New Owner-Builder - Gilbert, Arizona

[Newdude]

But the wife and I really don't like steps. it's easy to have issues with steps when you or your family/friends are drunk.

Lol. I get it. I do. And there have been MANY a beverage *cough* kegs *cough* had at my house. But if somebody is literally fall down drunk they have no business being by the pool in the first place. The tipsy people will navigate just fine.

What I find funny, is that on this slope, the pool is almost an above ground pool. the PB would only have to go down a couple of feet

Depending on the land and the design that could be worse. True retaining walls generally require an engineer and a lot more construction than just laying some blocks down. Many ‘retaining walls’ are simply called so for the look. Technically the Hoover Dam is a retaining wall also. Big difference in price. Lol.

 

[Desert Dog]

You may only have to dig a couple of feet for your water depth, but depending on the slope and height of the wall, you will have to dig a deep footer the length of the wall. Then they will have to frame the wall to prepare for shotcrete. There is still plenty of work to be done.

You don't want the pool sliding down the hill.

 

[Scott1975]

Merged threads - TFP Mod
I posed back in September about doing a new build.
Fast Forward 3 months....
Refinanced the house, and pulled out ~$65k to do the pool.
Engaged with BYOP to do it. Kicked all the PB's to the curb.
They have been 'ok' thus far.

I found a cool California Pools picture that I liked, and used as a base.
Pool+SPA, SWGC+Travertine.
In floor cleaning system + Convenience vacuum hookup.
White Plaster Quartz. The wife and I don't like Pebble, or micro pebble w/glass. Also I figured that the light colors would more accurate.
We pulled away from the trees as much as possible so we would not kill them.
There is no pool heater, though the plumbing hookups are supposed to be there so we can tie into it in the future.
I want to pull out the middle 2 patio columns, and put in a 35ft steel beam to hold up the patio. This will depend on cost.

My question's....
What am I missing?
I already found that the new electrical sub panel on the right side of the house is missing, as well as electrical from there to the pool equipment.
I am unsure about grass border terminating into the stairs in picture 4. It looks weird. Should it / Can it go right to the pool coping?
Can I put sprinkler hears beside the pool coping? By where the stairs and the pool meet on the right side.
I already have propane lined up to heat the spa.
The Spa requires engineering due to the zero edge.

Thank you in advanced.

Scott

 

[Nikilyn]

We are doing o/b here in Gilbert too and are getting electrical done tomorrow and our pre-gunite inspection on Wed . Where are you located to have your house so much higher than your backyard? Gilbert is pretty much flat.

 

[Scott1975]

We are doing o/b here in Gilbert too and are getting electrical done tomorrow and our pre-gunite inspection on Wed . Where are you located to have your house so much higher than your backyard? Gilbert is pretty much flat.

How was your permit process with the City of Gilbert?

We are off of Lindsey, between Warner and and Elliot.
We have a number of our houses in the neighborhood with a slope that goes down to the canal.
For us, it's a 4ft drop over 20ft.

I just received the equipment list + cost
Wow. More then I expected.
Are these prices reasonable? I have not had a chance to google and look at other sources yet.

Thank you.

 

[Nikilyn]

Permit was fast. Would have been faster if our pool consultant had submitted our name correctly so that we could see it on the portal. It was submitted on a weekend, so basically a Monday. We set up our accounts to be able to see the process and know when to pay but it wouldn’t ever pull up. I tried calling and kept getting people who were less than helpful. I finally found like on Wed that we needed to pay and did that over the phone with a debit card. We kept waiting for the permit notification and I called the next week again and they said it was done and had been done. Our consultant got the notice but didn’t say anything. I finally got our portal fixed yesterday when I talked to Bernadette about scheduling our pre-gunite inspection. Now I’ll be able to see when we pass. For the gas inspection I scrolled thru all the inspections done that day until I found ours. They don’t leave a green tag like they used to. It’s all paperless.

As for the equipment, ours is a little cheaper for the few things I compared. If you go to my build thread you can compare because I posted our price list. Our stuff is thru Superior and our consultant gets it for us at his wholesale price. But ya, it was a huge sticker shock, especially when I had to write a check for that amount . But counting out the thousands of dollars in cash to pay the subs has caused a little anxiety too.

O/B in Gilbert, AZ for 2nd time

I finally get to start my build thread :). We just got our plans back yesterday and started getting bids today. 🥳 Background, back in 2006 we built our own pool, which we sadly only had for 2 seasons before moving. Our friend's brother consults o/bs, draws their pool, gets it engineered...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[ajonesaz]

First off. This forum, and TFP website is awesome. A lot of great information, and a responsive forum community.

I am working on refinancing the house to build a pool, and take advantage of low interest rates.
This will be our very 1st pool.

We had set a $50k budget. Over the summer we meet with 6 pool builders in the area. Like everybody else. $30-$40k intro price quickly turned into $70-$100k. Especially after visiting my house.

We narrowed the builders down to 2. And then decided to put them both on hold. I found this website, and BYOP, and other owner-builder websites.

So far we know we want salt water, a spa, a rectangular pool, year round (Arizona), and full automation.

Here come the questions.

1. Engineering vs designing. Are both needed to build a pool or one over the other?

2. We have 4 huge Ash tree's in our backyard. When the leaf's drop, we get about 25-30 50gal yard bags full.
With that said, I am expecting a lot of leaf's in the pool...The pool builders recommended their best systems. Paramount PCC2000, and Blue Square Q-360. Are in floor systems any good now a days? Are they even available to owner builder? Get both a robot, and in-floor system?

3. Bugs. Do you do anything special to keep bugs out of your pools? I think the entire state has a Cicada problem, and my kids are scared of them. Will the salt water / chemicals just keep them at bay?

4. Water drainage. One of the builders wanted to raise up the pool 12" at a $10k charge. Others said we were fine. Another wanted $1k for a 45 l.f. hidden drainage system in the travertine pool deck. Is this common? Is one drainage system better than another?

5. Salt...IC40 vs IC60. Does it make a difference if the pool is < 15k gal?

6. Salt system with a Ozone system? Will this truly extend the life of the salt cell?

7. There are a million paver options. my head is spinning from looking at all the different options. How in the world did you decide which ones to go with? Just let the wife pick the pretty ones that she likes?

8. How can we jazz up our design without breaking the bank?
My wife thought about doing stone fire pillars around the outside of the deck...and tying that into the propane tanks, and the automation...but that sounds like an expensive nightmare.

Thank you again for your thoughts and ideas.

Scott

One year old pool here in Gilbert.

Ditch the in floor cleaning system. Gravel and even plain 'ol arizona dirt has rocks small enough to clog them. I talked to all my neighbors and they all were not really satisfied.
Robot vacuums are the future, so make sure you have power close enough to the pool.

The only tree that causes an issue for me is south of the pool. During summer monsoons the wind blows from the south, south-west and it all goes in the pool, which is why my skimmer is the northeast corner. Other than that keeping them trimmed up works wonders.

We use to have a huge cicada problem, but they live underground, usually in the grass by barky trees. We dug up all out grass and went with the fake stuff and did not see a cicada all summer, no more nasty exoskeletons in the yard or anything.