Let the pool games begin!

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Omnipotent

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Jul 12, 2013
102
Clarksburg, MD
So, after lots of questions and hanging out here...throw in the obligatory delays and today was day 1 of our build....and boy was it an eventful day.

Shot of the backyard prior to the dig.....you can see the flags marking the outline of the pool.


Well, about 90 minutes into the dig and POP...yup, hit a primary electric line feeding a neighbors house...yes Miss Utility was called, yes their contractor failed to mark the power line, No, they are not responsible to fix! Turns out that the PB called and did the survey back in Aug before the delays....well turns out in Maryland that your "ticket" for digging is only valid for 12 days...if you hit something within those days....its on them. Hit something outside of those days and its on you - the homeowner! Well, it ain't going to be on me...so I throw it back on the PB stating they should have known about the 12 day rule and therefore it's their fault.

Now electric has to be re-routed around pool and while I don't have a cost, the electric companies designer ball parks it @ 10K.....yeah, I'm not paying it...so now we wait and see how PB will react to this. They haven't called me back today (after this happened there was a fury of calls to find out who to blame) now that it appears PB is at fault I haven't heard word one...my guess is they are having their legal team review the fine print to show that this is somehow my fault and responsibiltiy. Only good news is I haven't paid a dime besides deposit, and after today's dig I owe them 30K...I'm not sending a dime until the relocation is ironed out so I wait.

More pics of the dig....

Starting to lay the form:


Dig and electrical splice (temp to get neighbor back up) complete


Close up of gigantic tanning ledge - 144sqf


Total pool is 40x20 (at widest part) and 650sqft not counting the tanning ledge.

Now I will say, PB hasn't done anything to me wrong, yet...I just feel it's coming. I'm not throwing them under the bus and do hope they do the right thing...time will tell. For now, pool is completely on hold until the line is relocated, so PB it's your move :D

Anyway, even though the day was hectic and troubling.....we are glad to have gotten underway, and glad that nobody got hurt....something really bad could have happened today with that line being cut, so there are things to be thankful for even if this does slow down the progress even more.

Anybody ever have an issue like this? Did PB step up and pay to fix the problem or did they pass it on to you with some legal mumbo jumbo?
 
I'm by no means an expert on this, (or even an amateur) but I would think that if the pool builder is the general contractor for all this, then they would be responsible for obtaining any permits, zoning certificates, utility markings, etc and they would be at fault for this. Essentially, a general contractor is hired to do ALL the work for you. If, however, your contract states that YOU are acting as the general contractor and the PB is a sub contractor, then I think it might fall on you. I would look at your contract to see how the roles are defined for this project. But the fact that the PB, as you say, is the one who had the utilities marked suggests that they are acting as the general contractor. They might even have a case against the utility company for not marking the line, but you wouldn't be involved in that. Plus, I would think that a reputable PB would have insurance for this type of thing, as would any contractor for any type of project.

If you're the one who gets billed, then I would have an attorney look at your contract to see who's responsible for the utility markings and any rules regarding that. Many attorneys will provide a free 1st time consultation and will only charge you if they end up winning the case for you.

Now having said all that, please do not take any of this as legal advice! I really don't know much about this stuff, I just thought I'd chime in with my opinion. I could be completely wrong. Let someone more knowledgeable reply first before you do anything. Good luck with this. I hope it gets resolved in your favor, and more importantly, I hope you get an awesome pool out of all this! Keep us updated!
 
I'd be curious to know why a neighbors utility is running thru your property without an easment. could be a local thing to your area but, around here they can not even string wires over your property (electric, phone, cable) to get to someone elses. It has to all follow public rights of way till it gets to your property. I would be checking into that as well.
 
Hi Omnipotent, glad to see another Marylander here! Which PB are you using?

Sorry about the electrical line. It seems that the cost for fixing should be all on them. Dan makes a good point about why the wire was allowed in the first place - in Baltimore, I don't believe it's allowed.

Elsa
 
I hope this get's resolved amicably. Consider strictly the money regardless of who is right or wrong.....

Your PB probably has about 2k (maximum) of expense in the project right now. He also has your deposit. Faced with an unexpected 10K expense, he can walk away if he chooses, returning your deposit, and likely be better off than absorbing that cost and finishing the project.

I am not saying he will or that he has a leg to stand on but he can do it and it's been done before. Mentally, sit on his side of the negotiating table and think through what his options are.....then think about what you can do to keep him motivated.
 
This is quite a situation. If this falls on you, I wonder if it might be cheaper to just fill the hole back in and move the pool location, looks like there is plenty of room.
 

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As for the easement, I wasn't aware....if it was made aware during closing I certainly don't recall it. I do recall a septic easement but that was nowhere near the pool.

If the contract says something of relocate that could be an issue, however I have a gigantic yard, if we were told that there was an electric line there we would have just pushed the pool 10 feet deeper into the yard as we wanted it deeper but the PB wanted it closer because he was concerned with the lines for the filtration being too long.

As well when the line was hit I also stated stop digging and let's figure out what's next even if that meant filling in the hole and moving the pool, the onsite PM for the PB and the excavation crew wanted nothing to do with this and that the pool shouldn't move, the line should move. Also playing a part was that "technically" you can't put a patio over an easement line, it can't be a permanent structure and a patio is considered permanent.

Lastly, yes my contract is extremely front loaded, 5% down, 45% at dig, 45% at gunite, 5% due at completion. Wasn't happy about this but they wouldn't budge on this. Never got that far with the PBs so I don't know what the normal payment schedule would have looked like.

They did call today but I was in meetings all day so I will touch base tomorrow and see where this goes.
 
Omnipotent said:
As for the easement, I wasn't aware....if it was made aware during closing I certainly don't recall it. I do recall a septic easement but that was nowhere near the pool.
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You would need to look at your deed. Any legal easement should be attached to that if I recall correctly. I know we have an attorney building a pool that regularly posts on his thread. Maybe he could shed a little light.
 
I will be repetitive and just remind everyone that PB is still in a position to walk away. Right or wrong or fair (or attempting litigation) is not really the point.

The point is can this be resolved amicably so that OP can get the pool he wants within a price he and PB can accept.
 
Omnipotent said:
Yes and to your point we were asked to provide a survey of the property I assume to prove boundary lines, but the easement wasn't noted on their however the septic easement was.
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As Dave mentioned is his post, hopefully this can get resolved easily. It is posible the builders insurance will cover the costs. Hopefully they don't contest/investigate it more.
 
Omnipotent said:
Well, about 90 minutes into the dig and POP...yup, hit a primary electric line feeding a neighbors house...yes Miss Utility was called, yes their contractor failed to mark the power line, No, they are not responsible to fix! Turns out that the PB called and did the survey back in Aug before the delays....well turns out in Maryland that your "ticket" for digging is only valid for 12 days...if you hit something within those days....its on them. Hit something outside of those days and its on you - the homeowner! Well, it ain't going to be on me...so I throw it back on the PB stating they should have known about the 12 day rule and therefore it's their fault.
Click to expand...

I know when I called to dig my pool (DIY-Pennsylvania) we had around the same amount of days to do it or it would expire and we would not be covered. If I could not do the dig, we would have to call back with a reference # and recertify the dig which I had done.

Hope this gets resolved. Did you know you had to recertify if not done in the specified amount of days?
 
Alrighty.....I'm back. After a bit of back and forth, to be honest it felt like was in Texas 2-step.....i finally suck the bulldog on the PB. The misses doesn't mess around and let them have it. To back up a bit, the bill for the reroute came in @$3200. I tell PB price and that this doesn't include trenching, conduit or backfilling.....that's on the homeowner to handle. PB comes back and says it would cost his crew $1200 to trench and then they would throw in another 1k so that we would both be in it for $2200.

I didn't feel I should pay, but at this point I just want the thing back on track....so I let the misses know their decision and that I was inclined to go along with it. Well she just can't accept that we should have to pay for something that wasn't out fault. PB was the GC, they called the permits and Miss Utility and they knew tickets are only valid for 12 days. So I let her deal with it.....long story short, they're covering the whole bill, trenching starts Tue and they apologized for the inconvenience.

Now misses just negotiated a little shopping spree for herself based on the savings.

So, we are back on and hoping to have some more updates next week, let's hope this was "THE" issue for this build, I hope so.
 

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