In the past month I have hit the quote trail hard. It is a time consuming process with lots of emailing, calling , and doubts if you can get this done. But with some perseverance, you can get everyone to send you quotes. The more you talk to people, the more you will understand the process and what to ask for in your quote. Reading these forums is a good place to start, but unless I am mistaken, we do things differently here in FL. LOL
So let's start with the layout, dig, steel, gunite portion. Locally, I searched for these gunite companies. There are not many in town. Three to be exact after searching and also running into one doing a neighbors pool. So I gathered my 2d drawing, engineering plans and profile of the depths and shot off emails. The first two quotes I received back were gunite only quotes. They didn't do any of the excavation type work. So with the better of the two quotes, I called back and asked if they work with any excavation companies. I was directed to a supervisor and gave them a call. They were happy to share an excavation company they work with normally. So I called the excavation company and got a quote back pretty quickly for the layout, dig and steel portion. I'm feeling great at this point to get my first quotes back on a big portion of the pool work. Next I called the third company I had seen doing a neighbors pool and got a contact email there. I shot off all my information and got a call back from their sales office. Come to find out, this company does all components of the job (layout, dig, steel, and gunite). I'm excited about this all inclusive company. When you are acting as the builder it is nice to consolidate some of the people and schedules into one. One of the good things about this is I get a call back with questions about my pool plans. I only had 4 steps into the pool and a 3.5 foot depth. I hadn't put a ton of thought into the step depths at this point. So we have a 3 foot 6 inch water depth plus 3 inch tile line plus 1.25 inch coping for a total of 3 foot 10.25 inch so lets just round that up to 4 ft. That means each step is 12 inches. I promptly go to my staircase and measure my stairs. They are 8 inch steps. I have two small kids and I know the smallest one can do the 8 inch steps barely, so adding 4 more inches I am thinking this is not good. I start stopping by neighbors houses and asking them how their deep are ther pool step. I find that most pool builders keep the depth a 3 feet to keep the steps from being large (this equates to 10 inch steps when you have 4). I think 3 foot depth is kind of small so I want to stick with the 3.5 foot depth. One of the main items driving my depths is my sun shelf, baja shelf, kiddie shelf, beach area or whatever you call it locally.
My engineering plans call for a max bench depth of 20 inches below the waterline. I have seen some pools where the shelf is the first step into the pool. This means that there is 6-8 inches of water on the shelf once you add in the 3 inch tile line and the coping 1 to 2.5 inch. I do not understand why you would add this shelf with barely any water depth. I feel like it is a large waste of space and cost just to be able to put a chair in 6-8 inches of water. I wanted to maximize that 20 inches of water depth for my bench and also connect my sun shelf to it. So for me I had to add a 5th step. To avoid using up swimming space in the pool I opted for two corner steps that lead down to the shelf area. So from the top of the coping the first step down will be 8.25 inch (1.25 inch travertine + 3 inch tile line, + 4 inches of water). Second step is 8 inches. Third step to the sun shelf is 8 inches. That gives me 20 inches of water for the kids to run around in and a bench where you are sitting in the water. My bench that runs the length of the pool acts as a swimout as well which you need once you have a 5 foot pool depth. The fourth step is 11 inches and the last step to the pool bottom is 11 inches. If I did my math correctly that is 42 inches under the water (3.5 ft). I am fine with the 11 inch steps because your body should be in the water by then to lessen the stress of making those bigger steps. So with my stair depths squared away I got the quote back. It came back higher than the separate companies doing quotes. So after chewing on it for a couple days, I sent an email and asked if they would meet the other quotes. They kindly asked me for an apples to apples comparison and to let them know exactly what work was quoted. First thing I zoned in on was the 12 yards of rock. They use this under the gunite shell when your water table is higher so the water can drain off. 10 yards were included in my excavation quote so they removed this 900 line item charge that was separate. Next we revisited the pool plan and realized they had quoted double wall steel. This was not needed after all. If your pool is further away from your house than the depth, you do not need double wall steel. Meaning if your pool is 5 ft depth and 5 feet away from your house, no extra steel. But it you have a 6 ft pool and it is 5 feet away from your house, you need double wall steel to meet code. In my case I am 7 feet away from the house so no extra steel. That saved about 400 bucks. So the lesson here is to question what you are being quoted. So now that we have reduced cost on the last quote it is only a little higher than using the separate companies. For me it is well worth the extra money to only deal with one company versus two. I down select the gunite company! Woo Woo! A week later I start asking questions about scheduling. I am totally expecting at this point that after the steel install, I will bring in the plumber to do his work and then we will gunite. I mean this is what I have been reading all over the forums. Come to find out, the gunite company starts asking me for all the locations of the lights, returns, vacuum lines, skimmer, etc etc. I ask them why they need all that and they said it's so they can cut holes in the gunite for the plumbing. I call the plumber immediately to ask if this is the order of operation and it is confirmed this is how they do it. Only in Florida! LOL. I am thinking they do this because it rains here a lot and cannot have cave-ins all the time. That is my guess!?
Is your pool going to be in a screen room?
