New construction in Northern CA

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Yaniv

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Gold Supporter
May 7, 2014
149
San Jose, CA
Hi All,

~2 years ago i built my own above ground pool in previous home, and you were a big help
Newbie - need some help


A year ago we moved to a different home and now we are ready to pull the trigger for an IG gunite pool.
We don't have much room in our back yard so we try to maximize the space as much as possible.

Here is the design and spec that we are going to build, any suggestion would be much appreciated.

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He's charging extra for electrical bonding? Tell him you want to eliminate it and see what he says. It should be included in the base electrical price. Its required by code and is an important safety feature. You won't pass the pre gunite inspection without it. The light is not required by code and its included. It looks like he is breaking out the required outlet but not charging for it. So why is he charging for bonding? Ok now I'm ranting.

Hayward has a one year warranty which may extend to 3 years. Any warranty beyond that is from the pool builder.

You are a PG&E customer and he is using a Polaris 280? For shame for shame. Kill the 280 and the booster pump and get a robot. Much lower power consumption.
 
Heliocol price seems to be high. This could be self contracted after the fact.

Most around here don't do the UV sanitation. I have no personal experience but have read up on it alot and it does not seem to make sense.

That Polaris 280 cleaner is less than $500 online but they are charging more than 1k probably because it needs a pump, electric, etc. Consider dropping that and getting a robot for less $.

Why would the equipment pad cost more? Every pool will need one.
 
I missed the UV. UV is generally not necessary for a residential outdoor pool. Indoor pool yes. Public pool yes, Outdoor residential no. So I plus one on that.

Matt this is San Jose California, heart of the Silicon Valley, where the median price of a home last year the median price was well north of $900K. Much better than Palo Alto were the median price is north of 2.5 million.

$5 for a solar system is reasonable there.
 
Thanks for your feedback.

I understand that the spec is ok with some minor changes i should do.
I did talk to them about replacing the Polaris 280 with a robot they said that with a robot you will have the line visible on the deck because if they build it into the pool it gets tangled and it is not practical so with the 280 you just leave it plugged in and it will run around 2 hours a day.

The Heliocol price they gave me was actually cheap, i originally asked 3 different dealers and they all quoted 10k$-13k$ for 7 panels.

Can you explain about the UV system? i ask about salt but for some reason they really really don'y like it. I am not sure why, any idea?
 
They are just not used to installing them and they are concerned by reports of salt attacking stone. They don't like warranty claims and people saying bad things about their pools.

This is a national pool forum with more than a million posts people post here when things go wrong. We do not see many salt problems except in Austin, San Antonio or Oklahoma City. So I won't say the problem doesn't exist, but its not one you worry about in California. Search through the forum, you can get posts going back 2007, about a million posts. Most salt problems are concentrated in the locations above.

I suspect your pool builder has never installed one. They are no a perfect solution. They only last about five years and you have to turn it off in the winter because it won't work in cold water. You need to use chlorine in the winter. But they are the most effortless way to take care of your pool. Less work than my Stenner pump.

UV is just not worth it. It works. But it doesn't completely sanitize the pool. So you have to have chlorine in the pool. In residential outdoor pools it has almost no effect because all it does is kill some rare bad stuff and burn off organic material like combined chlormines (the chlorine smell in an indoor pool which the sun usually burns off anyway). It shines indoors where there is no sun. It also is important in a public pool with lots of people and strange stuff.

His point about robots is correct you have the cord running over the deck. The Polaris does disappear into the pool. But they are inefficient and as electricity rates climb robots will take over. ROBOTS ARE THE FUTURE!!!!
 
Thanks!

They are around from 1960s and build a lot of pools, one of the pool I visited when I checked then out was a salt water pool so I know they build them but they are working very hard to convince me not to do it, i guess I can always switch later.

Today we met with the primary architect and he told me I should have the permits ready by next week so I assume digging will start very soon!
 
gwegan said:
His point about robots is correct you have the cord running over the deck. The Polaris does disappear into the pool. But they are inefficient and as electricity rates climb robots will take over. ROBOTS ARE THE FUTURE!!!!
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Agree.

but besides the electricity cost difference (I have solar), will you still go with a robot with a visible cord on the deck vs the 280?
 
But the robot cord will only be on the deck a short time while the robot cleans. It's not going to be continuously across the deck. Also, I doubt you'd want to be in the pool when the robot was in, but I could be mistaken. From what I understand (I haven't gotten my robot yet due to it not being 28 days from plaster), you plug in the robot, drop it in, it cleans, you pull it out and put it away.
 

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I have a pressure side cleaner, it is nice to just leave it in the pool and it cleans on its schedule, not saying it doesn't use more electricity.

I had 6 helicol panels installed in 2011 for $3500, it was already stubbed for solar and I had the automation to control them in place.
 
Since you have a unique situation with the pool meeting the elevation of the new and existing wood deck. Could you hide the robot cord under the wood deck and only have to cross thee coping at the pool? I even wonder if anyone has done some sort of hidden channel conduit or slightly larger than normal control joint across coping for just that reason. If it has not been done I suspect it is only a matter of time before a DIY-er or manufacture comes up with a solution especially for new build perhaps a robot cord that can feed through a 2" wet conduit.

As for the SWG as long as you have an outlet at the pad to power the system you may want to let them talk you out of it a PB price on an instilled system is going to be much higher than just the parts. Just tell them when they do the equipment set you want room for the cell (a section of return pipe out of the filter long enough to splice the cell in). installing one is just a matter of some PVC fittings and glue if you built your own pool previously I am sure you can handle it.

I would also ask for the model number/wattage of the LED light some can be on the small side since the pool is smallish and a rectangle might work out ok but I would still check. Another nice option is color changing we love ours it is like getting a new pool each time you change the color.

BTW I have a 280 would have gotten a robot had I done a bit more research but that ship has sailed. It does a good job even thought the yard is still un-landscaped dirt waist land and I only run it 30 min a day. I see a lot of 2 to 3 hour a day recommendations and unless you have a lot of trees I suspect it is overkill for most.
 
atttech-2 said:
Since you have a unique situation with the pool meeting the elevation of the new and existing wood deck. Could you hide the robot cord under the wood deck and only have to cross thee coping at the pool?
Click to expand...
They actually suggested that they can build it into the pool using a conduit, they said they did it few times before but the owners are not happy in the long run because the cord gets tangled eventually.

I think I will take their word for now worst case I lost some money but I can always add a robot later.

atttech-2 said:
As for the SWG as long as you have an outlet at the pad to power the system you may want to let them talk you out of it a PB price on an instilled system is going to be much higher than just the parts. Just tell them when they do the equipment set you want room for the cell (a section of return pipe out of the filter long enough to splice the cell in). installing one is just a matter of some PVC fittings and glue if you built your own pool previously I am sure you can handle it.
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Good idea, i'll tell them.

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Marlahoutex said:
But the robot cord will only be on the deck a short time while the robot cleans. It's not going to be continuously across the deck.
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Yes, i understand.
Basically a robot has to be handled manually VS the 280 which can be automated and just taken out of the water to clean the filter once in a while.
 

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