Pool Furniture Replacement

I'm on our HOA board and have been tasked with researching cost to replace all of our pool furniture as it's cheap quality, old, and cracked. We currently have resin/plastic for everything and after researching it looks like aluminum is the way to go because it's durable and affordable as compared to wrought iron. I'm looking at sling chaises and chairs and of course I'm concerned about kids ripping the fabric. We have some kids in our neighborhood who have cost us a lot of money! We've had volleyball/tennis nets destroyed, landscaping pulled, furniture thrown in the pool (common thing but don't understand it??) and just general disregard for property. They've also ripped out plumbing in the cabana bathroom and have done some other horrible things that I won't go into. We have a guarded community so the safety officers deal with this on a daily basis. Just disrespectful teens causing trouble in one way or another! Anyway, what I'm looking for is a company to purchase commercial grade pool furniture. Leaning towards poolfurnituresupply.com as it seems to have a lot of options and priced reasonably. It looks like chaises will be between $200-$250 and chairs around $170. Haven't looked at tables. Any tips and advice is appreciated!

Thank you!

You might want to do fact the local parks department for referrals. Get more than one, so you can look at at least three bids.

In light of the vandalism, you may also want to consider installing storage areas for the furniture. If you don't have a process for going after the vandals (add-in by you've caught some of them), it's time to establish them. This should paying damages for the destruction and possibly banning those homeowners (everyone in that household) from using the pool. Sounds extreme, but homeowners should be held responsible for the behavior of their family members and friends.

You don't say If your safety officers are off duty cops - before we got rid of our pool, that's who we used for pool monitors and gave them authority to shut the pool down for the rest of the day of people got too rowdy. They may be able to contact police and have the crazies arrested. All of this is gangster, but people need to know understand there are rules and consequences for breaking them. The first few rounds of sanctification he could send a message to everyone else.

If nothing works, shut down the pool for the rest of the season. In fact send a letter to the homeowners letting them know that's a possibility and encourage them to notify the property manager if they see something (names will be kept confidential, but if legal action becomes necessary, they may be subpoenaed to testify.)

Finally, you may need surveillance cameras - if that means assessments will be increased to pay for monitoring, so be it. Perhaps that will encourage people to behave themselves and make their friends do the same.

Stuff like this is one of the many reasons our board finally shut down the pool. it wasn't easy because people did like the idea of having a place where the kids, visiting grandkids and whatnot could be entertained throughout the summer. However our budget couldn't handle increasing pool monitor and the maintenance costs, teens and preteens sneaking in the pool and throwing stuff in it (the last of the crawfish from recreations pond wound up there on one ocassion), lack of parents supervising their kids, especially little ones who might poop or nearly drown in the pool (because our toddler pool was also shut down), etc.

We got an estimate as to how much it would cost to upgrade the pools, the percentage of homeowners using it (less than 5%) and then sent a letter b homeowners laying out the numbers what it would do to assessments (increase them A LOT)and recommended that they approve the board getting rid of it.

It took 18 months to get the percentage we thought we needed, but it was approced. I say thought because we looked at the percentage needed to amend CcRscand thought it applied t changing amenities. Our attorney later said it didn't but it was as still a good idea to get buy-in from the homeowners.

I'd hoped the board would develop a nice outdoor space honest to the clubhouse with a gazebo where people could bring their grill to cook, that would increase the number clubhouse rentals and make the space more self supporting, but we didn't haves the money and today it remains a large grassy area that seems to be more of a restaurant for geese than anything else. Maybe someday....

Melissa,

You're on the right track in exploring your pool furniture replacement. Go with aluminum chairs w/ vinyl strapping for seating.

Purchase from a professional pool supply company and the commercial grade is what you want. Even better would be to purchase from a local pool supply/outdoor furniture company who can also assist you in the chairs' maintenance every three years or so. Local companies can help pick up your chairs, ship them off for restoration and return them to your pool site. It's worth the expense.

Aluminum chairs can be both re-strapped with fresh vinyl strapping as well as professionally repainted to restore the "like new" status. I also recommend, if needed, buying commercial pool grade tables.

If you wanna skimp anywhere, pick up your umbrellas from a local big box, home improvement store. Having purchased expensive, traditional umbrellas to pair with the tables, the store-bought ones are less expensive and tend to give you the same life span due to heavy-handed use.

However, the pool lounge chairs would be money well spent.

Our sling aluminum pool furniture works well. The aluminum frames & tables are Brown Jordan and are 20 years old. We've had them "reslung" if that's a word, twice--last time about 5 years ago and they'll last another 5 years if we need them too.

We have almost no children here, but grandkids, etc. do visit. So the furniture gets no abuse.

When you do get new aluminum furniture get powder coated items. Immediately have staff (or volunteers) put a thin coat of car wax on them to protect them.

Every time a homeowner asks about pool furniture especially chaise loungers Our PM always cites people throwing it in the pool. SMH. Unfortunately this is the case, twice since the pool reopened on May 8th one of the shower heads has been vandalized costing the HOA $200.00 each time to fix it. It has been broken several times over the years. I keep insisting that we upgrade to more tamper proof fixtures, but nobody listens. They like shelling out $$$ to the vendor to keep fixing it. Like someone is getting a kickback.

As for Chaise Loungers, I I would chain them in place so they can't be moved. A simple 1" round eye hook a masonry anchor and some RTV sealant. Small length of chain and a padlock.

Well Kerry, my suggestion of having garden gnomes armed with AK-47's that shoot OC skin piercing pellets That pop up out of the ground like lawn irrigation sprayers was shot down like a lead balloon.

We did the vinyl strap furniture several years ago and it has held up great. Customizing the strap colors with the accent straps also gave our pool a more upscale look than when we had big box store loungers. We have had our pool furniture go in the pool several times. We ended up with some long sections of vinyl covered steel cable that runs through the backs of all of the furniture and secures it all to the pool fence. It really doesn’t look bad and has done the job of keeping the furniture out of the pool. An added benefit is that people don’t drag furniture all over the pool deck so that pool always looks in decent shape. One tip on pool furniture - if you use a management company they may have other associations looking at new furniture as well. When we ordered we did a bulk buy for 3 associations to get a volume discount and same some money on shipping costs.

Adding a security camera system was expensive but deterred a lot of the issues we were having. We also changed to an electronic lock system with cards to control access after hours. Same teenagers broke our old vinyl fence while hopping it so when we replaced the fence we went with something a foot taller and that has a flare outward at the top - it’s stopped all but the very very dedicated fence jumpers. Several other associations in town have started using what we did to keep fence jumpers out.