BTDT said:
Find someone (home owner) in the area with a pool, and ask them who they used and how they like the workmanship.
I think this is the best advice given so far (not that the other replies weren't helpful). We had a pool at our previous home. We picked our installer based on 2 elements- (1) he installed pools for 2 neighbors and they were impressed with the timeliness and quality of the installation, and (2) price was reasonable.
Where we erred was in not checking with clients who had pools installed many months or a year or 2 previously. Our neighbors had just had their pools done right before we started ours, so they had no knowlege of how the installer handled problems after the sale. This proved to be our biggest problem. We had difficulties getting the guy back to fix problems. Big headache.
Little things are going to pop up and this is probably true for all installations. I think my biggest complaint was with the quality of the concrete work. First, I don't think the soil was given sufficient time to settle and compact. I take the blame for this as I was looking for an installer who could get the pool done in the shortest period of time. also, I didn't know he didn't use rebar or wire reinforcement in the concrete. He convinced me that the fiberglass impregated concrete was strong enough that metal reinforcement was not needed. We had problems with cracking soon after the pool was completed. We also has surface voids appear due to little clumps of soil that had migrated to the surface during the pour. An egg-shell thin layer of the concrete covered the soil clumps during the finishing (we had a stamped surface). With foot traffic, the thin areas broke, leaving little dirt-filled defects in the surface. Not a huge problem, but certainly an esthetic one.
In 4 years, we had our Polaris pump replaced twice and our main pump replaced once. I don't think this is typical, but did happen to us and certainly added to the expense. Our gas bill was outrageous when we heated the pool so we certainly cut back on heating once we learned about this.
The best decision we made was having a salt chloination system put in. The benefits of this are (1) reduced chemical cost - uses water softener salt (cheap) (2) no storage / handling of caustic chlorine, (3) the water is more pleasant to swim in (no chlorine smell, less eye irritation, easy on the skin) and (4) it is almost maintenance-free as the thing runs automatically. The up front cost of the salt chlorination system is about $1K, but in my opinion is worth the investment.
You will never recoup the money you spend on the pool when you sell the house. And, it eliminates a large number of potential buyers who have no interest in having the expense / headaches of a pool.
To me, the real benefits of pool ownership is it is a magnet for your children's friends. I like knowing where my kids are and I'm most comfortable when they are home. I would much rather my kids be at home with their friends at our house than vice versa as I know what kind of supervision they are receiving here. As they get older (teenage), I think this is even more important. Other than that, as has been said, pools are a huge money pit.
Thinking back on how our pool was used, I would definately recommend an integrated spa - all the kids eventually migrated to the spa after playing and it proved to be a popular place for the parents. We also had a diving board and a slide. While these 2 items have the highest risk for injury, in our case, they were also heavily used by the kids. With close supervision and a few rules, these 2 add ons can provide a lot of fun safely.
If I had the budget to design what I would call the ultimate pool, it would be designed to incorporate a large, shallow area that could be set up for pool volley ball, it would have a long, straight section for swimming laps, there would be a deep end for the slide and diving board (or maybe a diving rock) and it would have the aforementioned spa. Add a large concrete pool deck with outdoor kitchen, plenty of chairs / tables for outdoor eating and a bath house with restroom to keep the wey kids from going inside to do their business and you would have the perfect set-up. Of course, this is probably a $150K project so we won't have one like this. But, for thos who can....
Good luck with your pool.
