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NorthJersey.com (Bergen Record)
Pool question: Fix or remove?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
BY CAROLE FELDMAN
The Record
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mike Eckman's backyard swimming pool
was "a good friend" for years, but with his children now grown it
was hardly being used. And it needed costly repairs.
So he and his family decided to have it
removed instead.
"The pool served its life," said Eckman,
of Bridgewater.
He hired All Pool Demolition
in Midland Park to do the job. Owner John Panariello
says people often cite the same reasons as Eckman in choosing to get
rid of pools.
"They have to fix them and they're very
expensive," he said.
Having a backyard pool is one of those
luxuries a lot of people dream of. But a growing business exists in
removing them.
Besides the cost of repairs and
maintenance, people sometimes remove a pool out of concern that it
might be a turnoff to homebuyers. Some parents with young children
worry about safety. Other homeowners want to reclaim their back
yards.
Home buyers have fairly firm ideas about
whether they want a home with a pool, said Ann Pettijohn, vice
president of the National Association of Realtors for the region
that includes California and Hawaii.
Often, the type of pool can matter too.
"In Southern California, you can't just have a square pool," she
said. Buyers want a waterfall, a spa, "all the good things."
In New England, where the outdoor swimming
season is much shorter, "you want to put a pool in for your
enjoyment, not investment potential," said Ron Phipps of Phipps
Realty in Warwick, R.I.
He recalled one case in which it became
clear that an in-ground pool was restricting the number of potential
buyers. "Some people don't want the maintenance of a swimming pool.
Other people are not swimmers. They'd rather have lawn grass or
something else." He said some with young children shy away, but "in
the advent of invisible fencing and pool alarms, that's still
relevant, but it's not a big problem."
The owners in the case he cited decided to
remove the pool to sell the house.
Similarly, Eckman said one factor in his
decision to remove his pool was that it would "broaden our market
for resale. A lot of people don't like pools."
It also would mean less work, and lower
insurance costs and property taxes.
Still, he struggled with the decision, as
did his children. His daughter posted a message on her Facebook
page: "Rest in peace pool."
All told, there
are about 5 million in-ground residential pools in the United
States, according to Kirstin Pires, spokeswoman for the Association
of Pool and Spa Professionals. As the housing market has declined,
so has the installation of new residential pools, by 58 percent last
year and nearly 12 percent in 2008, Pires said.
There are no such statistics on pool
removal, she said, but anecdotally "it's pretty unusual."
Nevertheless, Panariello has found demand
increasing for his pool removal services. He estimates that his
company has removed between 900 and 1,100 pools since the 1980s.
The process takes about three working days
over a three-week period. Permits have to be obtained, utilities
disconnected and water pumped out. The liner must be removed and the
deck broken down. "There's nothing left except for the concrete and
maybe the wire that's in the deck, Panariello said.
And a big hole.
The concrete is broken up and either
carted away or buried, depending on local laws and regulations. Most
of the other materials are recycled, he said. After an inspection,
the hole is backfilled with clean dirt and the area is graded. Two
weeks later, the company covers the area with top soil and seeds it.
Pool removal costs $5,000 to $8,000,
Panariello said. That sum can be recouped within one to three years,
he said, if you consider the cost of maintaining a pool.
Pools not selling
point
Barbara Rowan of Emerson paid All Pool Demolition about $8,000 to
remove her pool last year. She said a broken pipe had caused erosion
damage, leading to structural concerns. It would have cost about
$30,000 to rebuild the pool, she said. Instead, she had it filled
in, and put in a new patio and hot tub.
Rowan and her husband hope to retire in a
couple of years. "A pool isn't always a selling feature in our
area," she said, even though it was important in their decision to
buy the house in the first place.
"It was an expensive toy," she said. "We
do miss it."
The impact of pools on real estate values
depends on where you live. "There are some areas where you pretty
much have to have a pool if you want to sell your house," Pires
said. "In other places, it's not seen as an advantage."
California leads the nation in the number
of in-ground pools, followed by Florida, Texas and Arizona,
according to statistics compiled by P.K. Data Inc.
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