Portable, Practical Pools

From left, Edgar Farias, Oscar Rosales and Maricela Amezcua carry their pool to the grass in front of the Fairview Heights Terrace apartments in Fresno, Calif. After a day at school, the friends wanted to relax and beat the heat by getting wet. (Photo courtesy of Darrell Wong, The Fresno Bee.)

by Kathy Barberich
The Fresno Bee

Do you long to splish, splash other than in your bath on a Saturday night? Do you drool for a pool? If only we could corral all that cool, cool water in our own back yards to get wet and wild whenever we wanted.

This just in: We can. Even those of us without a lot of money. We just have to be willing to think outside the ground. While in-ground pools are the ones many typically dream of, their cost can leave us high and dry. But who says you have to dig deep? You can set a pool on the ground itself and be ready to swim in less than 30 minutes. Think plastic. Think heavy-gauge vinyl. You can spend $5 for a kiddie pool or $5,000 for a family-size pool.

If you're thinking small, Rite Aid sells a 46-inch hard plastic pool for $5.99. Larger pools that a reasonably sized adult can sit in are $4 more. You can park that pool under a shade tree, sip a lemonade and pretend you're on an island somewhere far away.

An inflatable, hexagonal pool or a playground pool, complete with slide and palm trees, costs less than $20 at Target. The playground version isn't large enough for an adult-size body but looks plenty big enough to accommodate two or three small fries.

Target also sells a more sophisticated pool, a 15-foot number with a PVC frame, a filter pump, ladder and maintenance kit for $349.

Toys-R-Us has a large selection of kiddie pools and family-size pools, too, at prices ranging from about $13 to $500.

With above-ground pools, there's no digging necessary: Just add water and people of all sizes and ages for fun, which is the operative word when it comes to using the pool.

With their parents standing nearby, 20-month-old Amanda Means, left, and her 5-year-old brother, Austin, enjoy their family's above-ground pool. (Photo courtesy of Kurt Hegre, The Fresno Bee

That was Tommy Means' goal when he bought a Toys-R-Us pool for his family of four. The $499 pool was on sale for $399. "It took longer to fill it than to set it up," Means laughs, remembering how easy it was to set up the pool at his home near Easton, Calif.

He used an air compressor to inflate the heavy-gauge vinyl pool in less than 10 minutes. The pool is 18 feet in diameter and 42 inches deep. It came complete with a filtering system, cover, maintenance tools, safety ladder that folds up and locks, and a video with set-up instructions. "It couldn't have been easier," says Means. "It's great. We're having a ball in it."

Lori Whitham, her husband Scott and 12-year-old son, Chris, are enjoying the 15- by 30-foot pool they bought last summer. Theirs is 52 inches deep, has metal sides and a vinyl liner. "It looks good, is easy to maintain and the three of us put it up by ourselves," she brags.

They completed the project at their Fresno home in less than two days. The only preparation was digging out a few inches of dirt to make the ground level under the pool bottom. The pool, including a locking safety ladder, filter and maintenance kit, cost $5,000.

That's about $2,000 more than the Barbos spent for their 20-foot round, soft-side pool, which took them about two hours to set up. "It was so easy," says Grace Barbo. "We just put it on top of the grass. We had to make sure everything was level first."

She did a lot of research on above-ground pools before she bought the Tuff pool just a month ago. "I compared prices, materials and warranties," she says. "The material has a 20-year warranty. I'm not worried about squirrels and gophers chewing the pool."

The Barbos live in the country near Fresno but previously lived in the city, where they had a built-in pool for 14 years. "My three older children, now grown, enjoyed the pool so much," Barbo says. When the Barbos family moved to the country, she wanted something for her youngest son, Chris. "But I didn't want the expense and maintenance of a built-in pool again. I have two grandchildren who are also enjoying the pool. But it's not just for kids. Big people like it, too."

Jeremy Clark, manager of Pool and Spa Center in Fresno, California, explains, "The soft-side pools, which come in rectangle and round shapes, are made of an extremely heavy-gauge vinyl. The material is like that used in bulletproof vests and is extremely durable." The rectangular pools range from 9' by 17' to 13' by 25'. Circular pools range in diameter from 15 to 20 feet. Price: $2,900-$4,500.

Steel-walled pools have vinyl liners, are available in round, rectangular and oval shapes, and cost $1,500-$5,500 in packages that include pump and filter, safety ladder and maintenance kit.

"Soft-side pools are becoming very popular," Clark says. "They snap together like a puzzle. No tools are necessary. They can easily be taken down at the end of the summer and stored if people don't want to leave them up all year. And, if people move, they can take the pool with them."