Adding a pool to your home can dramatically increase your property’s value and the amount of fun you have at home. A pool can also be a great place for hosting guests. Sitting around the pool at home with friends is one of the greatest luxuries we might enjoy.
Pools can be complicated though. There is a significant amount of maintenance that goes into having a pool after it is installed. However, that is a concern for later.
For now, you should be thinking about tips for installing a pool in the first place. That comes with its own complexities.
A pool is a part of your home and your life. When thinking about tips for installing a pool, you should think about your home as a whole. The pool isn’t an isolated toy in the back yard. It is integrated into all other aspects of your home. That means there are a lot of factors involved in installing a pool.
To get you started, here are 8 tips for installing a pool in your home.
1. Decide What Kind of Pool You Want
Pools are not one size fits all. You might find when thinking about installing a pool that there are far more types of pools to choose from than you ever imagined.
The most obvious types of pools are above ground versus in-ground. These are basically what they sound like. An above-ground pool is one that sits on the ground itself, while an in-ground pool is dug into the yard. Tips for installing a pool will differ widely depending on your choice between these two types of pools.
Your pool installation can go very differently depending on the type of pool you choose. You may not even be able to install every type of pool in every type of climate and environment.
Ask around at local pool stores. Often they can both sell you the pool and do the installation. They may have suggestions for which type of pool is better for your backyard space and where you live. They may also only offer one type of pool installation.
Above ground pools are going to be easier and faster to install. Often, they only take a few days. An above-ground pool just needs to be erected and filled, more or less. This makes it a very quick pool installation.
An in-ground pool is more complicated. Your pool installer will need to dig in your yard with heavy machinery in order to create the hole the pool will be built in. This makes it possible for things like bad weather to interfere with and slow down your pool installation. An in-ground pool usually takes about 6 to 8 weeks to install.
2. Figure Out if You Need a Fence
A fence is often a good idea if you’re getting a pool, but it is not required for every single pool. It is common enough that you should probably factor in a fence when you are budgeting for installing a pool, however.
The type of fencing you go with will depend on the type of pool you get. You will probably want to match the fence to the pool and have it look nice with the rest of your home and yard.
However, fences serve much more than an aesthetic purpose. One of the most important tips for installing a pool is to have a good, reliable fence. It is a matter of safety for you to have a fence that can keep children and potentially animals out of the pool when they are not supervised.
Many above ground pools have a fence that gates the stairs up to the pool. In-ground pools, in contrast, will often have a fence all the way around them so that no one can accidentally walk into the pool when they shouldn’t be there.
3. Think About Trees
Your pool is not an isolated object in your yard. It is part of your entire home. That means you have to think about it in relation to all the other components of your home and yard, including your trees.
Part of the process of getting a pool, for you, might mean consulting with an arborist. You might have trees that would either be in the way during installation or pose a problem after the pool was installed. Or you might simply want to be aware that certain trees will drop debris into your pool and force you to clean it more often.
Thinking about trees might seem strange among a list of tips for installing a pool, but this is about the long-term health of the pool. Junk can clog up your pool’s filters or just become a persistent maintenance hassle.
You want to enjoy this big investment, so find out early on if you’ll need to be uprooting trees in order to get your pool installed.
4. Consider Other Landscaping As Well
While you’re thinking about trees, you might as well think about the rest of your landscaping as well.
As mentioned in our other tips for installing a pool, this won’t just be an isolated toy in your back yard. Your pool is part of your overall property and should be integrated into other aspects of your home. Your landscaping can complement your pool or work against it, depending on how you approach it.
For example, think about how you will get to and from the pool. What kind of surface will people with bare, wet feet be stepping on? If they are walking across the grass, that grass will stick to their feet and could junk up the pool. However, if they are walking across loose gravel, that can be painful and, in summer swimming weather, too hot.
One solution is stone pavers. These don’t get as hot as gravel and blacktop, but they also avoid the problems that would come from walking across the grass to get to and from the pool. Plus, stone pavers can be an attractive accent that makes your pool a beautiful addition to your overall landscaping design.
5. Think About the Specifics
A lot of the other tips for installing a pool you’ll find here are general or big picture, but it’s also important to think about the specifics. That doesn’t just mean the specifics of your home and landscaping. It also includes the specifics of exactly how this pool will work and what impact it could have on your home.
Some pools even have complex plumbing systems that you will need to account for. These are vital because they help with the filtering of the pool’s water. If you’re looking for tips for installing a pool, here’s an important one: Learn how things like the plumbing will work. You don’t want to get blind-sided by this type of thing when your pool installation is already well underway.
6. Figure Out What You Want to Do Yourself
You don’t need to turn over pool installation entirely to experts and installers. Yes, installing a pool is complicated and sometimes requires special knowledge and machinery. However, there are aspects of this operation that you can do yourself.
For a great example, look through this list of tips for installing a pool for the section about landscaping. Many landscaping tasks related to pool installation are things you can do yourself. And with 8% of Americans, according to Scarborough research, making a visit to Home Depot in the past year, you likely already have some of the things you’d need.
For example, you might install stone pavers yourself or even build the fence around the pool yourself. You can do some gardening and tree trimming that compliments the pool and design a patio that allows you to relax by the pool.
Find places where you can take ownership of the process of getting a pool installed. It will make your pool more meaningful and personal to you.
7. Consider Adding a Patio As Well
Speaking of patios, they go great with pools. You aren’t going to be swimming in your pool every second of every summer. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy being near your pool. Or you might find that you need to relax near the pool while supervising children who are swimming.
A patio is great for all of these instances. You can work with patio contractors even before your pool is completed to try to find the patio that best compliments your pool. They might even have tips for installing a pool in such a way that it maximizes your yard and patio space.
A patio does not need to be a deck that stands totally apart from the pool, either. You can place a patio around the pool itself, making it a feature of the pool. Great accessories for a poolside patio include things like reclining chairs, a patio set to eat at, a fire pit and a place to hang towels while they aren’t being used. You might even decorate the patio with some potted plants to add to the atmosphere.
8. Have a Plan If Things Go Wrong
Unfortunately, as with all things in life, things won’t always go smoothly with your pool. There will be bumps in the road and things that need to be repaired or addressed as you use your pool.
Maintenance belongs among the tips for installing a pool. You might even want to think about having a shed of some sort near the pool. You will need tools like chlorine and a pool skimmer in order to maintain the pool as it is used.
It’s important to keep pools clean and sanity. They can get a lot of heavy use by a lot of people. Chlorine is key for keeping pools sanity when there are a lot of people using them.
You also might want to have a good routine and tools for cleaning out leaves and other debris. No one wants to swim in a pool full of junk. A filtering system can do a lot of the cleaning for you, but you will still probably need to do some vacuuming and cleaning of the pool on your own.
However, this is all just maintenance. What kinds of tips for installing a pool are there for when things really go wrong?
Pools can get damaged over time, especially things like the liners. If you have leaks you should get a professional to patch them up as quickly as you can.
Pools contain huge amounts of water. If that starts spilling out, you could be facing a problem for far more than just your pool. If water is spilling out into the yard and maybe even the house, you should get it cleaned up immediately.
Then, you may need to invest in water damage repair. If the damage was severe enough, it could cause lasting water damage to your property if you don’t get it addressed quickly.
Enjoy Your Pool
Even though there might be hassles and problems, overall you should enjoy your pool. It is a big investment, but one that can add a lot of joy to your home for everyone who lives there or visits. Knowing the potential issues shouldn’t diminish your excitement. It just prepares you for the road ahead and makes it easier to deal with complications should they happen to arise as a result of installing a pool at your home.
Keep these tips for installing a pool in mind as you go about choosing a pool and designing your landscaping around it. As important as things like cleaning and maintaining the pool are, the most important thing with a pool is to get to enjoy it. So even while you are buying things like vacuums and cleaners, invest in some pool toys as well. Get a raft to float on, some pool noodles, maybe even a beach ball.
When thinking about your pool, it’s great to imagine all the fun times to come. That can actually help give you a better perspective on what this pool can mean to you and your family and how best you can all enjoy it.