Fiberglass Pool Install

[ajw22]

How much money leverage do you have remaining with the Pool Builder?

What does your contract read for warranty and standards of workmanship?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

All of these problems/questions should have been addressed at the time you noticed them. Its sort of hard for us to say what problems may appear in the future due to some of these issues. For example, they dug the hole two feet off the garage... could you have lived with it there? Could you have insisted the pool be lifted into the new space and told them so before the drag?

When you see something, speak up then please. I'm truly sorry you're going thru all this. I hope nothing is wrong in the end but I sense your nerves have been tested.

Maddie

 

[robertwest]

It was moved 2’ by dragging (after digging the pit wider). They did not prepare any base in the widened part.

 

[robertwest]

I was there for one day after the pool was placed incorrectly. They were unhappy to have a former construction worker / homeowner on site while they were working. I have addressed everything with them. The ramp that they cut into the earth and the settling. The use of spade shovels instead of two by fours to push gravel under the pool steps (the workers kept stabbing the pool shell with the shovels), The mixing of gravel and dirt in the fill, fittings that didn’t fit, and the skimmer with the wrong length throat. All of it is documented in emails to the owners. The problem with this whole process is that these guys get fed up eventually, as others on this forum have experienced.

 

[robertwest]

How much money leverage do you have remaining with the Pool Builder?

What does your contract read for warranty and standards of workmanship?

I’ve been asking them for weeks for a revised quote because they said I was going to have restocking and shipping charges for fittings that didn’t fit. They are close to fully paid. That only happened because we had a water feature that had to be scrapped because the pool ended up in the wrong place and there was not enough room for it. That left them close to fully paid. So I don’t have a lot of leverage.

 

[Rich D]

Uuuggh... That sounds awful... In my opinion the pool industry does have greater than average percentage of unprofessional, inexperienced and subpar contractors.

The walls bulging would be a very big concern to me. How could you ever know how much that weekend or damaged the shell? Was this trucked in water?

Was the pool placed on clean stone?

Dragging the pool would actually settle it in so I would not think you would get a void from it. What it could do is make it unlevel. I would check pool to see if the pool is level. Hold a level on the edge of the pool and measure down to the water in the 4 corners and half way down the long sides.

The backfill should definitely have been all 3/4 clean stone. Depending on how much fill was mixed in (it looks like a lot) there is a good possibility of the material settling under your deck. The video actually shows they were trying to do the correct thing and put the clean stone next to the pool and the fill in the final 1' +/- fill areas. Did you see them backfilling all the way up? Any chance there is all clean stone in the deeper areas?

Are there plans to put the deck on this winter?

At the very least you would want to do the collar and deck in the spring after doing some heavy flood settling of the entire backfill area. This will not guarantee no settlement but it will make it a lot less likely.

I would send the pool builder a email (so you have a copy of things) and outline your concerns with the structural integrity of the shell and possible warranty issues and potential settling issues. Tell him you are very uncomfortable with the install so far and think the pool shell should be replaced.
His reply will give you a much better feeling for how things will be going from here out. That is just what I would do. Hopefully others will chime in with more suggestions..


Edit... I had not seen the few previous posts before I posted this...

 

[robertwest]

If our pool install couldn't get any worse...

I was in the yard looking around and I found pieces of clay pipe that I recognized as the sewer pipe. I put a couple of pieces on the gravel, took a picture, and sent it to the PB. He replied today that they hit the sewer pipe while trenching the electrical. He said they repaired it with a "Fernco fitting." They trenched last week. The clay debris only showed up because they pushed the excavated soil around the yard. He would not have told us had I not found it and confronted him. It just keeps getting worse.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Wow....that really is pretty smarmy. Heck, all they had to say was "hey, we accidentally hit your sewer pipe but we fixed it and its all good now"

Maddie

 

[malba2366]

If our pool install couldn't get any worse...

I was in the yard looking around and I found pieces of clay pipe that I recognized as the sewer pipe. I put a couple of pieces on the gravel, took a picture, and sent it to the PB. He replied today that they hit the sewer pipe while trenching the electrical. He said they repaired it with a "Fernco fitting." They trenched last week. The clay debris only showed up because they pushed the excavated soil around the yard. He would not have told us had I not found it and confronted him. It just keeps getting worse.

Its not really their fault for hitting a sewer pipe (unless you marked it out for them). It was acutally good of them to fix it without charging you as they are probably not contractually obligated to do so.

 

[robertwest]

Its not really their fault for hitting a sewer pipe (unless you marked it out for them). It was acutally good of them to fix it without charging you as they are probably not contractually obligated to do so.

Really? They told me before they started anything that they were going to identify any electrical and plumbing in the yard so it wasn’t hit. They hit the electrical, which I didn’t care about because it was just a stub outlet, but hitting the sewer line was a huge mistake.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Had you called Miss Utility to come identify your lines prior to the dig? I think that is very commonly done.....

 

[malba2366]

Really? They told me before they started anything that they were going to identify any electrical and plumbing in the yard so it wasn’t hit. They hit the electrical, which I didn’t care about because it was just a stab outlet, but hitting the sewer line was a huge mistake.

I was assuming you or they called 811 to locate the utilities. In most areas it is the law to call before digging. If they hit something that wasn't marked properly then they're not liable. I wouldn't be too worried about the fernco fitting...it is lot less likely to leak than the existing clay pipe.

 

[jimmythegreek]

Rarely can a utility mark sewer lines that's usually a guess. This PB sounds like a real corner cutter. Before you get too far with the backfill check for straightness using string down the walls and basic level. Plus minus half inch is acceptable. with fiberglass pools they are never dead level. 1 inch is industry standards I beleive but too much

 

[robertwest]

Had you called Miss Utility to come identify your lines prior to the dig? I think that is very commonly done.....

They were supposed to do that. At least that’s what they told me they were going to do. We had to drop some powerlines in the alley in order for the crane to lift the pool, and they had me pay the utility directly (about $2000). So I know they were in touch with them.

 

[robertwest]

Rarely can a utility mark sewer lines that's usually a guess. This PB sounds like a real corner cutter. Before you get too far with the backfill check for straightness using string down the walls and basic level. Plus minus half inch is acceptable. with fiberglass pools they are never dead level. 1 inch is industry standards I beleive but too much

They finished the backfill, so I have no idea what’s going on in there. The pool looks fairly level, but the wall sides are fairly wavy, which concerns me with the coping.

 

[robertwest]

I asked my PB to install a skimmer that had a throat long enough so that the basket would not land under the coping (requiring it to be cut/notched in order to fit a lid). He said he ordered a special skimmer that was "plenty long." I got home from work and found that the pool shell was cut and the skimmer installed... and it lands under the coping. We aren't putting any decking by the skimmer lid end of the pool (it will be grass to the coping). In order to miss the skimmer basket, the coping is 2" into the pool... So how is this resolved?

The pool builder contacted me about the conflict with the location of the skimmer bucket. He said to just not use the skimmer in the pool and just use the main drains at the bottom of the pool for circulation.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would recommend running a pool with no skimmer. Has anyone ever heard of that in here?

 

[malba2366]

This guy is starting to seem incompetent. The skimmer is pretty essential in sucking in surface dirt, oils, leaves etc into the basket/filtration system. How does he propose this gets accomplished using main drains?

What looks wavy? If it is the pool wall (parallel with the water) then it is a problem. If it is the lip (perpendicular to the water) that the coping lies own that ok because they have to use mortar or adhesive to attach the coping on top of that lip.

 

[ajw22]

I would never accept a new pool without one skimmer, and preferably two. Without a skimmer you will need to constantly manually clean the water surface.

I would hold the builder to delivering a pool as designed and contracted.

 

[Newdude]

I would never accept a new pool without one skimmer, and preferably two. Without a skimmer you will need to constantly manually clean the surface

And like Malba said, the body sweat/oils/sunblock would be virtually impossible to remove by hand. The floating debris although a super, constant PITA could at least be scooped with a net.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Perhaps you'll have to trim the coping back around the skimmer in question. Wouldn't that solve that skimmer issue?

Maddie