Revisiting My Florida Swimming Pool

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

That Sinking Feeling

It started a couple of months ago with a few air bubbles in the clean water return, I just figured the trap at the pool filter had a small leak. After checking out the trap and filter, I just chalked it up to old age. After all, my swimming pool is at least forty five years old. Then this past Thursday night I noticed the water level had dropped about two inches, and on Friday morning, another one inch.
It is the quintessential symbol of Florida living, the swimming pool in the back yard, or as I call it, the money hole. It costs money to put water into it, it costs money for all the chemicals. When any of the mechanicals break, your budget breaks along with it. Most people have a pool service to clean their pool, at about eighty dollars a month. Besides all those expenses, you have the electric bill. My pool uses about one hundred dollars worth of electricity per month. Anyway, it appears that there might be a leak somewhere in the pool. Upon closer inspection at the far end of the pool, an area I don't venture out to very often, I have noticed that small cracks in the deck have now become large cracks. I have also noticed the definite sound of water sloshing under the concrete. This creates sloshing of acid in my stomach, so I have called a company that finds pool leaks and fixes them. This morning the man from Florida Leak Locators, located my leak, or should I say leaks, and it is every bit as bad as I thought. He informed me that I need my pool re-piped. This involves chopping two holes in the pool from the inside, replacing the pipes, and them rebuilding the wall of the pool. He didn't have an immediate estimate, but his ballpark figure was more than two thousand dollars. I do have another option, and it really is tempting. Chop out the bottom of the pool, fill the entire thing in with soil, and plant a nice garden. For all I would be saving in pool expenses, I could hire a garden maintenance man for a fraction of that.