Newbie Question...may be a "dumb" question :)

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Novcruisin

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Jun 3, 2015
59
Dallas. TX
At first I thought that you would select water line tile, coping and flatwork from the PB. Like at their showroom they would have options for you to select (that's how we designed our house when we built it, went to a showroom and picked floors, cabinets, countertops, etc.) but the PB said we would go select our coping and they would pick it up and install it...is that normal? How can they quote a price without knowing what pavers I am selecting? Do I need to contact a separate company to buy the pavers and water line tiles, pay for them separately and then pay the PB to install them?

I am confused :crazy:
 
Hold on a few and the "troops" will be here.

I have not build a pool but what I have seen on here is that the PB will give you some samples and let you pic from them. Some use brochures to let you pick from them.

I would be very confused as well.

Where does the PB want you to go look at coping?

Kim
 
With our PB - they have a pool at their office - and it was built using a ton of different materials. So 4' might be flagstone coping, then the next 4' might be mossrock coping, etc., and they have tons of samples and brochures for you to look at. But we were also given an "allowance", that way if we wanted something different - that they didn't carry we could get it (and know how much we could spend) also so we know when we are looking at THEIR stuff what we can choose and what might cost more. So they might say waterline tile $6 sqft allowance. But they have to set it and YOU have to know ahead of time what the allowance is AND you should only pay your PB - he will get the materials (he gets them cheaper, etc.). I am not going to lie - I would NOT be comfortable with a PB that didn't have their own stock of stuff to choose from.

With all that being said - I picked out everything from the showroom floor - they had everything I wanted - so I didn't have to go searching.

Have you already signed a contract?
 
We live in Cypress in the Houston area. Our pool builders are probably similar. Our PB has accounts at several stone and or tile places. We went on our own, shopped, and selected what we needed. If something we wanted was an upgrade, a sales person would tell us. Otherwise, whatever we chose was part of our allowance given by the builder, but we were not given a dollar amount to worry with.

Each tile place took our order and faxed it to our builder. As it turned out, we selected everything from one place, but we could have picked different things from different places.

Some PB's have their own selections in their own show room. And I've heard of some PB's going with their customers, but most are too busy this time of year.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions. Take care. Suz.
 
My PB is a smaller company(i saved 10k going with him) even though he uses the same exact guys to build the pool so he had me find what i liked and he paid for it. there is a basic tile that they quote as using because the price is very similar for them and the install is also similar. In my contract it stated "standard tile selection". anything else is an upgrade. I went with glass tile and it was about $2200 more he said i had to pay for it due to the higher price of the tile and the added install charges. Anywhere you look at tile they will give you an idea what is standard tile selection.

It really all depends how big of a company you are dealing with. One of the companies i was looking at using had an entire design center I could pick from. I guess that is why their pools were way more expensive.
 
We had quotes from the two extremes of pool builders. One gave us an allotment for coping/tile/etc... and had a couple vendors they worked with. Then you could go to those vendors or anyone and select what you wanted within that allotment. Any cost in a addition would have to be paid out side of the pool builder. The pro to this approach is that the pool builder cannot tack on additional profit on your selections. The downside is if it is a material that the pool builder isn't used to working with then you could have issues. Or they could decide not to warranty something based on your selection.

The other type of builder has a design center and they have "levels" of tile/coping/etc... Similar to a home builder. Anything level 1 is included and each level above has a fixed cost. The downside is say you have a tile that is level 1 that is $8 sq/ft and their level 2 tiles start at $9/sqft but they actually charge 12 or so because they have a bunch of tiles in that group then if you pick something that is $9 then you are basically giving the pool builder $3/sqft of pure profit.

With that said we went the design center approach not because we really wanted that but because the design/cost of this builder was what matched our budget and desires.
 
I think it all depends what materials you are choosing to build your pool. When we visited different builders they had samples the way you describe it. Same material and finish had the same price but could have a variety of colors. There are exceptions to this, but if they only showed you flagstone samples in one price range then the cost should not change. I am re-reading your question, and it seems like you would go choose your material (?and pay for it?) then they pick it up and install it. Sounds like you only being quoted for labor, which is very unusual. It's possible you might be quoted for the base or mid-range material. Like we are with plaster. We were not able to select specific plaster at signing, so we opted for Wet Edge Pebble Matrix, knowing that most likely we will choose something in that range, but it is possible we will opt for an upgrade. In the worst case, the price they give you is of most expensive material in the place you will be selecting and no matter what you choose they will be making money. Your builder needs to be upfront about this and you need to ask him everything you are not clear on in written form (e-mail) if possible. If you have not signed and already have communication issues, rethink your builder choice.

Another side to this are pools that don't need tile and material is not selected but made on the spot. This is what we are going with, everything is made out gunite and layered with boulder formations that looks like real rock but much harder (better for SWG). So no matter what color/rock samples we like, coping will be the same price.

Vitaly
 
Thanks so much for everyone's quick responses!!

We have not signed a contract, and are probably pretty far off from that point. I am just an overplanner when it comes to ALL aspects of life and I'm probably jumping the gun a bit but, that's what I do! ;)

We have met with the PB and he is supposed to get us the design and quote this week and we are meeting with them face to face Saturday morning to make changes, etc.

What this question stems from is in the initial in-home meeting, he said something to the effect of "you will just go to a stone yard, anyone you like, and select which stone you want and they will tag it and we will go pick it up and install it"

We glossed over that quickly and didn't dive any further into it. Now I'm thinking...does that mean we will have an "allowance", does that mean we pay for it and they pick it up and install, or does that mean they pay the stone yard and roll it into our cost?

How can they quote any price without knowing what stone we will select first :confused:
 
Novcruisin said:
Thanks so much for everyone's quick responses!!

We have not signed a contract, and are probably pretty far off from that point. I am just an overplanner when it comes to ALL aspects of life and I'm probably jumping the gun a bit but, that's what I do! ;)

We have met with the PB and he is supposed to get us the design and quote this week and we are meeting with them face to face Saturday morning to make changes, etc.

What this question stems from is in the initial in-home meeting, he said something to the effect of "you will just go to a stone yard, anyone you like, and select which stone you want and they will tag it and we will go pick it up and install it"

We glossed over that quickly and didn't dive any further into it. Now I'm thinking...does that mean we will have an "allowance", does that mean we pay for it and they pick it up and install, or does that mean they pay the stone yard and roll it into our cost?

How can they quote any price without knowing what stone we will select first :confused:
Click to expand...

The quoted price in the first meeting is a very rough estimate. In our first meetings it was basically what the builder imagined we would want based on one or two phone conversations/e-mails with us.
 

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Novcruisin said:
Thanks so much for everyone's quick responses!!

...does that mean we will have an "allowance", does that mean we pay for it and they pick it up and install, or does that mean they pay the stone yard and roll it into our cost?

How can they quote any price without knowing what stone we will select first :confused:
Click to expand...

I used a small PB and he gave me a similar option. He left many many samples out our house and noted that if we wanted something different from a stone yard, he would get it. Well when we decided to go SWCG, every flagstone he had samples of were probably to soft. We found one we like at a stone yard, told the employees that our PB would be by to pick it up...the next day the PB was unloading it in my yard. If you go that route, just ask him what $ for the budget/allowance. Most of the stone that I looked at was between 180-250 per ton. Honestly, I would doubt that any PB would keep an inventory of stone - just not fiscally prudent.
 
jagger2005 said:
I used a small PB and he gave me a similar option. He left many many samples out our house and noted that if we wanted something different from a stone yard, he would get it. Well when we decided to go SWCG, every flagstone he had samples of were probably to soft. We found one we like at a stone yard, told the employees that our PB would be by to pick it up...the next day the PB was unloading it in my yard. If you go that route, just ask him what $ for the budget/allowance. Most of the stone that I looked at was between 180-250 per ton. Honestly, I would doubt that any PB would keep an inventory of stone - just not fiscally prudent.
Click to expand...

Yea, that makes sense :)

This sounds like our situations were very similar! We too are going with SWCG and are concerned over the soft stones; what stone did you end up using?
 
Novcruisin said:
This sounds like our situations were very similar! We too are going with SWCG and are concerned over the soft stones; what stone did you end up using?
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I will try to find out the type. Honestly, after 3 stone yards, miles and miles apart, I was broken and was just glad my wife found a color she liked. It was definitely an Oklahoma flagstone. We were looking at "hard" patio pavers. There are a few on this board in Texas with flagstone and seem to not have any issues with SWCG. Even my PB said I would need to sign a "waiver" because he would not warranty the work. I think there is a lot of misinformation regarding Texas/flagstone/salt water pools. 3 of 5 PB that I evaluated said no SWCG with flagstone. Yet the largest PB in town has a display salt water pool that has been there for 20 years with all kinds of different flagstone around it. They had no problem installing any flagstone unless it was obviously soft.
 
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