Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiotte
A vinyl pool maybe, concrete no. I know of no vinyl pools in
TV although I’ve been told they are built in Florida.
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In 1978 and 1981 I built my own homes in Pensacola, Florida. That's been quite a while ago, but I just found on zillow the home I built in '78. Here's a photo of the back yard, that's a 16 x 32 vinyl pool that I paid $4995 total. It looks like it's still going strong after 40 years. The only negative to a vinyl is the liner will need replacing about every ten years. There are a lot of positives, for example when you walk in the pool, your feet are not on a rough surface but the smooth vinyl and below the vinyl the bottom is formed with vermiculite, which is a soft concrete and forms to the liner and is soft. The sides are 4 x 4' panels that are connected together and lined with a thin sheet of foam rubber. So if you knees bump the sides, they are hitting vinyl backed by foam.
The fellow who built this pool was named Don Phillips and he ran an ad in TV Tab which I saw and was his second pool he built. A friend from work got his first pool. I sold the home two years later and next time built a Don Phillips Pool that was 18 x 36 pool with a diving board, steps and underwater light and extra decking, total cost $7700. It sounds cheap but Don Phillips business was going crazy. He had 3 crews working fulltime, in the two years between pools, my second pool was his 200th pool. Within three years Don bought a professional fishing boat with tower and chairs and was on the local news in all the fishing tournaments.
Why they don't build vinyl pools in this area, I don't understand. They are about 1/3 the cost, nicer, easier to keep regulated since the water is not up again concrete or gunite, but vinyl. So keeping the ph levels balanced was a breeze. I maintained my own pools, took about 5 minutes a day. You get an automatic cholorinator, you can buy the cartridges at Walmart and they last three weeks, that handles the chlorine. We didn't have birdcages in the panhandle, so I ran the net across the top and picked up any loose leaves or pine needles, and checked the skimmers for any debris. You can buy a pool sweep or creepy crawler and lt will keep the walls and floors clean if you like, but I didn't need it.
BTW, the home was a 4 BR 3 BA, 2 car garage, stick built with a 400 sf lanai and pool and I paid $7500 for the lot in a new subdivision that featured the parade of homes the first year. I spent $52,000 total to build the home with lot and pool and fence. Sold it to a doctor for $80,000 two years later. In Florida if you live in a home more than a year, you don't need a contractor's license. I was an air traffic controller and about 15 of us at Pensacola built our own homes, and I built two with my next one was even bigger. I saw on zillow the home sold two years ago for $220K. It's amazing to see how things changed in 40 years. I had the home stained with dark brown and the front was landscaped with tropical papas grass and plants, totally different look then now.