Swimming pool? Considering one in backyard

saddletramp

saddletramp

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saddletramp
We purchased our latest home 5 years ago. It was a 20 year old house that needed a lot of updating. After spending in excess of $60K we pretty much have the house up to date except the yard.

I've always wanted my own backyard swimming pool. After several weeks of triple digit temperatures I think I finally have my wife on board. I've convinced her that we can pay someone to maintain it & that we would really enjoy time in the pool.

It appears that the average cost to install a pool is around $25K. Not too bad.

Who has pools at their house? Would you have one again?

What type of pool to install? We'd like to lap swim & have no kids at home.
 
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I have a pool in Florida and buddy has one here in Nebraska that he just bought few months ago. Mine in Florida is concrete and his in Nebraska is vinyl liner. He just had new liner put in pool and the guys said the average pool is 65000. I think my concrete one is Florida may be little cheaper. It's about 10g to redo mine as I am considering it. I love my pool and have lots of company visit. My friend sees more of his family than ever before. He likes it for that.
 
If you're real serious about lap swimming only, one of those "continuous pools" might fit the bill better than a complete swimming pool.

Don't forget to check with your homeowner's insurance about possible rate hikes.

Folks had a place with a pool in Houston. Nice about once a month. The rest of the time it was a minor cost to hire maintenance people to take care of it, and it caught pine needles by the bucket load.

I fell in it once on Christmas Day missing with the automatic vacuum thing getting it unstuck from a corner. Was pretty funny. Family still enjoys telling that story.

"Did Nate just jump in the pool?"
 
My in-laws are about to fill their pool in. They recently bought the house knowing that the pool hadn't been maintained. Don't know what it was going to cost to fix but they've opted out.
 
My wife wanted a pool and I told her she was crazy. Continuous maintenance! Buying chemicals, increased electric bill and tax on your property goes up. I bought a boat instead and she likes it better than a pool.
 
saddletramp said:
We purchased our latest home 5 years ago. It was a 20 year old house that needed a lot of updating. After spending in excess of $60K we pretty much have the house up to date except the yard.

I've always wanted my own backyard swimming pool. After several weeks of triple digit temperatures I think I finally have my wife on board. I've convinced her that we can pay someone to maintain it & that we would really enjoy time in the pool.

It appears that the average cost to install a pool is around $25K. Not too bad.

Who has pools at their house? Would you have one again?

What type of pool to install? We'd like to lap swim & have no kids at home.
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We put one in. Don't live there anymore. I'd do it again if I settled down in a hot climate. We did a "play pool." The deep end wasn't an end, it was the middle, about 5 1/2 feet deep and the ends were 3 on one end and 4 on the other. You could string a net across the middle and play volleyball. Yeah we had kids. When I told a friend I was gonna put in a pool he said do this. Just dig a hole in your back yard and throw all your money in it. Maintaining wasn't really all that expensive because we did it ourselves. But yeah, ya gotta maintain it. If ya got the buckos to do a pool and the other stuff you wanna do, I'd say go for it. Sounds like something narrow but long enough to do laps in is what you want but don't count out having enough room to clown around in.
 
denverpilot said:
If you're real serious about lap swimming only, one of those "continuous pools" might fit the bill better than a complete swimming pool.

Don't forget to check with your homeowner's insurance about possible rate hikes.

Folks had a place with a pool in Houston. Nice about once a month. The rest of the time it was a minor cost to hire maintenance people to take care of it, and it caught pine needles by the bucket load.

I fell in it once on Christmas Day missing with the automatic vacuum thing getting it unstuck from a corner. Was pretty funny. Family still enjoys telling that story.

"Did Nate just jump in the pool?"
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LOL. When ours was new and not used to it being there yet I went out one night for something, don't remember what it was, and just walked right into it
 
If this wasn't an aviation forum I'd tell you a pool was an expensive thing to install and maintain... but it's all relative right?
 
Our house came with a pool. I don't find the maintenance to be expensive or time consuming other than the startup process after the winter. We probably spend $250/year on chemicals (old school chlorinated pool). You will need to budget $5-10k every 10 or so years to resurface a concrete pool. Then, there is the water bill and the bump on your electrical bill from running a pump motor several hours a day.

That said, we don't use the pool as much as you would think, which is the case (I think) for most pools.
 
kyleb said:
That said, we don't use the pool as much as you would think, which is the case (I think) for most pools.
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Growing up we had a pool..... as kids and we used the hell out of it during the summer... but, as we got older it was not used as much once we had driver licenses etc... seemed that the local lake and Jersey Shore was more appealing to us than the pool... something about girls and bikinis may have had something to do with it..
 
Our house had a pool when we bought. It wasn't something we were looking for, but we love. I love it even more since we switched to salt water. A lot less maintenance.

Biggest thing: put in a pool because YOU WANT a pool. That money is gone. It adds no value to your house.
 
Think about putting in an above ground pool first. You can buy them with everything (pool, pump, liner, etc) for under $1500. Not the cheap walmart blowup ones but an actual metal sided above ground pool. Another 1 or 2k and you can have someone install it or if you are handy and already have a flat area you can do it yourself. Use it for a few years and if you decide you still want a pool and use it enough then spend the 50-60k on an in-ground pool. If you don't then just take down the above ground and re-plant some grass.

Keith
 
Brother has a pool, wife had a pool in a previous home, a couple of aunts/uncles have pools.
The pool users seem to really break down into two groups. Those with kids that like to swim, and those who do laps.
The ones who do laps, did them for years at a local pool before getting one.
Two uncles that put in a pool to swim laps, did it for a few years and have stopped. Now they claim it is just a money drain.

Basic concept, find out how committed you are are to swimming, but going swimming a lot when it is inconvenient by going to a local pool first.

Tim
 
I have a pool at my house. Don't waste your money paying someone to maintain it as it's pretty much no work at all after start up. The worst part of the pool is closing in the winter and opening in the summer. Opening is far worse and requires a full weekend. Make sure you make it a salt water pool. It keeps the chemicals balanced to the point where you will not have to touch it unless you have to drain the water from too much rain. A solid tarp to cover the pool is much better than the expensive mesh ones as it keeps algae from growing in the winter.

With that said, I personally wouldn't get another house with one. Mostly because I hardly ever use it to justify having it. If the weather is nice I am either at the airport, or doing some other outdoor activity. When the weather sucks I am home and obviously you don't want to be in the pool on a crappy day.
 
Get a saltwater pool. There is almost no maintenance. I think you should get one that has an attached hot tub as well. We swim throughout the Summer and the kids swim but we use that hot tub probably 2 to 3 nights a week just to chill and visit. Not really chill it's a hot tub.

The only thing I don't like about having a pool is that something is almost always broken on it when I say saltwater pool has no maintenance I'm referring to maintaining the water there's always something broken. I would never go with a chlorine pool just because last year my salt cell died and I decided I would hold off and just managed with chemicals it was expensive and really really tough to keep up with all the different things a pool needs to keep the water clear.
 
We put a pool in our last house. Dropped about $40K and it got used a dozen times over the next 5 years. I consider it by far the worst decision I've ever made.

When we were shopping for a new house earlier this year, I did NOT want a pool, but we happened to find a great house and it had a pool, so OK. The pool guy is there as we speak, taking 10K from my wallet and putting it into his.

The ongoing maintenance is a little bit of a hassle -- cleaning and chemicals -- if you do it yourself. Figure an hour a week. Those filter cartridges are $150 and need to be replaced about annually. Around here it's $100 to $150 a month to have someone take care of the cleaning. The far too routine issues of replacing pumps and broken plastic piping is annoying, compounded by re-marciting every 10-15 years.

That said, I'm not much of a water person, so I tend to look at it as a financial decision rather than a lifestyle decision. They do look nice lit up when you have night time parties.
 
Also I don't know where you live but your estimate seems to be about half of what I would expect to put in a pool. Mine was put in in 2005 and it was 34k at that time (north Texas)
 
Yea expect about 40k for a vinyl liner pool. Get a sand filter, they are expense free for pretty much their whole life and cleaning them is as easy as turning a valve. Cartridges have to be replaced and D.E. has to be constantly added. The only time you will notice a difference in water clarity is at night when the pool light is on. Even then you can't tell unless you have two pools to compare. Don't bother with a variable speed pump. They are failure prone and the cost savings isn't worth it. By the time you get close to making up the difference in power consumption the drive will fail and you will have to start all over again. My pool (30K gallons w/ a 1HP Hayward Super Pump and Salt & Swim 3C) adds about $50.00 to my power bill each month. I add chemicals and sal in the spring, and chemicals in the fall for closing. The salt cell takes care of the rest of the year.

I would suggest getting a vinyl liner pool if you can accept the looks. If treated properly you can get 10 years or more out of the liner. When it comes time to replace it, you are looking at 4K or so for a 30K gallon pool. The good side is that you can change the look at that time if you would like something different. The days of the ugly white rail around the pool are gone and you can get hidden channels that the liner attaches to. With the nicer quality liners out today you would be hard pressed to tell it's vinyl. Tile pools you are constantly fighting grout and loose tiles. Concrete pools crack and need resurfacing and are rough on your feet. Fiberglass pools look terrible after only a few short years, are prone to cracking, and are very slippery.
 
Ken Ibold said:
We put a pool in our last house. Dropped about $40K and it got used a dozen times over the next 5 years. I consider it by far the worst decision I've ever made.
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I think this would be me. I would like one in theory, but I think I'd end up not using it nearly as much as I imagine I would. Same thing happened with my treadmill but I digress. Anyway, when we were house shopping last year, a lot of the homes here have pools, and I realized as we prepared to make an offer on one, that I didn't actually want it because of the maintenance expense and the legal liability. I would worry too much about some neighborhood kid climbing over the fence and drowning in it. That offer fell through and we ended up with a house with no pool and I'm happy that's the case. A friend of our family had their toddler drown in their backyard pool, so that thought would never be far from my mind. I don't think I would ever be able to sleep well unless we built a prison quality fence complete with razor wire atop it. Last thing I need in my life now is to be sued by some family for not having a good enough fence.
 
Old house had a pool. 1st year, the wife and family helped me maintain it, after that, it was just dad. My daughter loved, it, nobody else hardly used it, and I poured a lot of money into that water over the years. New house has no pool, and I don't miss it a bit, and would pass on any house having a pool. We have a 21ft bow rider, the lake is our pool, love it!
 
I'm seriously thinking of turning mine into a below ground terrarium. It would be a lot less hassle. I can count on one hand the number of times we've used it in the last 5 years. However, not using it doesn't stop the required maintenance. My morning ritual is emptying the leaf basket as we have a huge ficus tree nearby that is constantly shedding leaves. My weekly ritual is brushing the walls, adding a gallon of shock, and a couple chlorine tablets to the basket. My bi-annual ritual is backwashing and cleaning the DE filters. My annual ritual is draining half the water out, refilling it, and re-building the automatic cleaner as the shoes and other external/internal parts wear out and need to be replaced.
 
Have a pool. Love it. Got it for free when I bought the house as it is neutral on home value in our market:

- salt water is very low maintenance. A quart of acid once a week and 4oz of algicide. Check the skimmer once a day and remove leaves. Wash out filter cartridge every other week.
- it's a fiberglass pool. Basically an inside out boat with gelcoat on the inside. Very low maintenance.
- we have an automatic pool sweep to pick up stuff from the bottom
- I am in the pool myself just as much as the kids.
- yes, the install was '25k' back in 2010. +10k for the aluminum fence and 45k for the deck retaining walls (we are on a slope) and landscaping. Get the complete project quoted before you decide. In many RE markets there is no payback, so building a pool on an older house is like lighting 45-50k on fire.
- everything on a pool wears out after 10 years. Pumps, plastic fittings, hoses, heater. Salt/chlorine and sunshine are brutal on cheap plastic and even stainless steel.
 
We've had a vinyl lined pool at our last two houses. Kids definitely used the heck out of it, but we've definitely slowed down on its use since they've gotten older (college aged). The local guys are now pushing the gunite pool. They allow more flexibility for pool design, but they are more costly. We've averaged 6-8 years with liners. My wife tends to replace them sooner; I could live with the fading longer than she can. I definitely recommend getting a salt system. My days of lugging bleach in my car are done, and I haven't had a green pool in over a decade.
 
Around here a pool is often liability when its time to sell. Lots of trouble/expense, and you can only really use it about 3 or 4 months out of the year. Great for parties though, just like the man said.
 
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I'm not a pool person, I grew up on a lake and vastly prefer non chemicalized water, but I had two over the years. Both were above ground, used, and free ("take it away and it's yours"). Biggest cost was $500 worth of sand for the base. Maintenance, no big deal once you learn the only chemical you have to buy from the pool store is chlorine, everything else is much cheaper elsewhere (ph plus is just borax, etc.). Lost the first one when the pool pillow deflated one winter and ice cracked the pool, gave away the second one (again, "take it away and it's yours") when the kids were older and not interested any more. And now I'm sitting by the very same lake...
 
Tale of 2 (well 3) Pools:

One: Grew up with a 4-5' above ground pool. We swam in it a ton for the first 4-5 years, then as we got older (and more busy with sports) we used it less and less. I absolutely HATED having to vacuum it and clean out the bug/leaf traps, as was my duty in the summer. It was hot, so was the deck, and I'm spending 45 minutes maintaining a pool that I'm not even using as a 15yr old. Sand filter, vinyl liner, never really had any equipment failures that I can recall. Maybe replace some hoses every 5 years or so.

Two: Fast forward to today: parents had another 5' above ground pool installed. They looked at in-grounds, but couldn't part with the $45K for the equivalent size pool they have now for less than $5K. Average install on in-ground pools in OK, even the basic rectangle or kidney shaped version, is over $30K. The parents use their pool at least once a week, and we come over once every 2-3 weeks and swim as well. No equipment problems in 3 years, but we did have to fix a leak in the liner. Minor annoyance, but still.

Three: MIL's in-ground pool. Concrete, tile surround, built back in the late-80's, diving board and slide. Needs major work, tiles are missing everywhere and one part of the wall is cracked and caving in. It's a hassle to open and close each year because of all of it's issues. Sand filter is ancient on that thing, but still functions. She didn't even bother opening it this year because the pool was using so much water due to the failing wall. I don't remember the cost to fix, but it was up around $10K or more. I doubt it ever gets opened again.

Side note: salt-water vs chlorine. Pick your poison. I worked at a pool & patio store for a year back in college. I used to repair pump motors/impellers and the various automatic vacuums, as well as clean the mesh filters for those that don't use sand filters. Chlorine has the downside of having to toss a few of the pucks in the filter basket or floating chlorinator. It works more quickly than salt-water does when things get out of whack. Salt-water doesn't have the chlorine smell, and keeps the water balance more consistent, but you still have to add the bags of salt, so it's a net-zero on actual physical effort and cost. The other item I've noticed, is that the salt-water pools tend to have a lot more crystalized material on the pool-sides to scrub off, especially with tile/fiberglass. It can be a chore to scrub off. Also, most salt-water pools need a few gallons of muriatic acid applied every few weeks as well.
 
A friend showed me her plans for a pool. It is a re-purposed shipping container. Plenty of examples on the web. Seems like a good idea.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Salt-water doesn't have the chlorine smell, and keeps the water balance more consistent, but you still have to add the bags of salt, so it's a net-zero on actual physical effort and cost. The other item I've noticed, is that the salt-water pools tend to have a lot more crystalized material on the pool-sides to scrub off, especially with tile/fiberglass. It can be a chore to scrub off. Also, most salt-water pools need a few gallons of muriatic acid applied every few weeks as well.
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The only time you should have to add salt is when you start it up in the spring. Otherwise, unless you are pumping water out of your pool and re-filling the salt should stay in the pool. It took two bags of salt to bring my salinity back to where it should be when I started the pool this year. That's $8.00 in salt, that is no where near what it cost to keep Chlorine in the pool all year and not even in the ball park effort wise. Also, the salt level is so low that there should be no crystallized material to scrub off. If there is your salt level is way too high.
 
I actually have an Endless Pool (it's Margy's actually). If you're interested in that, I can tell you about that. Installed it myself. Maintenance is easy (but ours is inside).

We actually went up to their factory near Philly and test swam in one before we bought it. They have local owners on a referral basis that can let you try one out nearby.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Salt-water doesn't have the chlorine smell, and keeps the water balance more consistent, but you still have to add the bags of salt, so it's a net-zero on actual physical effort and cost.
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The saltwater chemistry doesn't consume salt. It consumes H+ ions and you have to add acid to keep the pH within the operating range of the electrode. The only times you add salt is when you add water (or if the good Lord added it for you and you had to pump it out).

The deck around the in-ground pool can be a headache. I have stained stamped concrete. 7 years in it has some cracks and salt staining as the magic sealant stuff eventually wears off. I would probably go with small brick pavers instead (if code allows).

Btw. some states consider your poolwater to be toxic waste and you have to contract a vacuum truck to dispose it when you need to draw down in the fall. In MD the dept of the environment issues a general discharge permit for private pools, but it comes with restrictions on how you are to discharge it.
 
Grum.Man said:
The only time you should have to add salt is when you start it up in the spring. Otherwise, unless you are pumping water out of your pool and re-filling the salt should stay in the pool. It took two bags of salt to bring my salinity back to where it should be when I started the pool this year. That's $8.00 in salt, that is no where near what it cost to keep Chlorine in the pool all year and not even in the ball park effort wise. Also, the salt level is so low that there should be no crystallized material to scrub off. If there is your salt level is way too high.
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I was just talking about effort. For some of the large pools we were dealing with, and several summers with low rainfall, they have to add a lot of water which means adding more salt each month to compensate. I was speaking just to the effort of maintaining with salt vs chlorine, not the cost. Chlorine pools are significantly more expensive in the cost of chemicals.


weilke said:
The saltwater chemistry doesn't consume salt. It consumes H+ ions and you have to add acid to keep the pH within the operating range of the electrode. The only times you add salt is when you add water (or if the good Lord added it for you and you had to pump it out).
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Right, but frequent heavy rainstorms, and drought conditions in Okla. left a lot of fluctuating water levels/chemistries, so adding salt for larger pools was sometimes a monthly ordeal; it's not a big deal, just not as set-n-forget as some make it out to be. We also had some pool owners who seemed to fight the salt ionizers/chlorine generators from an operational standpoint. It's just one more piece of equipment to manage. Sometimes there's no issues, sometimes people can't get there's to function consistently. I'd still go with a salt-water pool if I were making the choice, but we haven't really had too much issue with the chlorine tabs and water quality. If we know we'll be out of town for a while in the hot months, we'll throw some shock in to help sustain the chemical levels until we're back.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I was just talking about effort. For some of the large pools we were dealing with, and several summers with low rainfall, they have to add a lot of water which means adding more salt each month to compensate. I was speaking just to the effort of maintaining with salt vs chlorine, not the cost. Chlorine pools are significantly more expensive in the cost of chemicals.




Right, but frequent heavy rainstorms, and drought conditions in Okla. left a lot of fluctuating water levels/chemistries, so adding salt for larger pools was sometimes a monthly ordeal; it's not a big deal, just not as set-n-forget as some make it out to be. We also had some pool owners who seemed to fight the salt ionizers/chlorine generators from an operational standpoint. It's just one more piece of equipment to manage. Sometimes there's no issues, sometimes people can't get there's to function consistently. I'd still go with a salt-water pool if I were making the choice, but we haven't really had too much issue with the chlorine tabs and water quality. If we know we'll be out of town for a while in the hot months, we'll throw some shock in to help sustain the chemical levels until we're back.
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Again, adding water due to low rainfall does not mean adding salt. Salt doesn't evaporate with the water. As long as the Salinity was set at a certain water level, returning the water to the same level as a result of evaporation will not affect salinity. If it was a rainy year and you had to drain the pool, then yes you would have to add more salt.
 
I had a pool at the last house and my son used it a lot, when he was young. As he grew older, that became less often. I used it maybe once a month in the summer and that was mainly just sitting in it with a beer to cool off. We had an oak tree hanging over it, so even with a pool guy, I was scraping up leaves twice a day in the fall. In my current house, I just have an above ground spa and love it. I turn it to 90 in the summer and it makes for a nice cool place to sit. In the winter, I leave it at 102. The spa has a cover, so the maintenance is pretty easy. I just add a little chlorine once a week.
 
We are in prime pool using years with the kids being young.
They have asked me for a few years to put in a slide but I can't justify the expense. They are not cheap.

This week, I did a one up on the slide request for far fewer dollars.
I built a 70 foot zipline that ends in the pool.

We're planning on testing it for the first time tomorrow (after the cement dries)
So we should have some E.R. trips under our belt by mid week. ;)
But the memories...
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
We are in prime pool using years with the kids being young.
They have asked me for a few years to put in a slide but I can't justify the expense. They are not cheap.

This week, I did a one up on the slide request for far fewer dollars.
I built a 70 foot zipline that ends in the pool.

We're planning on testing it for the first time tomorrow (after the cement dries)
So we should have some E.R. trips under our belt by mid week. ;)
But the memories...
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I'll give you my slide, you just have to come dig it up and haul it back to TX.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Also I don't know where you live but your estimate seems to be about half of what I would expect to put in a pool. Mine was put in in 2005 and it was 34k at that time (north Texas)
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Mine was a small pool in north Florida in 2012.
 

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Pool is cool. And sometimes the water is too!

I don't have any fancy hot tub or even a heater. But I also don't any friggin' neighbors behind me.

Get 'er done!

Pool.jpg
 
I didn't particularly want a pool when we moved to Ohio, but the house that we liked had one already, and it was a nice one. A large size - the biggest private pool in the town when it was built... about 20x50 with about 10-12' deep at the deep end. It was also very attractive, and had some newer parts. And we loved the house, and the hot tub near the pool. Ok.

We figured it cost about $1k/year to operate between chemicals, electricity for the pumps, and parts that broke. I'm not sure your climate, but in Ohio we realistically only got 3-4 months of use out of the year. The rest of the time, it was this giant part of the back yard that was unusable, and ugly because it was covered up. It also didn't get hot enough because the area was shaded. So we ended up putting solar pool heaters on the roof of the house. That worked great for heating the pool and cooling the house, but cost $6,500 more to put in. I wholeheartedly recommend that. I refuse to run a gas propane heater - the pool came with one and we sold it. That would drive up the cost even further.

The whole thing was an expensive pain. It probably cost us more than $10k total over the 3 years we lived there, added nothing to the value of the house, and we probably only used it 20-30 times. When we moved to Kansas, I said "No pools, period. If a house has a pool, we aren't buying it." The realtor didn't listen to us, but we stuck to our word.

However, Ohio was the absolute wrong place to use it, and when we moved our oldest wasn't even 3 years old. So we were at the overall wrong age to use it. With our kids now turning 5 and 3 before the end of the year, the right ages are coming up. And Kansas summers are a lot hotter overall, so I think we might use one here. Plus, with 11 acres, we've got enough room to put it wherever we want.

Above ground is ugly, but cheap to put in and easy to take out. You can get ones that are rectangular and pretty long, so still suitable for swimming laps. And 4+ ft deep, so plenty tall enough. If I had a bunch of land (which I do), this is probably the way I'd go, because it could be located in such a way that the aesthetics are less of a concern. Now you're getting me thinking about pools... grr...
 
SoonerAviator said:
I was just talking about effort. For some of the large pools we were dealing with, and several summers with low rainfall, they have to add a lot of water which means adding more salt each month to compensate. I was speaking just to the effort of maintaining with salt vs chlorine, not the cost. Chlorine pools are significantly more expensive in the cost of chemicals.




Right, but frequent heavy rainstorms, and drought conditions in Okla. left a lot of fluctuating water levels/chemistries, so adding salt for larger pools was sometimes a monthly ordeal; it's not a big deal, just not as set-n-forget as some make it out to be. We also had some pool owners who seemed to fight the salt ionizers/chlorine generators from an operational standpoint. It's just one more piece of equipment to manage. Sometimes there's no issues, sometimes people can't get there's to function consistently. I'd still go with a salt-water pool if I were making the choice, but we haven't really had too much issue with the chlorine tabs and water quality. If we know we'll be out of town for a while in the hot months, we'll throw some shock in to help sustain the chemical levels until we're back.
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Evaporation increases salinity to the top of the range. If I add water to get it up to middle skimmer, salinity drops to normal.

Three times I had to add salt.
- 4in rains within a week causing the pool to fill above the top of the skimmer. Had to pump out a couple of inches, check salinity and add 1/2 a bag (still have the rest)
- brain fart when adding 'just an inch' one evening. Looked at a new creek in the yard the next afternoon. That one took two bags to fix.
- during startup to compensate for the freshwater needed to get back to the skimmer

Once salinity is set, it requires very little interaction. The less I monkey with it the better it works. The electrode makes chlorine between 2600ppm and 3300 without appreciable difference in levels.
 
Oh, and don't allow your landscaper to plant -&$(+$+$--$-!@) crepemyrtles around your pool ;-)
 
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