Inground Pool quote (What do you think?)

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lusa718

0
Oct 11, 2015
8
carmel/new york
Below you will find a quote and a drawing that I received from a local PB for a 18X36 inground gunite pool. I personally believe is on the high end but I might be wrong. at this price tag I guess I will not be able to afford a pool. I live in Carmel, NY (lower Hudson Valley) please share your opinion and if anyone knows of a good pool builder in my area that will be able to do similar job for a reasonable price.

Pool 18x36 = $42,000
3 color lights =$2,100
Heather 400Btu = $2,800
electrician = $4,800
Deck Idaho Quartzite 500Sq ft = $17,000
Uv + Salt machine = $3,400
Water fall = $6,000
Boulders = $3,400

Total = $81,500

Does not include hot tub, Fence, tree removal, slide, Water, cover, gas tank and gas hookup
 

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I would also question the need for the UV. Typically for outdoor residential pools, the sun's UV is all you need to help with the oxidation process. That might save you a few bucks. :) Something else you might want to post for the audience is specifically what type of equipment you are being quoted for (i.e. type/size pump(s), SWG/cell sizing, etc). Some of those factors will certainly make a difference in your quote or the feedback you receive from other forum members. Best of luck on your pool!
 
Wow...my quote included everything except landscaping. There was one price including lights, electrician, SWG, concrete etc.

Oh, and I'm glad I live in a lower cost area...YIKES!!!
 
Ask PB to break down the 42k too. How can he have electric at a fixed cost of 4800 when several options that you may or may not take needs electrical work.

I find that the savings in a pool come by slashing little costs in a lot of areas.

Your deck cost at more than 30 per sqft is a lot.

6k for waterfalls is something to think about...a lot of people complain that the waterfalls make so much noise that they end up keeping it off. It looks great on pictures though ;)

You can also ask PB what items can be done as Stage 2 easily.

Hope this helps to start further discussions.


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Welcome, lusa. That is a gorgeous drawing. While I can't help you on local pricing, I did want to comment on this:
at this price tag I guess I will not be able to afford a pool.
Click to expand...

It's possible that while you can't afford THAT pool, if your motivation to have a pool for the relaxation and enjoyment of life, there are other options, depending on how much you want it ;)

I felt the same way a few years ago after being told at my old house we'd have to tear down the garage and 2 hundred year oaks to build. I had sticker shock and was concerned that the money it would take was not worth it in relation to my particular house, which was big, old, with wicked stairs and not a place I thought we'd be able to age in place.

Solution? I went out and found a house with the setting and a pool I wanted, and lucked out on a foreclosure ;) Now the house was well designed to age in place, but the pool was nothing like your gorgeous pic! Its a standard grecian vinyl package that was installed in a former storm water catch basin...a "cheaper pool," but there had been expensive engineering to manage the water table issues via sump and drainage plus a big investment in creating a terrace on the hill to slow down runoff.

No fountain? Okay...I bought an outdoor fiberglass fountain and ran a mandeville trellis around it. No firepit? Bought a portable propane one. No outdoor kitchen? Made a kitchen in the small polebarn that now serves as a pool house. Got myself an outdoor bar, couch, awning, swing, plantings instead.

Perhaps a poor-man's paradise ... compared with your drawing...but my quality of life, social times, and health have improved dramatically! ;)

Some day I will cap the cement with slate for the ultimate look I want but in the mean time I'm just enjoying having the water! Each year of the last four I add a new "feature" to my pool area with cash on hand.

Today, you can do a lot to dress up a vinyl pool, and save 10s of thousands going that route. You can do vinyl in irregular shapes, cap with flagstone, etc. For a water fall, knowing what I now now about pool chemistry and ph, I wouldn't install one in a new build...but would create the fountain feature separately and isolated from the pool water. Same with a spa.

SO, take a look at vinyl options...the money you save can be spent on some beautiful natural stone surrounding, and your pool area can evolve over time ;) Life's too short to go without, IMHO!

I hope you get some options priced that are more in your comfort zone. I feel you should be able to knock about 30% off that price if you do. Best wishes!
 
Hi again.

When you talked to your PB, had you already determined you wanted a gunite/plaster pool, or had they up sold you?

Eg. Some vendors who prefer earning on the labour tout gunite for the freedom of design and like to say vinyl (which is cheaper and faster to install...less labor) costs more over lifetime of pool due to changing liner.

I am personally on year 15 of my liner, but even if I changed it every 5 -7 years, my cost would be about the same as if I had to replaster every 10-15 years. So I don't personally see that as a reason to prefer gunite ;)

Now, the design freedom is another matter entirely, especially if a PB has the sense that budget is not an issue. I watched a friend go through this. Yes, she could afford an 80k pool. Ergo, that's what was offered up, with a whole lot of nonsense about why this was a vastly superior way to go ;)

Here's a link to some if the shapes you can get, non-custom and ergo less expensive, from Latham/performance pools, that would cost about half of the gunite pool depending on labor rates in your state:
Polymer Pool shapes - Performance Pool Products

The lagoon shape is closest to your design. While I suspect flagstone or slate would be about half as much as your quatzile, even if you went with the proposed stone, I suspect you could knock down that price a lot on labor alone.

Hope tat helps!
 
Hi swampwoman, I hope you work as a professional writer, lol. I am already determined to get a gunite pool, also I do not think my wife will be interested in buying another house because of a pool. i do appreciate your long comment, I hope your write again in the near future.
 

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Welcome lusa718 :wave:

My wife and I LOOOOVED going up to Carmel on the weekends, the town center is so quaint and beautiful!! We left NY long ago, but I would definitely pick Carmel if we had to live there again (although getting on & off the Taconic Parkway from 301 is, shall we say, SCARY!!!! I think it's 301, right?).

Anyway, AWESOME pool design, but let me ask you this - THAT pool seems out of place to me for a NY pool. Your swim season, at best, is going to be mid-June to Sept 1st, even with a gas heater. And if you don't have natural gas plumbed into your home, adding a propane tank plus on-going propane costs are soooooooper expensive!! You might want to reconsider your heat source. But back to the pool, I love the design and I'm sure it would make your backyard gorgeous, but that much money for such a short swim season.....to each his own, but I would reconsider the design.

As others have said, you have some very fancy add-ons and, while I love the deck, $30/sq-ft is highway robbery. And I would definitely question that $48k base price....that has to be broken down better because that is very high for a base price even by fancy Carmel, NY standards.

I'll look over the post a bit more and see if I can think of anything else.

Welcome!!

Matt
 
Lusa, just wanted to make sure you know all your options ;)

Matt, my comments to Lusa that amounted to "don't go without a pool just because you don't want to spend 80k" came from a place where I was also considering the shortened season we northerners have so you and I are kinda on the same page BUT re this comment:
Your swim season, at best, is going to be mid-June to Sept 1st, even with a gas heater
Click to expand...
I'm inclined to degree ;)

With a good gas heater, my swim season starts in early May (I oen in April) and only ended a week ago because I was trying to beat the big maple tree drop in order to close clean and cold...otherwise, even when the air temp is in the 60s like today, with water at 88 I'd have swum in the morning after a workout ;)

It's not cheap to extend the season to six months...but it's doable ;) But on LP not NG, it would indeed cost a small fortune to do so.

Lusa, did you and PB look into whether a Heat pump would be viable in your climate? Leebo, our site admin, is in Ohio and just had one installed this year. You might want to send him a message to learn more re its efficacy in shoulder seasons...my understanding is that LP will be uber expensive, just so you know. In Michigan, I am fortunate that my preference for high heat only runs me $200-300/mo....a little more in shoulder season...but Natural Gas is cheap here.
 
Swampwoman,

Yup, I definitely agree that extending the season is doable with certain pool configurations. I was speculating that, given the shape and landscaping around the proposed pool design from the OP, that the pool would not be covered much. If one covers a pool properly, it can stay warm in the shoulder months. My pool season is shorter than most other Tucsonans (like chiefwej for example) because I don't have solar nor do I use a cover. So even though the weather is sunny and warm here, my pool is basically unswimmable right now (water temps are mid-70's at best).

And yes, heating a pool, even a small volume one, on LP would be insanely expensive. I was going to suggest a heat pump but, knowing (or at least remembering) NY electric utility rates in the lower Hudson Valley (even with the Indian Point Nuclear Power station), I thought an electric heat pump wouldn't be much better cost-wise.

Don't get me wrong, I want the OP to have a great pool too, I just think what's designed may not be the most optimal way to get there and I definitely think the quote is overpriced in some ways. As others have pointed out, the base price is over $40k and then there's a separate $4,800 for electrical??? That seems sketchy to me since the base price should cover most of the electrical contractor's costs as well. So something doesn't seem right unless there's some huge issue with the main feed into the house, like a utility line needs to be rerouted or additional electrical service needs to be added.

I'll keep with this thread because it looks very interesting....and having worked and lived in the lower Hudson valley in NY, it's a bit nostalgic for me ;)


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^Yes, I was wondering about the electric rates on the heat pump ...

Lusa, what do most people in your community heat pools with?

Matt..have you tried CoverFree? I also don't use a cover due to my footprint, but do to some extent retain quite a bit more heat with it than without it. It's most effective in no/low wind conditions. Once you break the water tension you can watch the steam rise.

Lusa, if you get to a place with a quote you like and you go ahead with a build, another big expense but one that will pay for itself in consumable cost re heat if LP is your only choice would be an auto cover...but that would add 10k or more to your package....and we're trying to help get that package down ;)
 
Swampwoman said:
Matt..have you tried CoverFree? I also don't use a cover due to my footprint, but do to some extent retain quite a bit more heat with it than without it. It's most effective in no/low wind conditions. Once you break the water tension you can watch the steam rise.
Click to expand...

Considered CoverFree but then realized I have too much wind and water agitation from the spa spillway and waterfall. In the summer, I have to run the waterfall at least three times per day (short runs, about 20mins) in order to circulate water in the four little pools (about 5-10 gallons each) that make up the waterfall. It was a bad design in my opinion and I'm looking to get the waterfall contractor to come back and fill the pools in with cement. They make a beautiful splashing sound BUT they require me to run my waterfall pump regularly which is a costly nuisance.

My front up approach for dealing with evaporation is going to be getting a reflective bubble cover and cutting it up into three sections and then, hopefully, save enough money to get my gutter contractors to come back and add rainwater collection system. I have 4,000 sq. ft. of flat roof with gutters and downspouts. When it rains here in the desert, I literally watch hundreds of gallons of fresh, calcium-free rainwater wash down my front yard :( It's estimated that, if I captured about 2,000 sq. ft. of roof water, I could easily replace 1/2-3/4 of my pool water every year. That would offset my water utility bills nicely. Hopefully there will be a rainwater collection system build thread from me in the near future ;)
 
Matt you have to run the pump in the waterfall so the water does not sit in the "pools" of the waterfall? Does the water/area get yucky if you do not run the pump? Very interesting and something to let others know about if they are doing a waterfall.

Kim
 
Best explained with a picture -



This is a top down view of the waterfall (deep end). It is built with natural stone. The sub that built it does natural stone ponds & waterfalls. His design was to have the water start at the top of the waterfall (a shallow basin fills with water) and then the water splits in two directions and spills spills down several stone ledges into smaller basins and then into the pool. The smaller basins are what creates a splashing sound. If the water just rushed down rock faces without ever collecting, then the sound would be quite different and lot less dramatic. Problem is, when the water stops flowing, all of the basins stay full with a few gallons each of water in them. If I don't run the waterfall regularly, then the chlorine in those basins easily dissipates in a few hours and they will go green with algae. Not to mention the birds LOVE them for bathing in when the hot summer sun is out.

In the winter, if I felt up to it, I could blow out the waterfall line, shop-vac out the basins and just shut the pump down but that takes way too much work. So I just schedule the waterfall to run a few times per day (20mins per run) and the water in the basins stays happy. The boys love it and the jumping stones allow for some epic cannonballs...especially the ones daddy does ;) It's only 7ft in the deep end so if I do a really high jump and go into the water bottom first, I can easily hit my bum on the bottom of the pool....talk about "splash out" :splash:
 
LOL I bet that IS some "splash out" for sure! I am quite sure the boys try their best to copy daddy! Your poor wife! LOL "BOYS! Leave some water IN the pool please!"

okay here is a "Kim" wild idea.........could they make little channels so the water drains out of the mini pools when the pump is off? That way you can keep the neat sounds.

Kim
 
Pool 18x36 = $42,000 3 color lights =$2,100 Heather 400Btu = $2,800 electrician = $4,800 Deck Idaho Quartzite 500Sq ft = $17,000 Uv + Salt machine = $3,400 Water fall = $6,000 Boulders = $3,400 Total = $81,500 Does not include hot tub, Fence, tree removal, slide, Water, cover, gas tank and gas hookup
Click to expand...

The price you received is not out of the norm! What you are getting is a Ferrari. What you are paying for is a Ferrari. The only item that seems high is the electrician. You can skip the waterfall and run a waterfall line and bury it in the ground (you can always add this later). I had mine done during construction for $125 (On the side). The deck is costly because of the material and time needed for installation.

Surprisingly, a liner pool on the East Coast is no longer a bargain. Maybe not as much as a concrete pool, but it may be worth the extra few dollars. It is best to figure out what you want to spend on a pool and work backwards. I definitely would skip the slide. If you build a pool of this magnitude, the slide will just take away from everything, while the boulders, deck and waterfall will create harmony.

In NJ, a pool like this would be $100,000 +. I have friends who built a gunite pool with pavers, etc. and the price tag ran anywhere from $110-$120K. Your price is a lot lower.
 
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