Dallas-Fort Worth Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
S/O to Home Buying Poll
For those who responded to the home buying poll must-haves with NO pool.... Can you tell me why you were against having a pool? DH and I would like to at some point down the road (not now obviously) having a pool put in for the kids and entertaining. I'm curious if we're overlooking something major and why so many of you were against a pool. Is it the upkeep and maintenance costs? 
Re: S/O to Home Buying Poll
For me, upkeep and maintenance. Maybe some people don't want one due to safety concerns with children.
I wouldn't mind having one just so Noah could swim, but I just don't want to deal with maintaining a pool. Luckily, we can just head over to my parent's house.
Part of it is the upkeep and maintenance costs....plus, Steve and I aren't exactly "sun gods"
We also have a dog and most houses I've seen, the pool takes up 3/4 - to all of the yard space. We're also considering getting another dog (a lab) in a year or so, and it's important to us for the dogs to have lots of running space and plenty of grass. I also would like to have at least one or two mature trees in the back yard.
It would be nice to have a pool for entertaining...but hopefully we'll get to live in an older community that has a community pool like my IL's and my sister live in.
upkeep and maintenance costs-its more than most people think. I know a few people that fell in love with the pool when the looked at a home, and were so excited...then they realized how much money and work it was to maintain it. I also remember growing up the pool we had. It was just me and my mom and it was too much for both of us. Granted it was a HUGE pool, but it took too long to do ourselves, and got costly.
Its not that I wouldnt like one-I think they are great...they are pretty, fun, good for entertaining, but not worth the rest to me. I also have a thing about them with children (up to the teenage years) too...huge safety concerns. Even the most responsible, careful, parents and kids can have tragedies, and I dont want to add anything that would easily fuel that equation. Things can still happen, but I dont want to mske it easier.
Upkeep and maintenance were the main factors for us but I also didn't want the liability. Having a pool was a significant bump in insurance rates as well. We also like having enough space to actually have a yard. Where we are the yards aren't that large so having a pool meant it was most of your yard.
Agree. Also, it's more important for us to have a yard to "kick a ball around w/ the kids" and maybe plant a small garden, and most houses with pools have pitifully small yards.
A pool wasn't necessarily a deal breaker for us, but we preferred without.
Upkeep and maintenence on something we wouldn't really even use (I'm sure some people would! Just not us) didn't appeal to us, we wanted the yard size, and James's neighbor when he was a kid drowned in their family pool.
My Bio My Recipe Blog: See Aimee Cook
For those you that DO have pools, how expensive is the upkeep?
A friend of ours is a police officer and does pools 1 day a week as a side business, and I know he makes a killing!
I, personally, wouldn't want the upkeep expense or the safety factor having small children.
I'm wondering the same thing. Our backyard is definitely big enough to support a pool and still have room for kids and a yard.
I would love to have a pool. A good family friend actually had a pool in his backyard but when they moved he didn't want a pool because of the maintence, but 4 years later, he really misses it and says he loved and used the pool enough that it was worth the upkeep. They are currently casually looking for a new house, either with a pool or with a yard large enough to put one in.
I think it depends on how much you would use it. I actually don't mind the upkeep of the pool and would use it enough for it to be worth it.
I was on the want a pool list. As long as you figure the upkeep into your monthly expenses for the house before you buy, your fine. Before my parents downsized into their retirement home, they had a pool. The pool guy game once a week so all my dad had to do was skim for leaves once in awhile and remove the occasional mouse or frog from the drain (they had a lot of land and would get critters trying to take a dip). I think they resurfaced once. We are a pool family and used the heck out of the pool. They had an iron gate with a lock to close off the pool from the rest of the backyard. The grandkids all learned to swim really young. I was a water baby too, learned to swim by 2 and on a swim team by 4. Its just a great fun healthy lifestyle to be in the pool all the time. Just lather up on the sunscreen!
**If your considering putting in a pool beware that you will only get about a 50% return on your investment. So if you think you will move soon, you would be better off waiting and finding a home with a pool.**
James Sawyer 12.3.10
Leo Richard 9.20.12
Our lot is about 1/3 acre, so we've still got plenty of backyard even with a large pool, but a small yard with a pool would've been a dealbreaker for us. A yard is more important.
Our pool is inground, vinyl, chlorinated and our maintenance costs are very low. We do it all ourselves and it doesn't take much time either -- we do have a dolphin robotic cleaner, so maybe that's the difference -- we don't hand vacuum the thing? We just drop the dolphin in the pool on Wednesdays and once on the weekend and obviously anytime it needs extra cleaning. Put the chlorine tabs in on our schedule and test the water once a week. I would say we probably spend a total of $300 a year on chlorine and $100 a year on other chemicals, having the pump, filter, and sand inspected, and other miscellaneous.
The home warranty we have covers our pump and filter.
We have an estimate to replace the vinyl liner and repair two small sink spots in the bottom of the deep end (in another 1-2 years) -- for the entire pool it will run $2000-2800, which is well worth the luxury of having a pool to me. But I'm a pool person and always have been, so it's a priority to me.
I haven't read through all the responses, so I may be repeating something.
In addition to the maintenance costs, we did not want to deal with the liability that comes along with the pool. Heaven forbid something happen to one of our child's friends, it would be a nightmare to deal with.