Does this sound reasonable?

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schmoopie

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Nov 9, 2015
7
McKinney,TX
Final bid from Foley Pools in McKinney Texas who so far has been great to work with. Nothing started but got a little scared telling a friend my pool was $103k without additional patio build and they thought it was high after building two pools with Robertsons. I know get multiple estimates and I am but do not expect thousands difference. I would greatly appreciate all of your insights as this seems to be THE place for info. Be kind. First pool, first post. :)

size is 32 x 16 plus spa of 36 feet. depth is 3.5-4.6-6. Surface area is 519 soft. Perimeter is 117 and 2 anti vortex drains. Pump is Pentair Inteliflo 3050 VS.SVRS. Filter is Pentair 60 sq feet DE. Was going with Nature 2 but this post has talked me into SWG which I added today. Pebble tech standard stone for coping. Cleaner is Polaris 280 3/4 HP Booster pump 4 glow bites. Easy touch 8 for the controller ScreenLogic. Deck is textured mat 1789 sq feet.

2 fire bowls and one larger 10 foot long fire feature making three total at a cost of $5,150. Outdoor kitchen (island with Blaze Grill and a drawer and door) $8,715. Combined the above with the pool you are at $103,635. Or pool by itself without the kitchen is $89,590.

My main question/concern is does this sound reasonable? We have an acre backyard and the home is higher end custom build but I don't want any company to look at the house and say "o.k let's see what we can get." The other concern is the depth? Is that deep enough mainly for my two kids 7 and 9 and lastly, what have I missed or over done? My highest regards to you all and I hope to someday return the favor with anything I can add but am quite green still.
 
I really dont know if that price is reasonable or not. Prices vary so much in different markets and upgrades such as Pebble Tech escalate it considerably as well. The only thing I can advise is get other quotes using the same perimeter and same equpment, etc, then compare as close to apples to apples that you can.

I have a friend who recently bought a house in McKinney with a Foley pool. I can tell ya that they do pretty nice work if that's of any help.
 
You definitely need multiple quotes to make any sense of it. 1700 sq ft of decking is a lot of area so I'm sure that's adding to it. $8k for an outdoor BBQ island seems excessive to me especially considering it's just the grille and some drawers. I've seen full kitchen builds with sinks and fridges for that price. Also, the fire features seem pricey BUT if you need to run a lot of gas lines for it and the BBQ, then it can get costly (typically $10-$15 per foot of gas line is reasonable).

Use what you have now as a template and try to get other quotes with all the component costs broken down and detailed as much as possible.


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That is a pretty high price for the pool. I would definitely get another quote or two. Although, the pool market is hot in DFW right now and subs are asking for higher prices. But, it seems like you could knock 10-15k off that price. I would skip the SVRS pump and get the regular Intelliflo 11018 variable speed pump. And go straight to 4' deep, 3.5' is too shallow for us.

My neighbor built my pool and I would gladly recommend them, they have been building pools for 30 years. Reber Pools See my pool in build thread in sig.
 
I will say from what I've seen here, most people think the quotes they receive are too high. And they think the quotes others receive are too high. It's a theme and human nature.

You will get good input on individual items of your quote from folks who have had similar items done local to you. As mentioned by you and others, multiple quotes (preferably based on your specs for apples to apples) and a detailed breakout of all quotes to understand the line items. I don't see a lot of people negotiating big sums off of their bids (I could be mistaken here). I think some of that can come back to bite you if you've ridden them hard on up-front pricing, they will be less likely to absorb the expected and routine small changes throughout a build. They expect to have extra costs, and you likely will. Two different philosophies though and neither would be wrong.
 
If you have the time, one thing you can do to bring down the price is to split the work. Have the PB build the pool and then have a landscape contractor finish off the job with hardscape, BBQ islands, etc. Friends of ours did this and they took an original $80k all-in-one quote and got a pool for $45k and the backyard extras for $20k (including lighting and irrigation). It definitely lengthened their backyard remodel (pool completed before the swim season but the rest of the backyard after the swim season).

So they saved about $15k by splitting the job and having the extras done by a reputable landscape architect/contractor in the slow off-season. PBs will often over-charge on the backyard stuff because pools just have fixed costs and there's not a lot of wiggle room to negotiate with there.


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Prices can vary by region. The pool / spa in my signature was more than 20K less than your pool quote.

However! Your deck is almost 4 times the size of mine and I have heard there is a significant jump in cost at a certain (can't remember) linear foot. One builder quoted us about $250 per linear foot for base gunite costs. And PT also charge by the linear foot.

Definitely get multiple quotes.
 

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This past March the most expensive quote we had on a pool by Claffey, similar to yours (32x17), PebbleTech, minus the spa and only ~600 feet of decking was in the mid 50s. A spa would have added another 8K or so if I remember correctly. Ended up going with another PB
 
I agree with Matt above that splitting the work can save money. If you can split off the kitchen and the concrete flat work you may be able to save money. I was able to cut out 10K that way. But the main way I kept my costs down was to have multiple bids for the work. Try and get them to bid the same plans with the same equipment. They don't want to do that. We can't tell you if a bid is reasonable because we generally are not in your market with all the conditions specific to your pool, but multiple bids can get you the best price as can splitting the work.
 
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