Building a pool and nervous to make the wrong decisions

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I can't add anything about the equipment list, but since you are in the Phoenix area one good place to check is Monster Power in Gilbert. They do pool electrical work and sell pool equipment. Send them your list without prices and see what they can do.
 
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Here’s some general advice from someone who’s owned a pool for last 11 years - keep it simple!

You are adding to your home a very large structure, something almost as involved as a second dwelling. It’s not going to take care of itself, there is lots of regular maintenance and “emergency” fixes that will come along with the installation. Many people take the tact - “I’ll just hire a service company to take care of it or bring in professionals if something needs to be repaired …” and while that’s a reasonable idea on paper, in practice, it doesn’t work and you will be paying through the nose for every little thing. Pools are best run when the owner takes care of them themselves. So in that instance it behooves the future pool owner to do everything in their power NOW to keep the design and equipment as simple as possible. Everything you add to it has to be maintained and you have to ask yourself the question - “When this particular item fails or falls apart, what will I do?”

And I get it - everyone falls in love with the daydream of the “backyard oasis” and the images of floating in a pool drinking a cool beverage on a sunny summer day while the kids (or grand kids) splash and play … and then there’s the reality. You will spend more time of your life outside the pool dealing with life than inside the pool enjoying the water. There may even be times when you go WEEKS without ever stepping foot in the pool. You say to yourself now, “Oh no, we will swim everyday and twice on Sundays!!” but that is simply just not going to happen. So the simpler and more manageable you keep things, the easier it will be to maintain and enjoy. If you turn your backyard into a water park, then you’ll be spending the rest of your life in that home being a water park maintenance engineer …
 
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Does your independent contractor have an account at SCP/SPS?
They are a major pool supply wholesaler and have 2 Gilbert locations.

Are the prices listed the actual price from the Monster Power or were they marked up by your independent contractor?
 
ajw22 said:
Why are you getting Globrite to Microbrite adapters on a new build? No adapters are needed.

I think your pool design needs more than 2 Microbrite lights.

Pentair LED Pool Lights - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
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Those are just the two in the Baja that are bubbler lights. We have 3 regular pool lights and 1 light in the spa. You think we need more lights/bubblers in the Baja? I will ask why we need the adapters
 
You're in the right place, I just built our first pool this year and had tons of help from the good people on TFP. Everything from the initial excavation to pool chemical setup and finally just last week the pool closing. I'm sure you'll find your answers here!
 
roxygrlj said:
Those are just the two in the Baja that are bubbler lights. We have 3 regular pool lights and 1 light in the spa. You think we need more lights/bubblers in the Baja? I will ask why we need the adapters
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I did not see the other lights on page 2.

Intellibrite lights have their reliability issues.

I would do all Microbrite lights.

Intellibrite lights have twice the lumens(1000) as Microbrites (500) at twice the cost.

Details are in Pentair LED Pool Lights - Further Reading
 

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roxygrlj said:
Is it possible to hook up a Pools auto filler to a whole house water softener?
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Absolutely. Many members have done that.

You will use that water to refill the pool due to evaporation. Do not use the soft water for an initial fill.
 
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I did. Contact WaterTec, see if they will help. They did it for me but I have heard since that they have stopped doing it. But they might be willing to run an additional line outside as a spigot and you can either use a hose to fill or then do the plumbing job yourself. You just have to oversize the tank a bit and get the biggest model they offer. A swimming pool uses about the same amount of water as having an additional human being in your home.

Did your home come with a softener plumbing loop in the garage? It looks like a loop of 1” pipe coming out of and back into the wall. It’s usually near the hot water heater and/or the HVAC equipment.
 
JoyfulNoise said:
There may even be times when you go WEEKS without ever stepping foot in the pool. You say to yourself now, “Oh no, we will swim everyday and twice on Sundays!!” but that is simply just not going to happen.
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Case in point, this last season I think I went in my pool a total of 6 times. It was just a confluence of circumstances. When we were home the weather was cold or raining. When we were on vacation or at work, the weather was great.

But, my pool still required the same amount of maintenance, regardless of how often I was able to use it.
 
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I am in the process of building a pool, and was looking at travertine for coping and decking. The tile place recommended shell stone as we are doing a saltwater pool looking for opinions or recommendations and curious if anyone’s done shell stone and would recommend it.
 
roxygrlj said:
I’m not going with a builder. This is one of the quotes from a wholesaler, building my own pool.
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The globrite to microbrite adapters are probably because the Pentair color LED bubblers use a globrite by default and this way you can use a microbrite in the bubblers (which is a good thing).

I agree with @ajw22 and would recommend getting multiple microbrites instead of 1 intellibrite. My pool is about the same length as yours. I have 2 microbrites in the main body of the pool, 1 setup as an uplight into my grotto, and 1 for the baja ledge (4 total microbrites). The color coverage is great, except for red. There's a bit of a shadow in the pool between the lights with red, but I'm the only one that notices it (it doesn't even show up in pictures).

Also, I used Monster Power and was happy with their work. It was their suggestion to turn my microbrite that was originally placed in the grotto bench shining into the pool and change it into an uplight to light up the grotto waterfall. It's probably the best looking feature of my pool because of ti..
 
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If I understand the lingo on the list, the i5ps pentair control does not come with the scg capability as it reads wo/scg and by me that's a no no, you absolutely want it in the pentair control otherwise you'd need a separate power supply when going with a salt pool.
 

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