The three kinds of cost
Pool money comes in three shapes. The yearly bills: service, opening and closing, chemicals, electricity, heating, water. The every-few-years bills: the salt cell, the liner or the plaster, the pump, the heater, the cover fabric. And the one-time bill: the pool itself, and everything the villages and the water table add to it. Most sales conversations cover the third and skip the first two. This guide does all three, with 2026 figures, Long Island where they exist and national where they do not, and says which is which.
Every year
Service. One Hamptons company publishes its 2026 prices: à la carte visits from $110, a monthly test-and-balance check-up from $150, and a 20-week seasonal program at $3,350 with all chemicals included, about $168 a week. Nationally, full weekly service runs $175–300 a month by one source and $120–250 by another; chemical-only $80–130. If you skip the program and buy chlorine yourself, a season's chemicals cost $175–800 (sources spread widely); a salt pool's run under $100 once dialed in.
Opening and closing. From about $425 each on the South Fork (one Hamptons company's published price). Nationally, $250–500 to open (gunite at the top) and anywhere from $175 to $500 to close depending on which source you read.
Electricity. The pump is the quiet bill. A single-speed pump uses about 3,000–5,000 kWh a year (one estimate: 4,600); a variable-speed pump 1,000–2,400 (one estimate: 803). Long Island's residential rate is roughly 27–28¢ per kWh, among the highest in the country, so that is about $825–1,375 a year single-speed against $275–660 variable-speed. The federal pool-pump rule of July 19, 2021 has effectively removed larger single-speed pumps from new installs anyway; if yours is old, replacing it ($900–2,500 installed) pays back in two or three seasons here.
Heating. A gas heater runs $150–400 or more a month in use (a national ballpark, not a Long Island number; propane in New York averaged $3.086 a gallon in July 2026 per NYSERDA, though a secondary aggregator claims $3.75). A heat pump runs $50–300 a month, about $0.75 an hour for a 100,000-BTU unit, and needs air above roughly 45–50°F. A solar array costs almost nothing to run and takes the edge off May and September.
Water. Cheaper than people fear. At the Suffolk County Water Authority's 2026 rate of $1.866 per hundred cubic feet, filling a 20×40 pool (33,000–39,000 gallons) costs about $87 in water charges; a 15,000-gallon top-up about $37, before the fixed quarterly charges you pay anyway. Trucked water is $400–2,400 for 10,000–20,000 gallons. Filling from a private well is free and risks iron and manganese stains the moment the chlorine goes in; test or filter first.
Adding it up. For a serviced 20×40 gunite pool: $3,350 of service, about $850 of opening and closing, $275–660 of electricity with a variable-speed pump and a top-up of water is about $4,600–5,000 a year before heating and repairs. A Long Island contractor's own estimate of $1,500–3,000 a year "to maintain a gunite pool" covers chemicals, testing, opening, closing and pump electricity without a weekly-service program; it is the do-it-yourself version of the same season.
Every few years
These are the bills that make the yearly number a fiction if you ignore them. Amortized:
| Item | Cost | Cycle | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salt cell | $200–1,800 (four sources, four ranges) | 3–6 years | $200–360 |
| Vinyl liner (Long Island) | $5,000–7,500 | 8–10 years | $500–940 |
| Plaster resurfacing | about $11,000 typical ($4/sq ft; $6,000–15,000 projects) | about 10 years | $1,100 |
| Pebble resurfacing | $9,000–20,000+ | 20+ years | $450–1,000 |
| Pump | $900–2,500 installed | replace past 10 years | $90–250 |
| Gas heater | $3,300–6,800 installed | 7–12 years | $275–970 |
| Heat-pump heater | $2,500–7,500 installed | 15–20 years | $125–500 |
| Filter | Sand $250–1,000 · cartridge $250–1,200 · DE $550–1,300 | cartridges every 1–3 years; tanks longer | $100–400 |
A reasonable reserve for a gunite pool with a gas heater and a salt system is $1,500–2,500 a year. A vinyl pool trades the plaster line for the liner line. We have not found a trustworthy lifespan figure for automatic-cover mechanisms or fabric, so that line is blank rather than guessed.
Repairs, when they come
Leak detection $100–600 for a standard inspection, $400–1,000 on an in-ground pool with buried plumbing, $300–1,200+ when pressure, dye and electronic testing are all needed. Repairs from $100–130 for a skimmer to $500–1,500+ for a typical in-ground leak and $3,000–8,000 for a structural crack. Motor $65–650 or $250–2,000 for the assembly. Acid wash $120–1,500, most about $450. None of these is annual; all of them arrive in August.
Once
The pool. On Long Island a standard gunite pool runs $90,000–140,000 and a custom one $100,000–400,000+, or $100–280 per square foot; by size, a 14×28 from $90,000, a 16×32 $105,000–130,000, a 20×40 often above $140,000. A Hampton Bays builder puts most of its projects at $100,000–150,000 in a $75,000–200,000+ range. Vinyl-liner pools run $40,000–70,000 and fiberglass $45,000–85,000, both single-source Long Island figures.
What gets added. A spa or waterfall +$8,000–35,000; pebble +$4,000–8,000; automation +$3,000–8,000 (or $2,800–6,500 as a later retrofit); an automatic cover $15,000–25,000, up to $30,000 custom; a gas heater $3,300–6,800 installed, a heat pump $2,500–7,500; coping $25–55 per linear foot in bluestone or travertine; filtration $4,000–8,000; permits $800–2,000; rock excavation on the moraine +$3,000–15,000; a limited-access lot +15–30%. A 20×40 gunite pool with a spa, pebble finish, automation, cover and heater is a $200,000 project before the pool house, the fence, the decking and the landscaping.
The pool house. In the Town of East Hampton it is capped at 200 square feet plus 400 of open porch, one per lot, and it is the only accessory building allowed plumbing besides an approved accessory dwelling; price it as a small building, because it is one.
Insurance. A pool raises liability. The industry guidance is at least $300,000–500,000 of liability coverage instead of a typical $100,000 base, plus an umbrella policy.
The Hamptons multipliers
- Salt air. Copper heat exchangers corrode in salt water and salt air; cupro-nickel is the coastal specification. Contactors, motor housings and cell terminals on an oceanfront pad fail years before inland ones. Spend the money on the spec, not on the third heater.
- The empty week. Most South Fork pools are looked after for owners who are elsewhere Monday to Friday. Weekly service is the default, not the upgrade, and automation you can see from the city ($2,000–5,000 new, $2,800–6,500 retrofit) is the second default. Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020 knocked out roughly 645,000 PSEG Long Island customers at its peak and took 8 days to fully restore; a pump that does not restart is a green pool.
- The permit clock. The Town of East Hampton's building department reported a 16–20 week backlog in 2026 against a 15-day statutory clock; the Village usually issues in 2–4 weeks. Long Island builders say to book 4–6 months ahead for a spring completion, and the 2020–2022 boom, when Bloomberg reported Hamptons owners waiting until 2023, showed what a full season looks like. A pool for next summer is designed this fall.
- The water table. Near the bays, the ponds and the harbor, groundwater is a few feet down. Sag Harbor Village requires a test hole proving a new pool sits above the seasonal high water table and cartridge filtration so nothing backwashes to the ground; the Town of Southampton requires a drywell for backwash. Never fully drain a pool on a high water table; before a storm, lower it a foot or two, shut the power and gas, and leave the rest in.
- The rules. New York's 48-inch barrier and its pool-alarm law (every pool built or substantially modified since December 14, 2006; an automatic safety cover exempts the pool), doubled setbacks for pools and equipment in the Town and Village of East Hampton, 10-foot equipment setbacks and 150-foot wetland setbacks in the Town of Southampton, rear-yard-only pools in Southampton Village, a 15-foot setback in Sag Harbor, and the Suffolk County pool endorsement every builder and service company needs on its Home Improvement Contractor license.
What to do with the numbers
Three things pay for themselves quickly on the South Fork: a variable-speed pump ($550–1,000 a year at Long Island rates), an automatic cover (heat retention, safety, no alarm), and a seasonal service program on a house that is empty in the week. Three things people underbudget: the finish (plaster every decade), the heater (7–12 years for gas in salt air), and the permit calendar. And one thing to ask every company: whether the numbers on their quote are the whole year or just the visit.
Sources and method
Compiled 25 August 2026 from Aquacade Pools' published Long Island service prices, the Suffolk County Water Authority rate page, NYSERDA's monthly propane survey, Angi, HomeGuide and Fixr 2026 cost guides for openings, closings, pumps, filters, leaks, heaters, resurfacing and covers, Pentair's summary of the 2021 DOE pool-pump rule, Long Island builder pricing pages (gappsi.com and JAS Aquatics — one of which our masonry research caught contradicting itself, so both are treated as market color rather than audited prices), the NY Department of State pool-alarm bulletin, the Northeast Spa & Pool Association's summary of Suffolk County licensing, town and village codes read through search extracts because their host refuses direct requests, LIPA's Isaias report, and Bloomberg/Crain's reporting on the 2022 Hamptons pool backlog. The electricity arithmetic applies the 27–28¢/kWh Long Island rate from our HVAC research to national kWh figures; every derivation is stated in the text. Not published on purpose: a pool-density figure for the South Fork (none exists), an automatic-cover lifespan, and durations for resurfacing and liner jobs (no reliable source). Reviewed and updated as prices change.