The Pool....part 4 of The House series

Sorry for disappearing!  Last week turned into a crazy week....school stuff, scout stuff, sick kids, a "plumbing" emergency, a showing that went bad (they showed up 1.5 hrs late, and walked into my house while we were there!).  Add in crazy work stuff (especially with a short week), and the normal stuff.....yeah...there ya go.

But thank you to my readers who are so interested.....

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So yeah...the pool.

A few people have said that the pool was a deterrent for buyers.  We have no idea if this is true or not.  In 2 dozen showings, the pool has only been mentioned once.  That is the really frustrating thing with our feedback, it gives us no idea what the problem is.  OK, we have been told that the bedrooms are small.  There is nothing we can do about that.  I will agree that Sassy's room is small....about 8x10.  But the other two bedrooms are 12x12, so not obscenely small.  But not a grand master either.  Other houses have sold with smaller bedrooms, so we are all at a bit of a loss.

Back to the pool....

After the initial FUUUDDDDGGGGEEEE moment, we started to look at the options.

Option 1:  Get a new panel

This option was quickly eliminated.  I went back through the pool stuff (thank you previous owners for leaving it all for us), and found the make and model of the pool  Turns out that the company is no longer in business.  Per the pool guy, each company is proprietary, so ordering a new panel is a crapshoot if it will work.  And there is no guarantee that it would pass inspection.

Option 2:  Get a new pool

The pool is 15x30' oval (which is a common size).  A new pool, instillation, and water would run us about $2,500 minimum.  And if a buyer didn't want the pool....that would be money down the drain.

Option 3:  Collapse the pool

I know so many people have said this.  But this is not an easy option.  This would require the actual collapsing of the pool, disposal, burying the electrical, digging out the posts that held the solar cover.  Once all of that is done, then you are left with 6 inches of sand underneath that needs to either be dug out, or covered with top soil.  The whole area needs to be regraded (the pool is a little lower than the grade of the rest of the yard), and then sod or grass seed needs to be applied.

After you deal with that....you turn your attention to the deck.   The back end of the deck would need to be finished off (either be squared off, since it is cut out to fit the oval, or have a very odd shape).  Posts need to be added either way.  Plus you need to add a rail.  And coding standards have changed since the deck was built (circa 1993), so if we are retrofitting things....we could be looking at a new can of worms.  OR...you have to pull it down, and then dispose of it, and then deal with the "dead" area under the deck.

We had priced out having someone collapse the pool previously.....just the pool is $500.  If we had them deal with the sand, dirt, etc....we are up to $2,000.  And we aren't to grass or electrical yet.  And we aren't dealing with the deck yet.

Option 4:  As Is

At the moment.....this is the option we are using until we can move on to the next part (I am getting there!).  The listing has been changed that the pool is being sold "as is" right now.  If a buyer came along, we are willing to credit some money back to deal with the pool, but that will be bridge we cross if we need to.  In the short term, this absolves us from the inspection issue of the pool.  We checked into how long we could leave the pool this way (for example....can we winter the pool?)...and right now it is holding. We were told we could probably let the pool freeze over the winter, but if we had another bad winter, the already weakened area will probably completely give out once the water thaws, which would result in the water gushing out and flooding our yard, and probably at least 2, probably 3, of the neighbors' yards. 

We ordered a new cover (so at least you aren't looking at a green pool full of dead and alive algae), and I put that on over the weekend (and stepped on a nail in the process and ended up needing a tetanus shot and have a very sore foot!).  

If we have showings and we get alot of negative feedback, then we will move on to the next phase sooner than later.  But the master plan.....

G-man will come home late August (we have a family wedding, the kids' birthday), and he and I will collapse the pool ourselves, along with the deck.  We are still working out the price for a dumpster, tool rental, etc.  We are hoping that we have a friend or two who are willing to take a vacation day and help us out, but we aren't counting on that.  It is going to be hard work.  And once we are left with the mess of our yard.....

We are debating what to do.  One thought is to turn part of it into a patio/fire pit area.  We already have the sand down.  A 10'x10' patio will be about $400 for materials.  That doesn't take care of the entire area (figure it is about 20'x40' that we have to deal with).  But we can do a few steps down to the yard....make some landscaping areas....add in a pathway to a patio.  We are still working all of this out while we figure out coding, cost, etc.

The lower deck will get completely redone.  Depending on patio decisions, we will need to deal with rails on at least 2 sides.  We need about 40 boards to redo the floor, and then the whole thing will get stained.

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This whole thing is a huge expense that we have to now deal with.  A major yard renovation was not part of our computations.  We are looking at that line between what do we HAVE to do, vs NEED to do.  We are going to spend money one way or the other....either we do it or we have someone do it.  As we delve deeper into the process, we can decide what we are going to DIY and what we will have someone do.

Because G-man will only be home for a week....we have to be realistic on what we can do ourselves in that time frame.  Once he is gone, I am on my own again.  And at that time of year, school will be starting, so I will be dealing with that as well.  I would love to start on this on my own....but jumping into a project you aren't prepared for is a recipe for disaster.  Of course, if something with the pool changes, such as it gives out, the timeline moves up.

Of course best case scenario is that someone makes an offer, we credit them something to deal with the pool, and we can walk away from it.    But I struggled with not doing all of this work NOW....I feel it is a huge red flag on our property to list the pool "as is".  And it is.  But G-man can't come home right now, and I can't do it myself.  It is a temporary solution while we work out the rest of the details.

We had no way to anticipate this.  And we knew what the work would be collapsing the pool years ago....which is why we didn't do it before.  Our hand is being forced to do something. 

So there is the saga.....in all of its ugliness.  It is overwhelming to deal with, and it is overwhelming to think that there is a chance that the kids and I are here indefinitely.  But we are doing what we need to do.

Anyone want to come destroy my backyard????  We are buying the pizza and beer (or water or soda or whatever!)