Stock Tank Pool Reveal
It’s finally time to share our stock tank pool with you all! I’ll give you all the details of our install as well as why we chose a stock tank pool over a traditional pool. Ready? Let’s go!
Why we chose a stock tank pool
Before we get into all the details, let me share why we decided on a stock tank pool.
First, a reminder of the backyard of the home we sold last fall before moving into Savannah proper to be closer to our boys’ school:
The marsh house had a pool when we bought it. A little slice of paradise, wasn’t it?
Here is the home we moved from before that, the first home we bought in Georgia:
Yes, we are most definitely pool people! (We had a pool in our North Carolina house way back in the day too!)
At the brick house we had the pool put in and the process is definitely not for the faint of heart.
When we purchased our current home last fall I started pricing out pools and talking with a few companies about different options and I really wasn’t happy with the the choices we had.
Our current home (I nicknamed “the cottage in the woods“) has a large, heavily wooded lot. We also live on a private road that is very tight and difficult to get larger vehicles into. These two challenges were severely limiting when it came to the logistics of putting in a pool.
There was no way we were going to opt for tearing up the yard like we did at our previous home. The property used to be part of a botanical garden and we have over 100 camellia trees, over 50 azaleas, hydrangeas, gardenias, magnolia trees, and towering live oaks dripping with spanish moss.
Nope, we had zero motivation to tear the yard up.
I resigned myself to not having a pool. It was fine…as our boys have gotten older they used it a lot less, and after having skin cancer removed from my face a few years ago I used our pool less and less as well.
Then came spring.
Spring in south Georgia means summer. It was 90 degrees in late March and I was working in the yard one day and missing the days I could take a quick dip in the pool to cool me off. I told my husband we needed to figure something out to keep us cool!
That is when I found stock tank pools (often called cowboy pools) online. There is a whole world of stock tank pool lovers I never knew about! Online groups with tutorials for making your own DIY stock tank pool, etc. I had no idea!
At the time we were still deep in the trenches of our home renovations and when I brought up making ourselves a DIY stock tank pool with my husband Randy, he just wasn’t up for it.
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Luckily, I found Ranch Pools, a company that sells and ships ready-made stock tank pools and we decided to take the plunge (lol) and buy one.
Now, I’m going to be very honest and upfront on this: we did NOT choose the most frugal option out there. There are many tutorials on how to make a cowboy pool on a budget, and that is not what we did. We just didn’t have the bandwidth to DIY this time.
We purchased a plug-and-play option and I’m so glad we did!
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We decided on an eight-foot stock tank pool, which was the largest size that could be shipped. If you live local to the company we used I think you can go up to 10 feet. The pool comes with a galvanized steel exterior, the rubber interior, and the jets and filter. We also added a cover for the pool (lots of trees/leaves here!), some headrests, and we added a heater/chiller so we have full control over the water temperature year-round.
The purchase process
We purchased the pool and accesories online one evening and the next day I had an email from the company giving me a wealth of information about the process, what to expect, and video tutorials about setting the pool up. The communication was amazing.
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When it was time for the pool to ship they were on standby for any issues that came up with the shipper, which we actually did need them for. I mentioned earlier that we live on a very narrow private road and the shipper couldn’t get the truck to our driveway.
I made a quick phone call, and the pool company helped me handle the issues with the delivery so that we could get our pool without damage.
Our pool came securely wrapped and the accessories were in 3 additional boxes. This photo is right after delivery. We inspected the pool before signing for it, per the company’s instructions.
Installing the stock tank pool
The area for the pool install needed to be level and we decided to use pea gravel as a base. We were able to carefully roll the pool to the installation location from where the shipper left it.
We also chose to have electric run to the install area with extra outlets and additional wiring for a sauna we plan to install in the future. This isn’t necessary for installing a stock tank pool in general, so this was an extra cost for our particular install.
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Once the pool was in place and leveled, it took about an hour for my husband to hook everything up using the provided video tutorials.
Very easy.
Then it was time to fill it up!
I quickly realized once we had the pool up and running that I needed something to put our towels on and to step on because this area of our yard is very dirty/dusty. I found these wooden pathways that fit the curve of the pool perfectly. I ordered two of them.
We also found this bench that worked well for holding drinks/towels, sitting on to take your shoes off, etc. Randy expanded the pea gravel to have a larger perimeter around the pool for the walkway and bench, we used about 19 bags of pea gravel total for the entire project.
(The girls like to chat while we hang out in the pool! 🐓)
Would I buy a stock tank pool again?
I absolutely would purchase another stock tank pool. I think it is the perfect solution for what we were looking for: a way to quickly cool off, enjoy an adult beverage or two, hang out and enjoy the yard.
We didn’t have to tear up our yard or go through a multi-month construction process, we didn’t spend a ton of money compared to the added value of the house, and we can remove it without issue down the line if we want to so there is minimal commitment.
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I really like the fact that we can take a quick dip to cool off in our hot, humid weather; we can heat it in the winter to use as a hot tub of sorts; and we can even chill it to use as a cold plunge if we want.
Would you consider a stock tank pool? Give me your thoughts in the comments, I’m excited to share more about ours soon!
