Pool Maintenance Costs

[Phil_ne_uk]

I have just had a pool built by home & pool. They said they would show me how to maintain it when I order the chemicals, so I asked the cost to which I was quoted 5200 baht for 4 months supplies. The cost for staff to clean the pool was an additional 2000 baht for 3 times a week service.

From what I’ve read on the forum about pool maintenance costs I was under the impression that H&P prices were reasonable.

It would be interesting to compare what others are paying for this service.

What do you pay and which company maintains your pool?

Phil

[cdnvic]

What is your reasoning for getting someone to service it? Is it a time thing, or are you worried you don't know enough?

If it's not a time issue you may want to learn the basics of balancing your water and maintaining your equipment, using the service for troubleshooting bigger problems or keeping things in balance while you can't be there. It's not too difficult to maintain a backyard pool, and unless it gets heavy use it seems a lot to have someone come in three times a week. Once a week to do a complete test of the water, backwash the filter and give it a good vacuuming would be plenty if you can check your skimmers and do a quick skim and test strip dip every couple days (10min work).

To give the right advice, let us know a few things:

How big is the pool?

What kind of filtration system does it use?

Do you have a vaccume, skimmer, and brushes for cleaning?

How is it chlorinated?

[Phil_ne_uk]

Thanks for your reply Cdnvic, I guess I don’t know enough.

The pools about 32 sq meters. 1 meter shallow end & 1.6 meters in the deep end.

It had a 26” Aster sand filter

I have vacuum & all the other tools

I have no idea how it’s chlorinated. lol

Cheers,

Phil

[cdnvic]

40,000 litres roughly

How long is that price quote for?

You may want to use a service at first but if it's pricey for you a private pool of that size it really shouldn't require 3 professional services per week. Assuming it's being fed stabilized chlorine there should be little in the way of chemicals to deal with. Most of the daily stuff is pretty basic. A similar sized pool I do in a small hotel requires only minor adjustments and it's getting 30 swimmers a day. A couple minutes a day to add algaecide, flocculant, pH up/down (each gets added on average once a week), and then a superchlorination once a week is more than enough for it. Other than that it just gets brushed and vacuumed as needed.

Once you learn to take care of it yourself it's actually pretty enjoyable (water balancing is an art to some), and not as difficult as you'd think. Consider paying someone to teach you, and get a few good books on it.

[Chaichara]

I was quoted 5200 baht for 4 months supplies. The cost for staff to clean the pool was an additional 2000 baht for 3 times a week service.

It's a complete, total, utter rip-off. Even the criminal pool constructors in Pattaya don't (usually) have the cheek to charge that much - but they often do NOT add the chemicals they say you are paying for, and they call when they know you are out and get a signature for the visit from your neighbour.

You could consider getting a salt-water chlorinator fitted, maintenance will be almost entirely automatic and all you will need to do is occasionally check the ph, scoop the leaves off the surface, and backwash the filter.

The cost and fitting will be about 35,000 baht, (any more and you are being rippd off again) and after that the chlorine is free. Go figure

Flocculant should be avoided if possible, it's a radical cure for water which has become very cloudy due to suspended solids or rampant algae. It eventually clogs up the filter as back washing won't remove all of it. Algicide is nothing other than copper sulphate (CuSO4), also sold at a 1000% mark up when packed and marketed as a 'special' product for pools.

For best filtration results, replace the sand with Zelbrite or a similar brand of volcanic mineral. The performance is 30 times better than sand.

Yes, a 40,000 litre pool that gets 30 swimmers a day, will need a fair bit of attention. A private pool that size, which has 2 or 3 clean swimmers, with bodies not smeared with sickening beauty and health products, will need a lot less attention. These products, sweat and microscopic skin particles are mostly what affect the ph, needing it to be stabilised more often. Piped city water supplies are aready stabilised at a ph of around 7.2. The level is critical though as only a little more or a little less will cause thbe eyes to smart.

Note that if ever you can smell chlorine in a swimming pool, paradoxically it is often because there is not enough - not too much.

[Naam]

For best filtration results, replace the sand with Zelbrite or a similar brand of volcanic mineral. The performance is 30 times better than sand.

interesting! any advice where these filter media are available? i am not quite happy with my sand filter (until now all my pools were D.E. filters) and it's a hassle to add once in a while D.E. to a sand filter for a true fine filtering.

[cdnvic]

Yes, a 40,000 litre pool that gets 30 swimmers a day, will need a fair bit of attention. A private pool that size, which has 2 or 3 clean swimmers, with bodies not smeared with sickening beauty and health products, will need a lot less attention.

Washing these things off with a shower beforehand can greatly extend the life of your sand filter media. The oils and waxes contained in them don't break down very well and tend to gum up sand filters. (Take apart one after a few years and see what I mean.)

If there's one thing I could do to improve the quality of our pools it would be to find a way to make people take cleaning themselves off before using them seriously. Too many people think a pool is like a bathtub.

[Chaichara]

interesting! any advice where these filter media are available? i am not quite happy with my sand filter (until now all my pools were D.E. filters) and it's a hassle to add once in a while D.E. to a sand filter for a true fine filtering.

Diatomatious Earth is good too but Zelbrite is better and apparently never needs to be changed. It's not cheap but well worth the investment. I got mine in Hua Hin at this British owned pool shop.

[cdnvic]

interesting! any advice where these filter media are available? i am not quite happy with my sand filter (until now all my pools were D.E. filters) and it's a hassle to add once in a while D.E. to a sand filter for a true fine filtering.

Diatomatious Earth is good too but Zelbrite is better and apparently never needs to be changed. It's not cheap but well worth the investment. I got mine in Hua Hin at this British owned pool shop.

It does filter better than sand, but whoever told you it doesn't need to be changed was misleading you a bit. If anything it's lifecycle is even shorter than sand because it doesn't let go of contaminants as well during a backwash.

I've seen many advertisements saying that with Zelbrite you can use less chemical and reduce chlorine smell. This is false. Filtration and sanitizing are two different things altogether, and a well balanced pool shouldn't have a noticeable chlorine odour anyway. Although with the Zelbrite you can pretty much avoid using any flocculate at all. That alone has me tempted to switch over to it. Much better for solids to get trapped in a filter and get dealt with in a backwash than having to vac them off the bottom first.

[Ajarn]

Yes, a 40,000 litre pool that gets 30 swimmers a day, will need a fair bit of attention. A private pool that size, which has 2 or 3 clean swimmers, with bodies not smeared with sickening beauty and health products, will need a lot less attention.

Washing these things off with a shower beforehand can greatly extend the life of your sand filter media. The oils and waxes contained in them don't break down very well and tend to gum up sand filters. (Take apart one after a few years and see what I mean.)

If there's one thing I could do to improve the quality of our pools it would be to find a way to make people take cleaning themselves off before using them seriously. Too many people think a pool is like a bathtub. :annoyed:

Well, my pool is my bathtub.. I even shampoo and shave.

I'm the only one who ever swims in it, so who is to care?

And it only means I have to change the water 1 or 2 times per year, and no more chemicals.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Ajarn

[cdnvic]

Too many people think a pool is like a bathtub. :annoyed:

Well, my pool is my bathtub.. I even shampoo and shave.

I'm the only one who ever swims in it, so who is to care?

And it only means I have to change the water 1 or 2 times per year, and no more chemicals.

If I could restrict our pools to a single swimmer I'd be less anal about the shampoo

[dickie58]

I have just had a pool built by home & pool. They said they would show me how to maintain it when I order the chemicals, so I asked the cost to which I was quoted 5200 baht for 4 months supplies. The cost for staff to clean the pool was an additional 2000 baht for 3 times a week service.

From what I've read on the forum about pool maintenance costs I was under the impression that H&P prices were reasonable.

It would be interesting to compare what others are paying for this service.

What do you pay and which company maintains your pool?

Phil

We have a 12x6 metre chlorine type pool, we have a monthly service contract & he comes 6 times per week including all chemicals it costs 2000 baht per month. At that price it's not worth doing it yourself, he even has the key to our gate, the guy is as good as gold

[Chaichara]

We have a 12x6 metre chlorine type pool, we have a monthly service contract & he comes 6 times per week including all chemicals it costs 2000 baht per month. At that price it's not worth doing it yourself, he even has the key to our gate, the guy is as good as gold

Depends how rich or how lazy you are.

A good many crooks are confidence tricksters. Pool maintenance firms generally are unfortunately not known for honesty and good work and have brought the practice in Pattaya into disrepute. Choose one with extreme caution, and get references. Firms have been known to sell copies of the keys to organised bands of burglars, or the addresses of properties of well endowed occupants. Others do cut corners on the chemicals and the work. They often prey on the naïvety of the majority of pool owners: on complaints that the water is less than perfectly limpid, they fob their clients off with a statement that 'it is perfectly normal for the tropics'. Consider yourself very lucky to have such a good service - based on the frequency (more than necessary) of his visits. If he came less often it could be cheaper, a factor which would interest many a retiree.

Checking the stability and the hygiene of your pool water is such a totally simple task it is hardly worth running the risks of using a pool maintenance company, unless:

• the firm charges under 2,000 baht per month (for a pool under 100 m3)
  
• will explain and demonstrate to you exactly what they are doing and why
  
• you frequently need to be absent of ten for periods of longer than three or four days
  

Pool maintenance is a Pattaya & Phucket phenomenon. In most parts of the country you will have to do it your self anyway.

Edited August 27, 2007 by Chaichara

[ratchabuild]

We have a 12x6 metre chlorine type pool, we have a monthly service contract & he comes 6 times per week including all chemicals it costs 2000 baht per month. At that price it's not worth doing it yourself, he even has the key to our gate, the guy is as good as gold

Depends how rich or how lazy you are.

A good many crooks are confidence tricksters. Pool maintenance firms generally are unfortunately not known for honesty and good work and have brought the practice in Pattaya into disrepute. Choose one with extreme caution, and get references. Firms have been known to sell copies of the keys to organised bands of burglars, or the addresses of properties of well endowed occupants. Others do cut corners on the chemicals and the work. They often prey on the naïvety of the majority of pool owners: on complaints that the water is less than perfectly limpid, they fob their clients off with a statement that 'it is perfectly normal for the tropics'. Consider yourself very lucky to have such a good service - based on the frequency (more than necessary) of his visits. If he came less often it could be cheaper, a factor which would interest many a retiree.

Checking the stability and the hygiene of your pool water is such a totally simple task it is hardly worth running the risks of using a pool maintenance company, unless:

• the firm charges under 2,000 baht per month (for a pool under 100 m3)
  
• will explain and demonstrate to you exactly what they are doing and why
  
• you frequently need to be absent of ten for periods of longer than three or four days
  

Pool mainte

nance is a Pattaya & Phucket phenomenon. In most parts of the country you will have to do it your self anyway.

1500 baht per month

[phanu]

I have 250 sq m pool / 400 m3 with 2 sand filters and UV traitement...

I don't need chlorine or chemical except product against Green Algues

Cost/month (except electricity for 2 pumps and my staff for cleaning (2 persones / 30mn every days) : around 1,700 THB

Picture of the pool :

http://muanglen.online.fr/sansai10-ete07/07-p05.html

http://muanglen.online.fr/sansai10-ete07/07-p10.html

[phanu]

I have 250 sq m pool / 400 m3 with 2 sand filters and UV traitement...

I don't need chlorine or chemical except product against Green Algues

Cost/month (except electricity for 2 pumps and my staff for cleaning (2 persones / 30mn every days) : around 1,700 THB

Picture of the pool :

http://muanglen.online.fr/sansai10-ete07/07-p05.html

http://muanglen.online.fr/sansai10-ete07/07-p10.html