There’s a lot of conflicting information about how much it costs to build a swimming pool in the UK. For example, you might read that the cost to build a swimming pool starts at £50,0000 and then read another source saying to budget for at least £200,000 + vat – that’s a big difference! Due to so many variables when estimating a swimming pool cost along with a wide range of swimming pool construction methods, it’s easy to see the discrepancies/range in costs.
So for the purposes of this guide, we are solely looking at the average cost of a 11m x 4m heated swimming pool that is suitable for most homes. When you search Google for swimming pool building costs, you will find many articles suggesting that a family sized swimming pool of 11m x 4m build costs will be between £20,000 to £50,000.
Having received a number of quotes from specialist swimming pool companies in the UK for the interest of this article, not one company quoted under £100,000 + vat and that is without any ground works.
There are three things that we learned from the quotes we received –
Costs?
Swimming pools are not cheap in the UK with high labour costs and mainly because it’s a very niche business in the UK unlike in sunnier countries – not many builders specialise in swimming pools in the UK like they do for example in Cyprus and therefore an’t achieve the same quantities of scale.
From the quotes we received you need to be budgeting at least £1250,000 + vat
What’s included?
The range of quotes and costs range massively and be careful to check what’s included, and what isn’t.
Even with choices of the best pumps for swimming pools there are many decisions to be made depending on budget.
Ground works?
Ground works must be factored into your budget. Many swimming pool companies won’t quote for ground works because it’s usually more cost effective to have a local groundworks company do the work utilising local resources, less travel costs and machinery rent costs.
Groundworks can include digging the hole for the swimming pool, digging trenches for pipework, levelling the site (if required), any surrounding hard landscaping, drainage, plant room construction, creating temporary access and setting up the site.
Will a swimming pool add value to your house?
Having a swimming pool will only add value to a house in the middle to the top of the market as the prospective buyer will be more likely to be able to afford the maintenance and running costs.
However, this depends entirely on the type of swimming pool that you build.
The classic ‘bright blue box’ (a cheap blue liner with low end coping stones and tiles) in most cases will never add value; this is because they are seen as un-slightly, and perceived as having high running costs.
On the other hand, a robustly-built, well-designed swimming pool with high-end finishes in keeping with the house and economical plant/machinery and low (or zero) chemical-usage is likely to add value.
Running costs
Again if you research the running costs of a swimming pool, you’ll comes across many different answers, anywhere from £5 per day to £25 per day. In today’s climate and economic conditions, a heat pump provides one of the cheapest and most environmentally friendly ways of heating your swimming pool. Using electricity heat is taken from the air and concentrated down into the pool water delivering an efficiency of up to 5 times the electrical energy put in.
Summary
It’s clear that swimming pools in the UK are a significant investment so it’s vital for you to ensure your money is being spent in the right place. Our advice is to do as much research as possible, take biased opinions of swimming pools builders with a pinch of salt and come to your own conclusions about what will make the project worth it for you given your requirements.
