Buying a House With a Concrete Pool
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A concrete swimming pool is the Cadillac of swimming pool installations but the flip side to this coin is that concrete pools needing major repairs, renovations or overhauls can be cripplingly, prohibitively expensive. Especially if the repair bill lands in your lap unexpectedly. Expensive repairs and renovations for concrete pools can run tens of thousands of dollars up to $100k or more for full spectrum pool renovations / refurbishing. It is one thing entirely if you have been planning and saving for this eventuality for years. It would be another thing entirely to stretch yourself to buy your dream home only to find in less than a year you need $10k, $25k or $50k for immediate renovations that you can not put off without serious financial implications. Sound like something you want to avoid? Great, keep reading.
I do not want to dissuade you from buying a house with a concrete pool. Given all options I would choose a concrete pool over any other option. However, I do want to put "the fear" into you since we are talking about large enough sums of money to crush most people if you buy a property that has a concrete pool needing major attention. Unfortunately a great pool and a total disaster of a pool can look a lot alike to inexperienced eyes. Even skilled and experienced concrete pool specialists (like myself) can only speculate about what is happening below the ground with your concrete pool. I often point out that we have absolutely no idea what the builder of this pool did, or whether they knew how to build a quality pool or not. You can infer a lot but there are not many in the way of guarantees. So how can you protect yourself from buying a nightmare of a swimming pool? For one you can be sure to watch the video at the bottom of this page where I talk extensively about how to inspect a concrete pool for signs of problems.
When is a pool inspection not a pool inspection? - Quite simply, there is no replacement for a professional swimming pool inspection if you are looking to buy a new house. With how punishingly expensive swimming pool repairs can be you should definitely consider hiring multiple local professional pool companies to inspect a house (a pool) you are very serious about. Of course this would be prohibitively expensive to pay for every house you are casually looking at. That is where the video below on this page comes into play. This video will teach you how to break down a concrete swimming pool (concrete, gunite, shotcrete, CIP, ICF, tile) into the individual components of the system, and how you can infer a ton of valuable information about the pool simply through basic observations. This information will help dramatically in enabling you to determine a good pool from "a lemon" at least to the extent as to allow you to narrow down your house search considerably. Once a potential house (and pool) passes your initial inspection and review you can now get more serious about this house and start booking a professional company to come and provide a detailed inspection report. In total you will have a lot more power in your house shopping experience and this will allow you to focus more on the good potential options...and more importantly avoid the bad ones!
Concrete swimming pool system components - Most people just look at a swimming pool as a singular thing. However, a pool specialist knows that a pool is a system...an interconnected technical process with individual components all working together. Really, it is a lot like a house. There is a structure, usually some concrete, lighting and electrical, plumbing of course, structural steel, pumps, filters, gas heaters etc. All of these things can also be found in an average home construction. When you look at a house to buy you likely instinctively break it down into pieces. Is the roof good? How is the electrical? Plumbing? What about the structure itself? Are there any signs of leaking anywhere? Doesn't this all sound pretty similar to a swimming pool? It does to me. So what are the system components in a concrete swimming pool?
Filtration equipment (pump and filter)
Heating equipment (natural gas, propane, electric heat pumps)
Sanitization equipment (erosion feeders, salt chlorine generators, UV, AOP)
Plumbing lines (everything underground)
Electrical components (bonding grid, lighting, service panels)
Pool deck (concrete, wood, natural stone etc.)
Pool coping (deck area around pool directly on top of the pool walls)
Perimeter tile (tile band around the top waterline of the pool)
Interior surface (plaster, marbelite, pebble, tile, paint)
Structure (the concrete shell)
With a concrete swimming pool a failure of any one of the main integral components like tile, coping, plumbing etc. is very likely to cause additional damage to the areas immediately around the deficiency. Much like continuing to drive a car that has a problem it is very likely that you will end up with much more expensive repairs than if you were able to notice and fix the problem quickly. Unfortunately with concrete pools much of what you need to see is underground, and pretty much everything else is underwater so there is not a lot of great ways to be thorough with an inspection performed visually.
This is why hiring local industry professionals to inspect any concrete pool that you are considering to buy. You do not want to become the owner of someone else's problem when it comes to concrete pools. Fortunately with a strong understanding of how they work and how concrete pool systems work together to function as a whole will help you a great deal to narrow down your search for houses with concrete pools, and hopefully find a high quality house with a high quality concrete pool in the backyard.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool and spa specialist from Ontario Canada. With over 10,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the 2018 Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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