When we bought our house Husband was delighted that it came with an (above ground) pool. He used to love swimming as a kid and was delighted at the prospect of being able to do so at home. Personally I’ve never been much of a swimmer. I can keep my head above water and work my way from point A to B, but thats about all I can claim. And I’ve never been much for floating around on a pool floaty either.
Reality of course quickly turned into him swimming a few times in the summer and that was it. Its not a heated pool so its not useable once winter sets in.
Lack of maintenance on our part has resulted in the pool not being useable these last couple years. The pool needs a new liner (the old one is so far beyond repairable its not funny), Husband says he’s not sure the filter’s 100%, and with us not getting the liner repaired right, the more I look at the whole thing the more I think its going to take more work just to get the new liner in than he thinks.
Course, getting everything fixed is likely to be several hundred $. And money, while not tight, hasn’t been plentiful either. What we have had to spare has been going to far more important projects (like the whole deck problem last fall).
This past year (as I’ve griped on more than a few occasions) has seen an increase in my joint problems. Heat application helps with quite a bit of the pain and stiffness.
Enter my Inlaws. Several years ago they got lucky in a lottery draw done by a local pool & spa place and won a 6 person hot tub. It was installed in their front porch, used several times by the entire family during that first year. And is now just gathering dust and piles of stuff without having been used since.
I’ve been trying to convince Husband that what we really need to do is pull down the remains of the pool, pour a slab, and convince his parents to give us the hot tub (not likely to be an issue, when taken into consideration with some other things).
Course, getting it from there to here, and then properly installed here, might be a bit interesting. But I don’t see how it could be THAT much more costly than fixing the pool. We could toss a tent of some kind over it for the first winter, and next year I could build my ideal greenhouse on the slab, surrounding the hot tub, to make it better for winter use AND a place to grow my seedlings in the spring. Perfect!
Husband, of course, isn’t quite convinced……..
Well, THIS should be interesting! (Rubbing hands together greedily). Sounds like a jolly good plan to ME! I always think how nice it would be to have a pool, but with the winters being so long, just not practical. But a hot tub! I never thought of ME having a hot tub! Now you have planted a seed!
There are really fancy hot tubs that can be used as either a spa or as a current pool, where you can swim against a current (and thus don’t need the same sort of space as a normal pool). Really cool actually, and if money wasn’t an issue I’d TOTALLY go for one those. Not cheap though. If it wasn’t for the possible free hot tub it’d not be a serious option for us…….
I was on the swim-team and also on the water-polo team, and IMO to get real health benefits from swimming it needs to be a daily exercise in the 100-yards plus category. It’s great on the joints because you’re not pounding on them. But it’s seasonal unless you live in a southern coastal climate.
As an over 50+ guy I love swimming but I also think it’s a freaking PITA (unless you live in Hawaii or Florida), and the main health benefits actually accrue when you are YOUNG and building your body for later years, so that in later years you can get out in the ocean and swim for hours without worries – but that’s got nothing to do with immediate therapies that a hot tub can provide.
Plus there’s the whole redneck, “above-ground, next to the trampoline, rusted-out Camaro, and washing machine”… Living in the country now I can appreciate that and defend everyone’s right to have a vehicle in their front yard. The cost of taking it to the damn dump is prohibitive anyhow.
Get a nice new hot tub if you like pickling yourself, and get rid of the yard-menace and mosquito-development pond.
If we could use it year round I’d be more interested in swimming, but as it is…..nope. And the cost to make it a year round pool is just stupid high.
Now to convince Husband!