# Swimming Pools?



## imp (Sep 7, 2015)

Do you have, or ever have had, a swim pool at your residence? If yes, or even no, I would love to hear of experiences! Swimming is said to be one of the better, if not the best, exercise for older folks.    imp


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## SeaBreeze (Sep 7, 2015)

No, I've never had a swimming pool or really wanted one.  I don't really like swimming in chlorinated water, rather go to the beach and swim in salt water only.  My sister lives in Texas, and she had a nice swimming pool at her old house, they went swimming around three times a day, always followed by a shower.  Toward the end of my visit, I had no interest in even going into the pool, or at the most once a day.

As far as exercise, I absolutely agree that swimming is very good and easy on the joints for those with health issues.


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## SifuPhil (Sep 7, 2015)

My student has an in-ground pool at his house and never mentions going swimming - rather, he always has a tale of woe to tell about maintenance: the liner cracked, the cement surround is crumbling, he needs a new cover, the pump is going, the chipmunks are swimming in it again, etc.

Sounds like a lot of work for very little fun.


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## SeaBreeze (Sep 7, 2015)

It is a lot of work Sifu, my sister was always scooping things out with a long handled net, or fussing with something or another pool-related.


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## imp (Sep 7, 2015)

*"Sounds like a lot of work for very little fun" 

*The amount of "fun", you see, is dependent on the user and or owner. My wife is a "laker", as the Northern Indianans who grew up  situated on the numerous lakes present there are known. She loves being in the water. I tried in vain to convince her that what you have expressed, is absolute truth. To no avail. We now have in our last retirement "retreat" property, a 12-foot pool, plastic, cost 48 bucks, 30" deep, in which she frolics daily. Seeing her so happy thus, I accept the cleaning, maintenance, and so forth, to be worthwhile of my time spent. 

It is, after all, little larger than a bath tub!..........imp


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## SifuPhil (Sep 8, 2015)

A brilliant solution, Imp!

At worst, when it all starts going south you can just toss it in the trash and get another one. :encouragement:

At one point in my life I was a SCUBA diver; it's hard for me to warm up to a pool now that I've been in oceans and lakes. Besides, I'm a bit reactive to chlorine.


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## hollydolly (Sep 8, 2015)

Yes I have a pool at my other home in Southern Spain...it's a big shared pool on our private gated community and maintained at great expense to all of us. It's a lovely pool,  it's cleaned every  day and at least once a week it's closed in the morning so as to have the motors checked, and everything else like tiles etc checked for cracks etc  as Phil said already...


My daughter has her own private pool but hers is quite small..only about 20 by 10....just enough to get wet really..


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## Pappy (Sep 8, 2015)

Had one when the kids were living at home many years ago. It was a round, 24 foot across, on top of ground pool. My three kids all learned to swim in it, and most the neighbors kids too. After the kids started leaving the nest, all the maintenance fell on me. After a year or so, I sold it.


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## Lara (Sep 8, 2015)

My neighborhood has a 90' pool that is well maintained and usually no one using it. I go once a day, sometimes twice. I joined the YMCA to use their pool in the winter. $40 a month sure beats Statins and Blood Pressure meds. My issuance paid for the initial fee and the first 3 months. It has literally saved my life as I shared in detail once before in one of the forums a while back. 

One year ago I could barely walk (knees, arthritis in legs, etc), had DVT in my leg and the clots traveled to both lungs, and had high blood pressure. I somewhat recovered with a nutritarian diet and lots of water but still couldn't exercise. I refused to take heart meds, physical therapy was a joke (didn't work for me)…then I found the pool. 

In 3 months of "Aqua Fit" (high intensity water aerobics) 5 days a week for an hour each time (while I worked full time), my knees were totally healed. It's been a year and I swim everyday and will continue for life because my legs start to stiffen up without it. My blood pressure is normal, no need for meds, all lab work is perfect, and I feel amazing!!!


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## Ken N Tx (Sep 8, 2015)

My daughter's first pool:




.
Her new pool: Heated and cooled can be used about 9 months




.
Pool party on Father's Day and B'day:


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## Lon (Sep 8, 2015)

No, but I have always lived next door to neighbors with nice pools that I could use any time I want, or where there was a community pool within minutes of where I was living.


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## jujube (Sep 8, 2015)

I'll never own a swimming pool again unless it comes with Javier Bardim in a gold Speedo as my pool boy and sunscreen spreader.


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## Falcon (Sep 8, 2015)

No, But my Elks lodge has an Olympic sized pool, heated to 85º all year round.  And I can use it whenever the mood strikes me.


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## AprilT (Sep 8, 2015)

Living in Florida, I believe most everyone in the area, who I know, have a pool, as it's rare to live at a residence where there isn't a pool in such areas as FL, so yes, where I live there are well maintained pools on the grounds.  I rarely use the pools here, mostly use them when company comes for a visit, they insist, but, I usually prefer the beach these days, though, in my youth, I spent most of my summers in a pool more so because pools were more accessible.  I moved to Jersey Shore and I then began to prefer the beaches over pools.  However, if  not given a choice, I'll take either as long as I have a body of water, somewhere, to make use of I'm happy.


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## Manatee (Sep 8, 2015)

I knew a man in Daytona who told me "My kids are grown and gone.  I have the pool which I rarely use but must clean regularly.  I don't own the pool, it owns me."

My 86 year old sister is in her pool every day, and doesn't mind cleaning it.

My wife and I go to the community pool.  We don't have to clean it.


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## imp (Sep 8, 2015)

*Folks, Applaud This Person!*



Lara said:


> My neighborhood has a 90' pool that is well maintained and usually no one using it. I go once a day, sometimes twice. I joined the YMCA to use their pool in the winter.* $40 a month sure beats Statins and Blood Pressure meds*. My issuance paid for the initial fee and the first 3 months. It has literally saved my life as I shared in detail once before in one of the forums a while back.
> 
> One year ago I could barely walk (knees, arthritis in legs, etc), had DVT in my leg and the clots traveled to both lungs, and had high blood pressure. I somewhat recovered with a nutritarian diet and lots of water but still couldn't exercise. I refused to take heart meds, physical therapy was a joke (didn't work for me)…then I found the pool.
> 
> In 3 months of "Aqua Fit" (high intensity water aerobics) 5 days a week for an hour each time (while I worked full time), my knees were totally healed. It's been a year and I swim everyday and will continue for life because my legs start to stiffen up without it. My blood pressure is normal, no need for meds, all lab work is perfect, and I feel amazing!!!



Wonderful testimonial in favor of exercise over medication. Exercise forces the body's systems to do the work they were designed to. Medications force the system to acceptably utilize their properties, both beneficial as well as detrimental, then work to eliminate them at added work load to the liver and kidneys. Exercise makes the muscles work; they produce waste products as a result, I think lactic acid is one, which are eliminated as they are produced. 

Ha, look at me babbling like some half-witted Medico! Actually, as a teen, I studied all I could about the medical field, thinking becoming a doctor was appealing. Alas, dirty hands and grubby fingernails won out, mechanically-inclined (actually, financially constrained regarding med. school). And to think I nearly drowned in the high school swimming pool! Sink like a rock, to this day!    imp


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## imp (Sep 8, 2015)

*How My Pool Experience Deteriorated!*

1974, in Vegas, our new custom home sat surrounded largely by open land, lots of critters, had a desert tortoise come ambling across the lot, before we built. Today, it's filled with homes. A pool was  a must, for my -ex, she may have been part fish, she picked a "Grecian" shape, no slouch sizewise, 20 by 40 feet, 8 feet deep, took 25,000 gallons to fill 'er up. Pic taken from up on the roof. I built the block wall around the lot perimeter myself, 700 feet of it. Pool equipment within the blocked enclosure, included a 360,000 btu per hour, propane-fired heater. Think the tank was 150 gallons. Squarish house at upper left was owned by Osmond Brothers, then quite popular in Vegas. My ex- and her sister.......




I was in top shape, then, manual labor benefitted the property, as well as myself. Spread by hand, 40 tons of topsoil, planted Tifgreen Bermuda grass, pool surrounded by white limestone rock, and Seagreen Juniper bushes.





Our cats loved it, too! The grass was finally coming in!





But that was then, and this is now! Still a'buildin' stuff, evidenced by the rock "privacy" wall we built our first spring here in AZ.   imp


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## hollydolly (Sep 8, 2015)

WoW!! that first pool with the huge wall was some project...!!


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## Fern (Sep 8, 2015)

imp said:


> *"Sounds like a lot of work for very little fun"
> 
> *The amount of "fun", you see, is dependent on the user and or owner. My wife is a "laker", as the Northern Indianans who grew up  situated on the numerous lakes present there are known. She loves being in the water. I tried in vain to convince her that what you have expressed, is absolute truth. To no avail. We now have in our last retirement "retreat" property, a 12-foot pool, plastic, cost 48 bucks, 30" deep, in which she frolics daily. Seeing her so happy thus, I accept the cleaning, maintenance, and so forth, to be worthwhile of my time spent.
> 
> It is, after all, little larger than a bath tub!..........imp


We've had our pool for over 20 years & wouldn't be without it. Keeping up the maintenance, which is minimal for the fun/exercise you get from it,all adds to the pleasure,


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## imp (Sep 8, 2015)

hollydolly said:


> WoW!! that first pool with the huge wall was some project...!!



Appreciate that, Holly! I am now become sadly deficient physically, a fact unacceptable to me, so am dealing with it. Today, things which I swung through the air with one hand, require both. I felt back in the '70s, that place would be a part of my life forever, happiest time; it lasted only five years. But not crying over spilt milk!    imp


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## imp (Sep 8, 2015)

*"when it all starts going south you can just toss it in the trash and get another one"

*Phil, exactly what I did last Fall. Surprisingly, same pool this Spring cost ten bucks less! We knock Chinese product, but considering, this thing comes with a pump, filter, holds 1200 gallons, 3 feet deep, $48! Well.........I have to yield sometimes! Hate the fact that America once produced mightily, now, mighty little.   imp


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## AZ Jim (Sep 8, 2015)

I had a pool back in the 80's.  Got lot's of exercise as a result.  Not from using the pool, from cleaning, testing, adding chemicals, cleaning filters, working on pumps etc.  When we came to Arizona the realtors all wanted to show us homes with pools.  I nixed all pools and all stairs.  Hence, we are in a one story, three BR, two bath home with a nice patio and backyard but NO POOL and NO STAIRS!!


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## imp (Sep 8, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> I had a pool back in the 80's.  Got lot's of exercise as a result.  Not from using the pool, from cleaning, testing, adding chemicals, cleaning filters, working on pumps etc.  When we came to Arizona the realtors all wanted to show us homes with pools.  I nixed all pools and all stairs.  Hence, we are in a one story, three BR, two bath home with a nice patio and backyard but NO POOL and NO STAIRS!!



Jim, in reality, I hate pools, too. It's love/hate though. A big pool like above eats huge quantities of chemicals in keeping the water Ph acceptable, and germ-free. And Vegas winds! One particularly nasty storm had winds of 40mph sustained for nearly a week! Our pool had several inches of sand at the bottom. It took a number of filter media changes to finally get it all out. During that storm, the wind BLEW a foot of water out of the pool, so large were the waves produced!    imp


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## AZ Jim (Sep 8, 2015)

imp said:


> Jim, in reality, I hate pools, too. It's love/hate though. A big pool like above eats huge quantities of chemicals in keeping the water Ph acceptable, and germ-free. And Vegas winds! One particularly nasty storm had winds of 40mph sustained for nearly a week! Our pool had several inches of sand at the bottom. It took a number of filter media changes to finally get it all out. During that storm, the wind BLEW a foot of water out of the pool, so large were the waves produced!    imp



I hear that!  We've had winds that made me refresh my little fountain in the patio and my birdbath.  Dust storms, rare but nasty.  Scorpions, heat, dust storms, terrible place to be.....stay home people...


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## imp (Sep 9, 2015)

A commonly seen bumper sticker when we lived in Phoenix area was "Welcome to Arizona. Now go Home!"

It was in response, we thought, to the tremendous influx of new visitors and residents, an attempt to discourage visitors from considering staying. It didn't work!    imp


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