I check my filter on my Miele, once a month. Its rare that anything is in there. It takes about one or two minutes of your time. I like to open up the basket on the filter and squeeze some dishwashing liquid on it and then run it under the hot water tap. Close the basket and insert the unit back into the dishwasher. You literally pop it in place and turn and that's it. Its truly no work or no hassle nor gross. I also just scrape my dishes, you really shouldn't be rinsing them off. The enzymes in the detergent need some debris to work properly. Before my Miele I owned 2 Maytags for a total of 30 years. They obviously had macerators that ground the food. I would never go back to a North American dishwasher, not ever.

I agree with Barco, get on those drips right away. IMO, Water evaporation depends on many things, size of pool, geographic area, etc.. In our area (South Texas), we can expect up to 1" and over per day due to the heat. You can assume you will need to add water often, but again depends on where you live. How is the pool other than that? (Jealously waiting for ours to become "swimmable"....)

Here are the factors that raise the fees and much of it has to do with the physical plant of the complex itself 5 buildings built between 1838-1840 1 1860, 1 1880s, 1 highrise (8 stories) 1922. Developed as apartments in 1965 with a common boiler HVAC 2-pipe system (Heat Oct-April, AC May-Sept). Outside, inground pool added 1965. Early condo conversion 1981. So the utility fees of water, gas, sewer, heat, AC are calculated by # of cubic feet of the unit, and #of bedrooms, and split up since it is One system for 68 units in 8 buildings. This is the UTILITY fee, about 1/3 of the whole fee. There is a tremendous amount of common space with exterior windows and such, the pool has to be maintained, and we are required by law to have private garbage pickup and maintenance of public sidewalk areas (shoveling etc.) This is the COMMON FEES part of the whole fee. For a decade and a half of the condo era Most of the Units were rented out by their owners as investments and there was a very strong board of non-occupant owners who deferred maintenance, and preferred to pay out of pocket by specific assessment for repairs that came along rather than maintaining much of a Reserves Fund. The reserves fund was actually illegally underfunded. I, for example, was the FIRST owner to occupy my unit since it became an apartment. From 1965-2002 it was a rental, it was in 1965 original condition. (I am not sure it had been painted more than once in that time) Once the physical plant hit 40 much of the piping for the HVAC pipes failed all at once and we had $100K worth of replacement expenses and damages in a very short period of time. The final third of the current fee is to Fund the Reserves which were nil. So one third of it pays the utilities and part of another third pays for the pool whereas in most condos in the city except some hotel-highrise conversions everything is separate and the pool must be joined separately. Take the utility one-third out, and it's in line with a lot of buildings, take the reserves-building out and it's inline with a lot of buildings but add it all together, and its not. Plus I have heard Realtors tell lookers that the condo fee is the Common Fee and that as far as they know everything else is extra, which is false, but a lot of Realtors are not great about doing their homework, especially some of the newer ones who got licensed during the bubble, when being a Realtor here was easy, and now all the sudden they are finding it is a lot of work and one of those jobs you have to love.

Our pool is under construction so I'll just tell you what I was told (northern Virginia): 1. Heating: want the water warmed fast? propane. One builder said he only uses his heater in the spring; opens the pool and burns 400gal propane to heat it up and he's done for the season (allows him to open early). Everyone we know has propane so I can't speak to a heat pump, although a lot of builders I talked to pushed them. Our friends nearby with propane love it because if they have a pool party on a chilly day it heats the water quickly. 2. Decking: we are doing aggregate. I do not like pavers (although they do look nice in pictures); we have a perennial garden with pavers and it is a maintenance nightmare (it's about 10 years old). Ants, weeds, shifting, you name it (the grass & weeds out here are on steroids or something: they will destroy anything). We really need to have the pavers re-sanded / pounded down or whatever one does in this situation. Anyway it was enough for me to veto pavers around our pool. Sundek sounds nice but I've never seen it and I believe it is expensive in this area - but if price isn't an issue check it out. And report back :) Good luck!