What to Expect When Building a Pool – Part 2

The Adventure Continues – Building a Pool

In yesterday’s post about what to expect when building a pool, the last thing I shared was the pool company, Treasure Pools, backfilled around the pool, installing the equipotential bonding and leveling out the ground. That happened on workday 7 of the pool build, so we were zipping along. . 

The next step was getting the coping and tiling around the top of the pool and across the steps installed. 

The set up and installation of the coping took one day to complete.

Then, the next day, they came and installed the tile around the top and across the steps.

Just so you know, this tile was one of the additional costs we paid for, in addition to the quoted estimate. It was an upgrade that cost us about $400 extra. Worth every penny.

After the tile was done, it was time for the paver deck to be installed. Here you can see them filling up the space next to the pool coping with water. They did that to make sure there were pockets of air that would cause the deck to sink later. 

The deck took a few days to complete, but it’s a lot of work. With over 1000 square feet of deck, that’s a lot of cuts! We went with a random pattern this time, of three different sized bricks.

At some point, I need to pressure wash the existing deck and paint it to match the pavers. I just couldn’t justify the cost of replacing all the concrete deck close to the house, so we will make it work. The slightly pink tone to it is from the dogs tracking in the dye from the mulch that used to surround the patio… what a mess!

After the deck was completed a few days later, they came back again and removed the rest of the piles of dirt and leveled all the ground. We ended up having to replace a lot of sod around the pool area, and down one side of the house. Count on that expense, by the way. We aren’t even finished replacing it yet – we are doing it pallet by pallet over time. We still have a long way to go there.

They came a few days later to clean up the pool itself, making the surface nice and smooth. They also waterproofed around all the openings, and prepared it for the final coat of quartzscape (also known as diamond brite to most people). The electrician came back, and installed the equipment (pump, salt system, lights, etc).

And then we had to sit and wait until the fence passed inspection. This was the most frustrating part of the whole process. The pool company would have been able to call in the quartzscape company after they installed the equipment, but the fence company failed inspections twice. Once because the gates weren’t self closing or self latching, and the second time because the openings between the end of the gate was bigger than two inches from the chainlink… It took about two or three weeks. In the meantime, the pool sat empty and sad. School started, my son’s birthday passed (was supposed to have a pool party) and I ended up going out of town a few times before they finally got the inspection to pass. To be clear here, the fence company was completely separate from the pool company and should have no reflection on them. In order to fill the pool, the pool enclosure, in this case the fence, had to pass inspection. We would have been done at around 6 weeks had it passed when it was first inspected.

Finally, the day came when they showed up to do the quartzscape! Of course it was the day before we went out of town for the weekend, but it was a fabulous day!

We went with SCP quartzscapes blue as the color for our finish. Although it looks a grayish white when they are putting it on, it does end up making the water a pretty shade of blue.

I took this just as they finished up and stuck the hose in the pool… 

Of course, the kids didn’t wait for the pool to fill to get in and play…

The next morning, bright and early, we left to go to a family reunion, so we missed the next few days of watching it fill ever so slowly… But when we got back, the pool was filled and ready to go! It was a little cloudy because they couldn’t put chemicals in it yet, but that didn’t stop anyone from taking a dip.

Start to finish, it was eight weeks. One week longer than the last two pools took to finish, but that wasn’t the fault of the pool company. They would have been done in six had the fence passed when it should have.

We are still not finished with getting the back yard to where we’d like it to be, you know, with small things like grass. But our outdoor space has gone from unusable, to our favorite space to hang out. We are lucky that we live in Florida, so we still have quite a few months that we will be able to use the pool before it gets a little too chilly…

The kids were so excited to invite their friends over to swim… but I’m pretty sure you can’t tell. 😛

*pay no mind to my bad photoshop skills… I’m trying to picture that yard with grass.

Here’s a breakdown of the additional costs I referred to in the posts:

• upgrade for pool tile: $400
• Remove and cut up palm tree in the way, and remove fence $175
• additional deck space to square off deck $225
• make outside plugs code compliant $150 (our portion of split with pool company)
• chain-link fence to go around entire backyard – $6000
• landscaping – remove tree in the way of the fence line and have root removed: $500
• landscaping – remove entire section of banana trees – $300
• landscaping – plants to go around fence line to make code compliant $400
• landscaping – plants installed $450
• landscaping – sod replacement – $120 a pallet – so far 4 pallets, need about 5 more
• irrigation – had to run new lines, replace broken pipes and heads where trucks ran over them, fix the pump, etc $2,000
• Awesome mosquito killer… priceless. Seriously. (I got mine on Prime day, but even at full price, it’s a-maz-ing!) Made our backyard usable even at night.

Did I leave anything out? Probably. Building a pool doesn’t always follow these exact steps, but this is how it happened for us. I’m assuming that if you build a pool in another state, there would be different codes, etc. And fiberglass pools are a completely different story. If you have any questions about concrete pools, let me know. I’ll do my best to answer them – and if I can’t, I’ll ask Craig, my pool guy.

In the meantime, I’m going to sit in the pool and enjoy the quiet while all the kids are in school.

Eliesa