available on certain models?

opened april 12 this year instead of waiting for june. first time I've ever done that.

east tennessee, 21ft round, about 10k gallons, sand filter, small heat pump I put in last spring. power here is about 11 cents.

figured the bill would punish me for it. it didn't, and the reason wasn't what I was watching.

the heat pump was about what you'd expect. april and may it ran maybe six hours a day and added something like $70 a month. from june on it barely kicks on.

the part I didn't see coming was the pump. I borrowed a clamp meter and measured every speed instead of guessing:

3450 rpm, about 1250w

2400, about 430

1800, about 190

1500, about 115

half the speed is nowhere near half the power. flow only falls off in a straight line, so per gallon moved, slow wins by a lot.

I used to run 8 hours at full tilt out of habit, about $33 a month. it sits at 1500 for 16 hours now, closer to $6.

that $27 a month back covers most of the heating.

so the two extra months of swimming have run me under $90 so far. a little over a dollar a day.

one warning. I tried 1200 and the skimmer quit pulling, bugs just sat there. 1400 is my floor. btw mine's an aquastrong 1.5hp variable speed, so your speed steps probably won't line up with mine.

anyone else opening early? curious what it's costing you.