A Houston Pool Build Inside the Loop

Jump to latest Follow Reply
How exciting!!! Finally gonna get to see your yard with a pool! I loved seeing our designs!
Plat's questions are VERY helpful! I used them on the first meeting with PB #2. Probably why I haven't gotten a call from him.....
 
Don't print out that list...it will lead to deforestation. Great list to select from. Thought provoking...and maybe too much so for some PB's or owners too.
 
That's a great list of questions. We weaved most of them into our various conversations with our chosen PB. You can skip over some of them by picking a well established builder without any BBB complaints. It may just be me but if I were a PB and I wasn't hurting for the next job and someone plopped that down on my desk my first thought would be "problematic customer" and I'd walk.

Of course you have to decide what is necessary for you.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for all the input! Bdrums, I can see your point about the questionnaire. I would think the same thing if a prospective parent came to school and plopped down a questionnaire. Maybe I'll just select what I want. Wouldn't want to contribute to deforestation. ;)
 
Maybe an example. One of the questions asked about a porta potty. Where we live there are lots of builds going on. Never saw a single one so it would have never even dawned on me to ask. My thought was that there is already an established protocol. Probably a convenience store down the road. I don't know.

Oh - and the workers really appreciated lemonade or other fruity refreshing drinks and fresh fruit like peaches, etc. They rarely drank any cokes we put out.
 
We did the same thing, Marla. We just worked the questions that applied into our conversation. I did ask the ports- potty question though. Last time I had workers here they kept knocking on the door to come in and use my bathroom.

I'll doing something for the workers for sure. I don't speak Spanish but I speak homemade cookies and that's a universal language :)
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Met with PB 1 and he had some interesting ideas for our space and was well within our budget. He did not give me pics of the designs which is okay. I understand the reasoning behind that. He had a fee form design and a geometric design. We liked both but are leaning towards the geometric.We also gave him some things to check into which may raise the price a bit.

I was kinda surprised how expensive a pool heater is. He had forgotten the heater on the bid sheet and when he added it in it was over $5000. It just seems a bit high to me.

Also he suggest a Paramount In floor cleaner. While the video looked great, wouldn't a robot do the same thing?

Looking forward to seeing the other designs.
 
The heater by itself costs around 2K. A quick amazon search for Pentair 400000 btu pool heater shows it for $1910. Not sure how much installation should be...definitely not 3k.
Robot does the same thing with minor inconvieniences...like having to put the robot into the pool and removing it each time. Look for robot videos on youtube.

Looks like you had a good PB1 meeting.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
 
I bet you were thrilled when you hear/saw the price WAS within your budget! OH happy day!

I also understand why he would not give you the pics or a copy of the plans. Of course I REALLY want to see them but........LOL

I would stick with the robot----it is easy to replace or fix if anything goes wrong. The infloor is much harder to fix or replace if needed. Talk to Suz about her robot and see what she says. Of course the ease of the infloor would be nice...turn on and let it do the work without having to take anything in and out.

Heater-I would get back with him to find out what is driving his cost up so much. He might back down on the price if you question him about it.

Kim
 
Part of the heater cost may be installing the natural gas line and replacing the meter to upsize the line. Natural gas pool heaters require a larger service line, and the distance from the meter to the heater will factor into the cost as well. Your meter might be large enough to handle the increased demand but some residential meters are not. You can ask if that is included in the cost of the heater he quoted.

Ask any questions you may have up front if you can. As long as you keep your tone friendly and non-confrontational they should have no problem giving you answers. If they immediately get defensive just from the volume of questions asked then that may not be someone you want to do business with.
 
Thanks Zea! The heater would be less than 25 ft from the meter so that shouldn't be a problem. I THINK what happened is we added some other stuff at the same time so that's why the price went up 5k. He's going to get back with me this week so I'll definitely ask.

Kim, yes, so glad we're within budget. That will let me add some bling! Thinking of glass tiles on the sheer decent wall, abalone shells, luminous glass beads....... ::sigh::
 
One other thing- I have a 30+ year old split leaf philodendron (it's about 10 ft tall) that I think we can move to the opposite side by the fence just in front of the neighbors (it's a spec house) window! At least it's going to try to be moved. If it lives I'll be thrilled. If not, well we at least tried. Getting all or at least most of the roots will be the hard part. PB4 thought the bobcat could dig it up. In any case, we are planning on a cut out on that side of the deck (maybe a semi circle) for it.
 
I'm a vote for the Paramount In Floor system. Most problems you see on the forums are for the ratchet style heads which are not used by Paramount.

The other advantage of the In Floor system is that robots typically don't get all your steps and certainly not your spa.

The other thing people warn you about the In Floor is *gasp* there is PVC piping under your pool. I have PVC piping under my house and don't give it a second thought.

I'm all about the convenience!
 
trying to get a pic of my plant but keep getting an error message from photobucket.

- - - Updated - - -

image_zpszs0y7i0r.jpeg
[/URL][/IMG]

- - - Updated - - -

As you can see we have to prop it up. Hopefully it can be moved and replanted straightened up.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply