Did you enjoy swimming in an endless pool?

Bottom line up front: I’m happy with my EP.
I bought an EP 12 years ago. It has helped train for triathlons. I went from being among the last in the ½ mile swim to being among the first (and first in age class). I don’t do triathlons anymore (too intense for me). Now my thing is outrigger canoe paddling. Now I use my EP for mostly aquarobics. When it is snowing or icy outside I stay in and swim and or paddle on the side of the EP.

EP is pretty easy to maintain. I put in ¼ cup of bleach per day and regularly wipe along the water edge and bleach the inside of the cover where black mold tends to grow. So far I’ve replaced the hydrolic motor that drives the water propeller 3 times ($500 each) and it is due for another change. Also I’ve changed the liner one time (very labor intense as you have to take much of the pool apart to do it) as it became faded and ugly looking from bleach and it is starting to fade again (I forgot how much that cost but it wasn’t cheap). I’ve changed the water filter only 4 times ($75 per filter). Also I replaced the water pump (the original lasted 10 years which was about par) cost $700. The heater and the hydrolic motor are original and are still going strong.

All pools cost money and take work to maintain so be prepared for those expenses. The EP technical support is excellent. If you need help with something call or e-mail them and they will help right away with expert advice.

Good health!

That seems like a pricey up keep. @JLeslie is an inground pool that pricey to keep?

I love the feel of swimming against the current and never having to do those flip-turns. So sweet to swim constantly for 30 minute with no flip turns and no other swimmers to look out for. I love to daydream or meditate while swimming in my EP (better not try that at a public pool). Also you can crank up the water speed for interval training. At first it feels a bit weird, sort of like swimming up stream or the feel of getting stuck in a riptide and I had the urge to fight it. Soon I was experimenting with all different swim strokes and even invented my own swim stroke that I call the squid stroke and I even used it in a couple triathlons.

Also I make the pool rules. I decide the water temperature (Public pools are usually too warm or too cold) which is easy and realatively quick to change). I decide how much bleach goes into the pool. It’s good to be in charge.

If you only want lap swims, I could see it but for more social aspects, I would prefer a regular in-ground.

I had to go look it up…Oh My God NO!!! If I’m going to have a pool it’s going to be kid friendly, #1.
And if I wanted to swim laps I’d just go to the college pool up the street and save myself $24,000. (Jesus.) And here I am freaking out over the cost of a simple above ground pool.

Never been to the ocean.

The only endless pool I know if is an ocean. I have enjoyed swimming in oceans, quite a bit, but it depends on how cold, polluted, and/or populated by dangerous things they are.

I guess you’re talking about some product name I have no familiarity with.

@gondwanalon Thank you so much for such a complete answer!

So, yours is indoors is that right? Does the room get humid? Do you keep a cover on it when not in use? Is the room attached to your house? Or, a separate building?

Also, only bleach? No, need to put other chemicals to balance the ph?

@Zaku It’s basically a bathtub that shoots water out so that you can “swim” against the water without actually getting any where. Kind of like jogging on a treadmill. It would suck for one such as me, a Weekie Watchie Mermaid.

@Dutchess_III Thanks. I broke down and did a web search.

Clearly I’ve never done it, but it sounds kind of annoying to me. But if someone liked the idea of it, I imagine it could be good for them.

That’s a lot of money to just swim for to stay in shape, and not for fun. I just want to float around with my blow up Monkey float thing that holds my beer.

@JLeslie Our EP is in a 23’ X 18’ room attached to our house. Has a powerful air blower to remove excess moister (automatically kicks on). If it gets over 80ºF it will also kick on. The walls and ceiling are covered with cedar paneling. It still rains in there sometimes especially in the winter when I like to keep the heat in. Also in the winter the pool room is the warmest room in the house and the cats love to sleep on the cover.

Here’s a cople pictures of our EP that I took a few minutes ago.

Well you have a cool like @gondwanalon! Pool is beautiful.

@gondwanalon It looks like the pool is part in the ground and part above, is that right?

* life* Cool life @gondwanalon. Thanks for sharing.

We absolutely need to hold a meeting at @gondwanalon‘s house!

I’m in!

I think y’all should come to where I live. Crazy cheap house rentals off season. All sorts of lectures and discussions on many topics. Tons of games to play, music, dancing, language classes, pottery, performing arts…

You guys heard her! @JLeslie invited all of us down to her place!

@JLeslie Are you building where you live or somewhere else?

@JLeslie Yes it’s half in the ground with a deeper than normal depth. The water comes up to my chest. I wanted it this way for safety and ease of entering and exiting the pool.

You guys crack me up! If any of you all are ever in Tacoma, then stop by for a test swim. Just bring your swim suit, goggles and let me know what water temp that you like.

@janbb I’m not sure we are building or what. Just exploring ideas. We’ve lived sort of in limbo for 2 years, and it’s startjng to really annoy my husband. It’s a long story, I won’t bother to go into detail here, but the brief is our house is much smaller than we want, we have had an entire bedroom packed full of boxes and furniture for almost 2 years, my inlaws are living with me now, and the situation is coming to a head.

@gondwanalon Nice offer!
Water temp: Check!
Water Speed: Zero! Anything more than 0.01 mph is too much work. :-)

@JLeslie Good idea to work out an exact plan before you buy an EP. Also try to negotiate for a good deal. They offered me free shipping. Anyway my EP sat in a big box in the garage for a year before I had the city permits assemble it. They wanted proof from the EP company that the pool could hold water. It didn’t matter that EPs are being used all over the world while holding water. They wanted to see the numbers dat. EP sent me 2 pages filled with numbers and grafts that satisfied the permit requirement. I doubt that anyone understood any of it. Also I had to have a geological study of the ground to make sure that the ground could support the pool’s water weight. All took time.

Also assembly is not as easy as EP indicates. But anyone who is good at following written instructions and handy with tools will have no problem.

Also I hired an electrician to hook up the electrical aspects (cost more $‘s). He made a fuse box dedicated to just the EP. But he didn’t hook up the equipment properly. He bypassed the the air switch to the hydraulic pump. I could have fixed that myself but I made him come back and do it right.

@LuckyGuy You don’t need to use the current. There’s always aquarobics with or without the current. or you could turn on the current and float around on a tube. I’ve been experimenting with a small plastic kayak also.Only limited by the imagination.

^^I just looked at the pools that are being done here. It’s a local Pool company, closely tied to the developer (not that that’s a bad thing) and they create the pool and then it looked like there were three huge round jets to create the resistance. Maybe a foot below the water two a foot a part and a third centered just below the two. It was very nice. A regular cement pool, fully in-ground. I think it was 10’ by 16’? I’m guessing. Three people could definitely take a dunk on a hot day for dipping and be comfortable too.

I didn’t get to try it.

@gondwanalon Ha! A good subset of my Washington family lives in Tacoma! It’s on my bucket list to get Rick up there to see my family…and Mt. St Helens and Spirit Lake and Cameno Island and all that cool stuff.

@JLeslie There are many options. EP will sell you just the water propulsion unit so you can swim against a current in any existing inground pool. My EP is 7’ X 14’. You could have a contractor make an in ground pool with those or bigger dimensions and then simply add the EP water propulsion. You may save money that way.

@Dutchess_III It’s been 20 years since I’ve been to Mt St Helens. Bet it has changed quite a bit.

But that’s where Spirit Lake is, right?

That’s right. Drive to Spirit Lake and park your car. There’s hiking trails to the Lake and up to and around the volcano. Carry plenty of water (suggest 3 lites per person) if it’s hot or you go for a long hike.

I tested out an endless pool today. It was the kind that has spa jets at the back. It would take some getting used to. I did swim, but I think I slow down when I take a breath, so that’s a little tricky with steady resistance coming at you. Since it was contoured I hit the sides a little with my feet, someone had warned me that happens to some people. I tried the treadmill, and I really liked it. It has a rowing thing also, I didn’t try that. I sat in the spa area, and I kept floating up off of my seat. She said it happens a lot to women. You can put a weight on your lap.

I haven’t been keeping up with the newer EP models and all the latest options. I’ll check it out. Sounds like the EP that you tested was loaded with options. I hardly ever hit my foot on the sides or back of our simple 7’ x 14’ EP with no bells and whistles.

I think yours is probably a simple rectangle. This one is contoured.

No. How long can you tread water? And Jaws might be around, so there’s that.