I don't cook, so any kitchen would be wasted on me.

But.... For the people who have the outdoor kitchens.... Do you use them a lot? For that expense, I would be curious as to how much it's used.

You are not tracking all your cost. Just the water and electric is higher then that. I have our home with a pool and a rental property about the same size with no pool. So I have very accurate data that shows the real cost. Everything with the pool equipment is expensive. I have one new pump and the new one is now 3 years old and will go soon. And our wonderful elected light bulb police have now determined we have to have "special" pool motors that in order to pump the water to the roof for the solar panels has to be much larger and cost over $1000 for a new pump. Old one was around $550.

If you put in a pool, plan on 5K a year to support it. You are only fooling yourself if you think it's any less. Track ALL cost. T&D cleaning service, water, electric and maintenance.

I too opted for a spa instead of an in ground pool. After giving it a lot of thought I came to the conclusion that, like Gracie, once the novelty wore off I would not use a pool enough to justify the high maintenance costs.

So I bought an ISpa from Tri County Pool & Spa on 441 who sell and service the CalSpa line. So now on a hot day when the mood strikes me I just slide in. Then with my finger on the throttle and lips around a bottle, life is good again.

The grill in our summer kitchen gets used at least three times per week. The small refrigerator is used for water, soda and beer.

And I will respectfully disagree with you as we do also track all of our costs. Since we have a salt pool, which requires minimal service, we do the service ourselves thus saving the cost of having T&D or anyone else perform weekly service. The pool pump costs $0.26 cents per hour to run. That figure came from a SECO audit that we had done on our house back in October 2008. For five months the filter runs five hours per day and the other seven months it runs for nine hours. That comes out to a cost of about $700 per year to run the pool filter but as the filter ages and cost of electricity goes up I suspect that figure is a little bit higher. As for the filter pump it froze in 2010 and had to be replaced. Since it was under warranty the cost to us was $0 and the new pump came with a 5yr warranty.

Having said all of that I do not doubt your costs but I do believe lower costs, from what you are seeing, to operate a pool are possible.

Yes, after build-out. And we are in a CYV. We got all you want in yours minus the frig. Could not see the real need, plus extra electric to run. But got the upgraded cabinets, and that also includes the propane tank (250 gal) burying it and running the gas line from tank.

Army Guy

That is thr typical services required down here. All we do is pretty much walk in!
Army Guy

We use the summer kitchen more then the inside kitchen, year round.

Army Guy

The ref. T&D is offering must be really nice for the diff. of 4K in price.:mad:

The tank and bury is included so I guess the developer gets the addl. 4K profit.

The price was quoted based on the Sanibel model home as shown in Pennecamp and can be seen on TV's website of models.

4K is a lot of difference.

Seems to me the expense could be high. Assuming a summer kitchen costing $25,000, used 250 times a year (or 2 out of 3 days) for 10 years straight, would result in the per use cost of $10.00. It rises to $13.75 if you only use it every other day. :mmmm:
But, to each their own.

I guess that is one way to look at it but if you are like us and enjoy outdoor living then the price is not that big of a factor. After 50 odd years up north in the cooler weather we now spend quite a bit of time on our lanai enjoying the outside and the pool/spa.
But you should also add into your calculations the savings from having a beverage refrigerator in the summer kitchen instead of a full size 2nd refrig in the garage like some folks we happen to know. There is also a fair amount of storage space in the cabinets. But again it all depends upon what personnel preferences are.

My same thoughts.... There's a pool about every 2 blocks. i don't get it.

we got our summer kitchen for a hundred bucks at Ace Hardware.... a nice electric plug-in grill

When you ask them rough in the summer kitchen, does that just mean to lay pipes for water and drainage and lines for electricity? What about gas?

Yes.

If it's a new build, it won't have natural gas service. You can opt to have a propane tank buried and have that as you gas supply.

Bill :)