Indoor Pool / inside garage

[Bryan Young]

Hi, I am looking to put an indoor pool inside of a garage to use for a short term rental (brand new construction).

Has anyone done this successfully that can share tips?  We heard from a garage door contractor he would not put in his garage doors knowing a pool would be in there since the parts get corroded from the moisture and chemicals.  Do you have a recommendation for garage doors or other recommendations as we look to build?

Thank you!

Bryan

[Greg Scott]

We had a large hole (~3sqft) in the drywall between the pool room and the office kitchen at our apartment clubhouse. Over a 3 month period, the chlorine caused the sink, the faucet, the stove burners, and all the metal utensils to become covered with surface rust.  Needless to say we quickly closed it up.

Everything metal in the garage will start to corrode.  That includes light fixtures, door knobs, shelving, window hardware, etc.  If your residents leave the door open to the "pool room" you can expect this rust to invade the rest of your house.

Be prepared to have to regularly replace kitchen equipment and lighting fixtures

[Dwayne Poster]

high maintenance costs, liability. I'd stick with the hot tub on the patio.

[Terrell Garren]

Interesting. Instead of a floating bar, you can float over and change your motor oil and air filter. Sorry, thumbs down. 

[Nicole Heasley Beitenman]

I get wanting a covered pool, but it sounds like the science won't cooperate. And unless it's, like, a 5-car garage, that's going to be a pretty small pool. I'd look into other methods of installing a covered pool if that's your goal.

[Bruce Woodruff]

The only thing like this that would work is a separate pool house...like the old ones with glass sides that open.

This sounds like a LOT of money (I'd guess $60k?) for something that won't give you such a great return....

[Ryan Moyer]

Well I will disagree with all of the above to some extent.  There are tons of cabins in Gatlinburg with pools that are in the basement, in many cases right next to a game room or living area and bedroom, so obviously it doesn't have to be disconnected.  As others have said I'm sure any metal would be an issue.

There are also tons of homes on Airbnb making buckets of money with indoor pools, so the returns can certainly be great and worth the $60k easily.

I have no experience to offer, but I think there were some threads about this in the past with people wanting to do this in Gatlinburg.  If I recall the thing that stopped people there was that they couldn't find anyone to do it since contractors are constantly booked up with jobs with better margins.  But it didn't sound technically or financially infeasible.

[Matt Castle]

Like everything in life, there are pros & cons. 

Pros: families like pool cabins b/c they can use it year round, more eye candy for the STR listing, increased revenue, etc.

Cons: more maintenance, higher utility bills, need preventative maintenance in place (vapor barrier, adequately sized dehumidifier, HVAC/mini-split), higher insurance. 

That said, they are very popular, and gives the owner a valuable addition for your future guests to enjoy a pool when there is snow on the ground. You just have to personally decide if increased returns are worth the extra headache, maintenance, costs, etc. 

[Bryan Young]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.  Does anyone have experience with an indoor pool (and ideally an indoor pool within a garage)?  I totally get the pro's and con's and additional maintenance.  Just looking for tips on how to best set it up and if there are better brands/materials to use to prevent or limit corrosion?

Thanks!

Bryan

[Colleen F.]

@Bryan Young  just a thought that putting a garage door and having a pool in the garage leads to some pretty challenging safety issues. What if someone drives into a  garage.  I would consider a large glass panel poolhouse setup over a garage door.

[Ken Boone]

I have 3 cabins with indoor pools. Here is the deal.. Compare the revenue of equal size STR without pool to one with a pool. - uh no comparison. I have seen them added to garages in the Pigeon Forge area as well although mine are either in the lower level of the cabin or on the bottom floor but to the side of the lowest level still attached. From a rental perspective, you will get higher ADR without question by having a pool. You need to make sure you have a good pool cleaning and service company before you do this. If you can line that up, the pool is absolutely worth having. Will things rust over time - yes they will, but not as fast you think. A pool cabin I purchased back in 2017, was about 10 years old when I bought it. I had to replace pretty much everything metal in that room, door hinges, door knobs, smoke detector, metal wall art (why did they even think that was a good idea?), you name it. I did that in 2017. I have some rust starting to show, but not to the degree where I need to deal with it yet. I even run A/V equipment in my pool rooms. In that particular cabin, my projector just died, after 5 years running in that pool room. Now I have had A/V equipment go out much faster in other pool rooms, but to me it is a cost of doing business the way I like to run it and I am ok with that.

Now having said, everything I said pertains to my market specifically but I think would also apply to most vacation destination markets.   If your market is not in a vacation destination your mileage may vary as I don't have experience with pools in non vacation destination markets.

As far as the garage door thing.  A lot of builders were doing garage door type builds and on the surface it's a really cool idea.  Nice day out, especially if you have a great view, pop open the garage and swim and hear the birds and see the mountains and clouds and all that.  However, I would not go that route.  Pool rooms have their own environmental climate that needs to be maintained to operate properly.  The pool heater should maintain the water at a certain temperature range, the A/C must be sized appropriately for the pool room and these conditions, a dehumidifier is an absolute and it must be sized accordingly.  

You have guests that can drastically change the climate in the pool room by popping open garage doors, then you have problems maintaining that environment.  Another thought I had, is that a guests leaves the garage door open in the afternoon/evening, and then the room fills up with bugs and mosquitos (depending on your location of course), then they start complaining about all the bugs in the pool room.  Anyway that is my reasons for not doing a garage door in a pool room although I have no experience with the garage door setup.

And yes like someone said, these pools are small pools, but it doesn't matter, the guests love them because it is quite the novelty for most guests.