The true cost of a backyard swimming pool can be hard to pinpoint. That should be pretty obvious to anyone who’s spent much time on this site, which covers everything from the huge financial impact of your choice of features to the comparatively minor cost of filling your new pool with water. At each stage, we have to point out that prices can vary – a lot. Unforeseen expenditures pool owners.

Well, here’s one thing we can say for certain: Regardless of what the numbers are, the hardest costs to bear are often those you didn’t see coming. Here are some expenses that have a way of blindsiding new pool owners, either because they’re so easy to overlook or because the dollar figures are simply much higher than you might think. What are unforeseen expenditures pool owners?

1. Digging issues

Many unexpected costs rear their ugly heads after the pool is installed, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention one major complication that can crop up at the very start of the project. Simply put, you never know what you’re going to find when you start digging in your yard. For all you know, you could be living on an ancient Indian burial ground. But a more likely problem is that there’s rock or ground water down there that makes installing a pool significantly more challenging (read: expensive). One fiberglass pool builder estimates that they run into issues like this in about 1% of their installs.

2. Home insurance rises

It may seem to you that your new pool is cool, but your insurer considers it as an “attractive nuisance.” That’s the legal concept, which means something that can make kids to invade your property, where they could suffer traumas for which you are responsible. Based on where you reside and the characteristics of your pool’s structure, this could make your premium rise sharply. Your insurer could also ask you to spend funds on extra security features (for example, a fence).

3. Heating

There are many factors included in pool maintenance; however, heating is the main variable when it concerns the price. If you don’t want to heat your swimming pool at all, you don’t need to worry. Alternatively, you may be unpleasantly surprised to find out the price of maintaining the water warm. Luckily, there are ways to reduce your pool heating expenditures using solar heaters, pool covers and good sense.

4. Landscape design

The appropriate landscape design can improve the appearance of the pool and fit perfectly into the poolscape. Unluckily, you may not understand what the “proper” landscape design is until the pool installation is completed. The price of professional landscape design can cost thousands of dollars, and even DIY projects can be costly based on the materials used.

5. Pool expert

Pool maintenance is something many persons can do themselves, particularly using the high-technology instruments that automate most of the work. Nevertheless, even if you’re going to perform cleaning and control pool chemistry on your own, you may discover that you’re not ready to always carry out these boring tasks. After all, the monthly charge for an experienced pool service company that you wanted to avoid… well, it may not sound so bad.