Time for a pool party

It's the ultimate, your own swimming pool. A chance to fulfil your dream of finely tuned muscles, honed by daily lengths. A taste of the celebrity lifestyle, with poolside barbecues and glamorous parties. According to the pool industry watchdog, the Swimming Pool and Allied Trades Association (Spata), 6,000 of us installed a pool last year, compared to 1,000 built in 1989. So is it costly? What about maintenance? And will it add to your property's value?

The economy option is an above-ground pool, starting at £1,750. But most homeowners go for a sunk pool (known as a liner pool) and, although a fibre-glass lining costs only around £8,500, aficionados prefer concrete: average price £18,000.

If you live in central London, with a small or non-existent garden, you'll want an indoor pool, probably in your basement, and here, particularly if you add extras such as specialist lighting or a Jacuzzi, you're talking big prices. It's not unknown for enthusiasts to spend £250,000.

The good news is that pool technology has improved enormously. Gone are the days of heavy chlorine; new environmentally friendly systems such as Active Oxygen are low maintenance and don't require huge plant rooms. Heating is a must, and outdoor pools need a cover. But Spata, which produces two free booklets on everything you need to know about pools, reckons the average yearly bill for heating and maintenance is no more than £500.

But does a pool increase your home's value? Maybe. At the top end of the London market, in the £5 million plus bracket, indoor pools appeal to international buyers. "What they are is another tick in the box if you're looking for a trophy house," says Hamptons's Adrian Owen. Mark Rymell of Strutt and Parker reckons: "A well-built, air-conditioned, indoor pool, costing around £100,000 to build, could add the same sum to the property."

FPDSavills's Noel De Keyzer finds they're popular with South African buyers and Americans. "It's difficult to quantify the uplift in value, but it does increase saleability."

However, nobody's quite so enthusiastic about outdoor pools. "They look very pretty," admits De Keyzer, "but, even if they're heated, the months you can use them are limited." Family buyers worry about child safety while gardeners prefer more garden. In fact, new homeowners have been known to fill them in. Rymell believes that, in general: "You should add a pool only in very special circumstances."

Of course, there is one hasslefree way to enjoy a private pool and that's to buy into a development where it's a feature. At St James Homes's Kew Riverside (020 8878 9140), where one bedroom apartments start at £300,000 and four-bedroom town houses at £945,000, the marketing suite is by the pool. Spokesman Ian Hughes agrees that a pool helps with sales, but adds: "We don't put pools in willy-nilly. We don't do it if there's not enough space or if it's inappropriate."

The pool is tailored to the development. Family-oriented Kew Riverside has a children's area, while St James's SE8 in Deptford (020 8469 0077), has a 25m pool for the career-oriented keep-fit enthusiasts most likely to buy one of its apartments, worth £150,000 or more.

Pool maintenance in a development the size of Kew Riverside (350 homes) or SE8 (500 homes) won't make a big impact on service charges. But in smaller blocks it can prove expensive. Do residents get good value? Robert Orr-Ewing of Knight Frank Lettings believes pools are a plus for tenants, but adds: that "they're hardly ever used".