New pool owner, AGP needs fixing, advice?

[Kaa]

I recently bought a house that came with a pool. The pool is above-ground but built into a deck with galvanized steel walls and what looks like some kind of a foundation underneath. It's about 18'x8', rectangular, and I guesstimate it to be about 4500 gallons.

That pool is in need of a lot of fixing. It needs a new sand filter (the existing one is cracked, I guess water was left in it over the winter), probably a new pump, and definitely a new vinyl liner. The plumbing is a 1.5" combination of hard PVC pipe and flex pipe, partially below ground but mostly above ground. One flex pipe has a large leak and needs to be replaced. Since I'm changing everything I want to install a salt water system as well.

First, I'm having a fair amount of trouble finding a pool company to do that work (I'm in NJ, Ocean county). A whole bunch of places don't do anything with above-ground pools and a few above-ground people don't want to deal with hard wall rectangular pools. I found one which gave me a quote. The quote looks suspicious to me, but I have little experience with pools and am looking for guidance.

The liner replacement is quoted at $1.5K. I think it's reasonable. The pump and filter replacement including install are also about $1.5K. OK, I guess. But then they quoted me a Pentair salt water system (probably an IC-20?) for $2.2K which seems excessive and a full re-plumbing of the pool for $3.2K which looks wildly excessive to me.

The Pentair system by itself is about $1K and neither a $1K install charge, nor 100% markup look reasonable to me. As to plumbing, there are three intake lines (two inflows + a skimmer) and one return line. The below-ground parts are a few feet in length and a few inches deep. I'm fine with new plumbing being all above ground, anyway, and for $3K I can spend a weeking gluing pipes together.

Any thoughts, comments, ideas?

 

[cantplay]

Hi,

I'm curious about your situation. Can you post pictures please? It might spawn more discussion.

I have just 1 year of pool experience, am pretty cheap, and live in area with lower cost of living than you, but the prices quoted seem high to me. Seems like they don't want the job with the amount of those quotes. It would be close to a grand to install a liner which a lot of people DIY. Also, the pool seems small for that kind of investment, but the deck build-in complicates things.

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! I'm sorry but none of that sounds reasonable to me! Please post some pictures of your pool. Does it look like one of these? Completed Pool Gallery

 

[Kaa]

Here are some pictures.

Overall view from the deck:



The view from the side under the deck:



And the current pump and filter (there's also a timer which is mounted on the wall):

 

[Pv2]

Is it really metal/galvanized? Looks almost like fiberglass to me (though I don't have the best monitor ever made). Looks like a neat spot, cool pool! If it is fiberglass you might have better luck describing as an in-ground that just happens to be installed above ground. (you might even call it that if it is galvanized - the structure doesn't look like any above ground pool I have ever seen)

 

[zea3]

Thank you for the pictures, this is very helpful! You have a unique install on a tradition vinyl liner pool. This is an inground pool, however when installed they allowed the sides to remain open instead of backfilling around it. I have no idea why they built it that way. In this case the liner cost makes more sense since these are custom built liners. I still think the cost for the swg package is excessive. If you are handy you could diy the plumbing, pump, filter, and swg install yourself.

If you want another pool company to give an estimate just tell them it is a vinyl liner pool built into a deck. It shouldn't be much different than what they are used to. When you say it is an above ground pool they are envisioning the traditional above ground pool that doesn't make them very much money, so they take a hard pass before they ever come to see it.

 

[Kaa]

The walls are very definitely galvanized. In fact, in the skimmer opening there's a rusted out piece and I'll need to fix it before putting in a new liner. Probably just epoxy a flat galvanized piece over it.

I think I'll re-pipe it myself. All the pipes are basically out in the open and gluing together PVC pieces isn't hard. For a pool of that size, is there any reason to go larger than 1.5"?