We got off lightly with our pool, and it still added up. So if you're picturing a villa with a private pool, do your homework before you commit. Here are the seven costs, with the real numbers.
The maintenance company. €100 a month.
Someone came every week to look after it, chemicals included. That's €1,200 a year and it's the cost everybody expects. You could do it yourself, but we found it more work and hassle than you think.
The electricity to run the pump. Around €100 a month.
This is the one that surprised me. A pool is a machine that runs all year, and it's on whether you swim or not. We put solar in later and it helped a lot, so I'd definitely recommend that, especially with a pool.
The safety fence. €3,000.
Not optional with small children. Nobody mentions this when you're standing there imagining the summer pool days with the kids or grandkids. I'd pay it ten times over to keep my kids safe. Don't risk it.
Water. We had a four figure bill one summer quarter.
A lot of that was irrigation, but topping a pool up with the hosepipe six to eight months of the year is not nothing. Evaporation is relentless in 30 to 40 degrees, and you lose water daily.
The pump when it goes. €400 for us.
Ours failed once and I got away with it cheap. People have told me it could have been a lot worse.
Winter. The costs don't stop.
We ran ours all year, so we paid the same every month for a pool nobody swam in for nearly half the year.
The liner. The one we never had to pay.
They need replacing roughly every ten years and it runs into thousands. We sold before ours was due. If you're buying a place with a pool, ask how old the liner is, because the seller knows and you don't.
It was about €2,400 a year for us before anyone got wet or anything went wrong, and some years we swam in it about ten times. €240 a swim lol.
That being said, if I went back I'd still buy the same house with the same private pool. There's nothing like swimming in your own pool and seeing your kids jumping in, laughing their heads off.
So none of this means don't buy one. It means put the real yearly number in your budget from day one, and ask what's already been replaced and what's still waiting.
If you're weighing up a place with a pool, or there's another cost you're trying to get a straight answer on, hit reply and tell me. I try to read every one.
Talk soon,
James Hopkins