For years, our pool freaked me out. Just like your subject, older concrete pool, and closed already for winter as we found the house in October. All fine now, thousand$ later and crushing anxiety. Absolutely know what you’re getting into! I won’t say NEVER buy like we did when it isn’t operating, even legitimately closed. Even if nothing is structurally wrong, you could spend thousands updating old, ancillary equipment like pump, filter and sweep, which we did in order to have a pool we were comfortable with.

How about some pictures and a few examples for us.... Thanks!!!

I bought a house near Houston with a 9 year old pool, was incredibly stupid and never even had an inspection. First issue was PH was so high it burnt your skin after a few seconds, and Cyanuric Acid was over 100. Rodents had chewed through the heater wiring. I knew nothing about pools and didn’t want one but realised I had to learn otherwise it would become a money pit. I was lucky that the pool was built and specced well and hadn’t been abused for too long. I installed a flow meter, SWCG, fixed the heater wiring, optimised the pump schedule. It’s now 13 years old and only the cleaner pump has needed replaced. I was incredibly lucky though as i was playing Russian roulette when we bought it.

I wish this video existed 3.5 years ago.

great video. I have learned a bunch from your videos. We bought our house in October and didn't know half of the nothing I still don't know today about pools. I did have the pool inspected by a house inspector that knows pools. not a pool inspector. So I did understand going in that it would be a basic surface inspection. I'm also a HVAC tech so I understand the mechanics of things. For the most part the pool is in good shape. It's a salt water single pump pool, 17000 gals, all white PVC pipe. Tiles look good minus the white salt build up above the water line. I did see one side of the deck (two 4' x 8' pads) that were sinking away from the pool. about 1/4" at coping and 3/4" at edge of deck. I did a 5 day bucket test in March and anther beginning of July. Both yielded no indication of leak. Here is my questions. I have raised rounded lip bricks for my coping. I recently found two that are next to each other, Not anywhere near a return, that have a hollow sound when tapped on. They also have a rougher feel to them. The decking all sounds solid and I see no signs of cracks in the pool wall at all. is this a major concern? is this something I could have spot checked or is this more evasive? The other thing I have what look like surface scratches at the bottom of the deep end not up to but around the drain. Not sure what caused them or if I should be very worried about them. Do you have any insight on what have caused these, have you seen like scratches before, hoe concerned should I be? Thanks again, I have learned a ton about my pool through you videos.

I bought a house a few months ago and there are a few cracks in the bottom of our concrete pool. There are some very small cracks in the concrete pool deck around the pool. Everything is still level, and the pool line shows that the pool is level within 1/4" all the way around the pool. Pool was built in the 80s and has been running since and never shut off for the winter. We are located in south Georgia, USA. The cracks are in the transition between the walls and floor. There are a few hairline cracks that are barely visible, but in the deep end there is a crack that's about 1/8" thick and it runs about 3 feet. We had the pool inspected by our main home inspector, a pool inspector, and a concrete pool specialist. All inspections were done on different days. They all said that the cracks are typical with the age of the pool surface and they said that we would be fine to just have the pool resurfaced as soon as we can, but no longer than 2 years. Fingers crossed we don't run into any unexpected issues when we have it resurfaced.

Great Video Just a quick FYI for all since this video touched on topic that is young passion of mine. 87 Lamborghini an old concrete pools are a perfect example. 87 lamborghini is a incredibly reliable car but any major issue and it is really really expensive. If that car was cared for and built right - it will be fine - but needs to be gone over by an expert to find out if it in fact has good history and is in good condition.

im still youseing grampas pool installed 1969 secoind filter kept in the basment maintanace always done pool is 32x16 inground made of cinder blocks 4th liner copeing block white madusa just starting to fail live in upstate ny thank you carlile pools for a great install in 69' it was the summer of 69' lol good old days

I like your selected example of the painted pool, I know where you got that image.

Hey! Im buying a home with a concrete pool and its about 18-19 years old. I had it inspected and the guy said the pool was one of the best pools he's seen in this age bracket. Question: What age bracket do you consider "old"? When did they start changing the way they made these pools so they have less problems? Thanks man. Great channel.

I lucked out when we bought our house with concrete pool in the winter having no pool knowledge. I did have to do a re-plaster and changed tile after about 5 years though ($20k). Despite that I consider myself lucky, it could have been a lot worse.

I bought a house where there was no expansion joint and the deck was not even mentioned on the inspection. Do you think it was purposefully omitted? Bond beam is sheered 2” down.

Really good video. I live in DFW and this time of year, the only people who go outside have pools. My pool is 20 years 12:01 I am getting some of the problems you talked about. I have some movement between the copping and tile. And two cracked copping bricks. And soon, new plaster. About 20k to fix.

Cracks in the plaster don’t always mean cracks in the concrete wall. Sometimes you just need new plaster. But is there a way to inspect the crack to see if the concrete wall is cracked too?

In your experience, dose plaster crack from beingso old? Like a hair line? Or is that a cracked pool?

yep my pool had black plastic pipe we replaced in 2000 w the white flexible pipe

Numerous times, I have been called to help out with a pool in the yard of a house that someone had just bought. I get there and there is almost as much wrong with it as there is right with it. I cringe EVERY TIME. I ask if they had an inspection done on the pool (knowing the answer). "No, the seller said everything worked great". Well, what the hell did you expect them to say. Seriously, for the sake of a couple hundred bucks (pool inspection), people buy high dollar trouble! I will never understand this. I don't give them hell, I tell them the truth and the THINK it's hell. Never buy a house with a pool unless you get a VERY seasoned pool pro to check it out!!! Home inspectors are not trained in this area. They simply do not know what they are looking at.

Maintaining the proper calcium chloride hardness level in a pool can help prevent concrete surfaces from deteriorating over time. Calcium hardness helps stabilize the water and prevents it from becoming aggressive, which can lead to the degradation of concrete surfaces.

I have a customer who has about 30 feet of horizontal cracks on the tiles Long cracks.

I would not recommend any type of pool except a concrete wall swimming pool. I just built a concrete wall pool in my own backyard. Steve advised me on all of the general swimming pool stuff while my structural engineer, who has also done concrete pools, advised me on the concrete specific stuff. Thanks again Steve for all of your non concrete advise. I may sound biased however I believe my pool is the most high quality pool ever built. Everything about my pool is over engineered from the 4100 psi concrete with fiber, to the 12" rebar grid everywhere, to the 300 feet of #8 copper wire in a cinnamon swirl pattern used for eqipotential bonding. My waterproofing is a couple coats of Krystol-T1 and that's all covered in high quality epoxy. My plumbing pad is 36" off the ground (no need for knee protection pads) and consists of 8 Jandy 2-way valves and 15 Jandy 3-way valves. It is a functional sight to behold that is also an extragavent indulgence. My chlorinator is bypassed and my future heater chiller will be bypassed. I will have many water meters. IMO, if you are deciding to build a pool, I highly recommend a concrete wall pool.

What about fiberglass?? I guess you’re not a lover 🤔🤔

bought a house... trusted the owners.... mmmh, I am not even gonna write that here, it is embarrassing.

Haven't seen poly pipe in 30 years.

Stainless steel D.E. filter housing = indefinite life. No need for replacement ever. Original plaster on 35-year old pool. No cracks or leaks whatsoever. Some popped tiles = pressure from released coping because polymer wasn't originally used in cement mix to secure them to top of pool wall or water got behind failed caulk joints between coping and top row of tile. Cracked concrete slabs = very common regardless of whether there is a pool there or not because concrete has high compressive strength but low lateral strength. The list goes on and on of things that are very common simple wear issues with a pool as opposed to catastrophic failures that you seem to want to tend to believe. Gee...let me drain my pool and risk cracking it because my plaster is so old, even though it basically looks fine, that it must be leaching water even though the water level never goes down other than by evaporation on very hot days.