Hello everyone. I put down my deposit with a local pool builder last August, for March 2015 install. I live in Louisville, KY. It rained through March and April, so he didn't start until may 5th. I am 4 weeks in, and the pool is ALMOST done.
I have so many questions about my pool, I don't even know where to begin. You're probably asking, "Why don't you ask your pool man?". I don't ask him because every time I ask him a question, he either gives me a BS answer, or simply doesn't have the time for me. When he comes to my house, he is usually on the phone, managing his employees or talking someone though a problem, etc. It is really hard to corner him long enough to talk about anything.
It has been a struggle to get him to work on my pool. As I said, I'm starting my 5th week now, and it's still not complete. Maybe I expect too much. When May came (and he had $23K of my money), I expected him to bust *** on my pool, since he was already two months behind. But he had dozens of customers all wanting their pools worked on and instead of focusing on my pool, he was busy trying to please many other customers. Most days, he shows up at 11am, dig one truck load, then disappear for hours, come back, one more truck load, then gone by 3pm for the day. Some days he wouldn't even show. He never tells me when he is coming or not, he just shows up when he can. There were 3 different times that I had to get VERY FIRM with him, in order to get him here and working. I was practically begging him to work on my pool. I'm 100% certain, if I had not pestered him as I did, my pool would not even be close to done.
The good news is... I feel like he did a good job on the pool (mostly). There are some things I'm not sure about, but because I don't know enough about pools, I can't tell if it's wrong or not.
I'm going to ask a few basic questions here. If anyone can answer, I would really appreciate it. If I should ask the questions in a different section, please let me know.
1. The thing I'm mostly concerned about it the level-ness of the pool. From one end to the other, the difference from the waterline to the white plastic coping support (as seen in above picture) is 1 & 7/8". Almost 2". It isn't very noticeable, because I don't have a tiled waterline, but that is something I wanted to add later. Should I be concerned about this? I mean... nothing can be done about it now, but it seems pretty far off to me. I realize it is a big pool and getting it perfectly level is difficult. Is this normal?
2. Plumbing: The plumbing and equipment is all located in my shed, out of the weather. But the plumbing was done with absolutely no unions, and I have 90 degree elbows everywhere. The pumps have plenty of power to overcome the elbows, but is this typical? Check out the two 90's right on the output of the black booster pump. Ridiculous! If I were plumbing it myself I wouldn't use so many elbows and maybe use some flexible pvc where possible. I guess I could re-do the plumbing myself, if I wanted. His guys put the plumbing together and while they were doing it, I was telling them to move this or that so they could use less elbows. They looked at me like I was crazy and said "This is how we do every pool". They used all 2" plumbing, so maybe the elbows are ok with the bigger plumbing?
I have a ton more questions, but I'll ask those in other topics.
Thanks in advance for any opinions you can give me. Overall, I'm happy with the pool, but I'm concerned about the pool not being level, and my pumps not being efficient because of all the elbows. I'm really looking for someone to let me know if my concerns are valid, or if these things are normal and I should not worry about it. I work very hard for my money. My wife and I have been saving for 2 years for this. It is a huge investment for us and I want to make sure I'm not getting screwed here (before we make the final payment)!
Thanks
I have so many questions about my pool, I don't even know where to begin. You're probably asking, "Why don't you ask your pool man?". I don't ask him because every time I ask him a question, he either gives me a BS answer, or simply doesn't have the time for me. When he comes to my house, he is usually on the phone, managing his employees or talking someone though a problem, etc. It is really hard to corner him long enough to talk about anything.
It has been a struggle to get him to work on my pool. As I said, I'm starting my 5th week now, and it's still not complete. Maybe I expect too much. When May came (and he had $23K of my money), I expected him to bust *** on my pool, since he was already two months behind. But he had dozens of customers all wanting their pools worked on and instead of focusing on my pool, he was busy trying to please many other customers. Most days, he shows up at 11am, dig one truck load, then disappear for hours, come back, one more truck load, then gone by 3pm for the day. Some days he wouldn't even show. He never tells me when he is coming or not, he just shows up when he can. There were 3 different times that I had to get VERY FIRM with him, in order to get him here and working. I was practically begging him to work on my pool. I'm 100% certain, if I had not pestered him as I did, my pool would not even be close to done.
The good news is... I feel like he did a good job on the pool (mostly). There are some things I'm not sure about, but because I don't know enough about pools, I can't tell if it's wrong or not.
I'm going to ask a few basic questions here. If anyone can answer, I would really appreciate it. If I should ask the questions in a different section, please let me know.
1. The thing I'm mostly concerned about it the level-ness of the pool. From one end to the other, the difference from the waterline to the white plastic coping support (as seen in above picture) is 1 & 7/8". Almost 2". It isn't very noticeable, because I don't have a tiled waterline, but that is something I wanted to add later. Should I be concerned about this? I mean... nothing can be done about it now, but it seems pretty far off to me. I realize it is a big pool and getting it perfectly level is difficult. Is this normal?
2. Plumbing: The plumbing and equipment is all located in my shed, out of the weather. But the plumbing was done with absolutely no unions, and I have 90 degree elbows everywhere. The pumps have plenty of power to overcome the elbows, but is this typical? Check out the two 90's right on the output of the black booster pump. Ridiculous! If I were plumbing it myself I wouldn't use so many elbows and maybe use some flexible pvc where possible. I guess I could re-do the plumbing myself, if I wanted. His guys put the plumbing together and while they were doing it, I was telling them to move this or that so they could use less elbows. They looked at me like I was crazy and said "This is how we do every pool". They used all 2" plumbing, so maybe the elbows are ok with the bigger plumbing?
I have a ton more questions, but I'll ask those in other topics.
Thanks in advance for any opinions you can give me. Overall, I'm happy with the pool, but I'm concerned about the pool not being level, and my pumps not being efficient because of all the elbows. I'm really looking for someone to let me know if my concerns are valid, or if these things are normal and I should not worry about it. I work very hard for my money. My wife and I have been saving for 2 years for this. It is a huge investment for us and I want to make sure I'm not getting screwed here (before we make the final payment)!
Thanks
While it sounds like it was quite a process, it looks very nice from the pics. I've seen others ask about options to remedy a pool that's not level, and many resort to tiling to help disguise the error since tearing it all out really isn't an option. I've read-up on post for leveling myself because a year after my fiberglass was placed in the ground, I noticed a slight tilt of about 1". Most people would never notice, just me. I'll see if I can find the tread, but I seem to recall there is an "industry standard" of +/- 1" per a span of (?) feet somewhere. Not sure if I saw that on TFP or somewhere else. Some of these TFP experts are a "swimming" Encyclopedia and may know that answer. The plumbing ... woo. It does look overwhelming with a lot of twists and turns, but again we have readers who have literally engineered such products as will give you their 2-cents worth. Most agree that less bends is better, and unions are always a good idea if maintenance is required later. Since your pool is so new, we would hope you don't encounter such situations anytime soon. However - I totally agree with you about "some" contractors. Once the money is in-hand, the level of attention received seems to disappear. Not quite like it was in the showroom. Try not to let it eat at you too much and enjoy your pool.
Man, I feel for ya... there are a tremendous amount of PBs and workers out there, who apparently dont realize that the cost of a pool is a huge amount of money to us pool owners.
