New pool build in AZ - All advice appreciated!

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D

Dogwell

0
Jul 26, 2017
74
Queen Creek AZ
Hello friends! It's been about 4 years since I've used this site. TFP was such a blessing to me when we lived back in MD. We had a wonderful 18 x 36 pool there for a couple years and still cherish the memories of spending all day outside swimming. We're now in AZ and finally ready to build our own pool.

I have no experience doing a pool build (our last one came with the house and we had to do a simple liner switch out), but given the rising costs, I'm totally okay with acting as the manager to save some money. I have no idea on where to get started though and could really use some help.

For those who have done this before, could you please share your experience / advice / list of things that you love or what you'd do differently? How did you get started on your design itself? Do you have a list of contractors you'd recommend or absolutely avoid?

Any help you could give is greatly appreciated!

Many thanks
 
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Dogwell said:
Hello friends! It's been about 4 years since I've used this site. TFP was such a blessing to me when we lived back in MD. We had a wonderful 18 x 36 pool there for a couple years and still cherish the memories of spending all day outside swimming. We're now in AZ and finally ready to build our own pool.

I have no experience doing a pool build (our last one came with the house and we had to do a simple liner switch out), but given the rising costs, I'm totally okay with acting as the manager to save some money. I have no idea on where to get started though and could really use some help.

For those who have done this before, could you please share your experience / advice / list of things that you love or what you'd do differently? How did you get started on your design itself? Do you have a list of contractors you'd recommend or absolutely avoid?

Any help you could give is greatly appreciated!

Many thanks
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Just got through our excavation and I'd absolutely recommend Imperial Excavation.

6023686475

They were very good, professional, and gave upfront estimates about hard digs. We luckily didn't get one. Whew.

We are using Wyman Plumbing for gas, they come Monday. Love them so far. AZ Pool Connections for plumbing and rebar. H2& & Sons for electrical. And RVCA Pool Tile for our stone, tile and interior. National Shotcrete is why we are going with. Shotcrete was the toughest contractor to procure. So many of them are slammed.
 
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I'm in the process of doing O/B as well and just starting to get quotes on trades, Plans were just submitted to city for permit last week. I used a consultant that has been a huge help!! PM me if you want his contact info, a lot of people on here as I have noticed has used the same consultant. Your welcome to follow my build for ideas - Laveen, AZ O/B Pool Thread
 
kjjones said:
I'm in the process of doing O/B as well and just starting to get quotes on trades, Plans were just submitted to city for permit last week. I used a consultant that has been a huge help!! PM me if you want his contact info, a lot of people on here as I have noticed has used the same consultant. Your welcome to follow my build for ideas - Laveen, AZ O/B Pool Thread
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HI, i would really appreciate the name of your consultant as well. i am just now working on a design and hope to get started myself.
 
Hello!

After many delays, we are finally ready to get our pool put in. I've met with a number of pool builders in the past few weeks and it's clear that many are just sales people with limited knowledge on the actual details of the pool. I am now debating whether to pay a pool consultant to manage the process or do a true owner build and handle everything. Thoughts?

The consultants I spoke to vary in price from $2k-$6k and offer different levels of support from a basic list of contractors to actual site visits and inspections. What I'm hearing the most is that their fee is usually covered by access to their wholesale plumbing equipment prices, but of course no one actually shares what that savings is.

I've gathered quite a bit of information reading all the posts here over the years and have a pretty good contractor list, though I am not sure on an actual engineer.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you!
 
I had the same questions as you. I decided to go full owner builder in the end. I asked some people about their experience with their consultants and most replied they were helpful with the design and plans but you were pretty much left to deal with subs on your own. You would have to pay for someone to be a fulltime construction manager if you wanted them to handle all the subs. I have designed and built several homes as a Owner builder and have experience dealing with subs. It all comes down to how much hands on you are comfortable with.
 
AZRider said:
I had the same questions as you. I decided to go full owner builder in the end. I asked some people about their experience with their consultants and most replied they were helpful with the design and plans but you were pretty much left to deal with subs on your own. You would have to pay for someone to be a fulltime construction manager if you wanted them to handle all the subs. I have designed and built several homes as a Owner builder and have experience dealing with subs. It all comes down to how much hands on you are comfortable with.
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Hello,

Thank you for your response! I'm fairly comfortable dealing with subs, just not sure what exactly I should be looking for when it comes to QA/QC. My hope would be that getting the right subs in would eliminate the need for a proper check of the work, but I'm also conscious mistakes happen and I'd hate to move on to next steps without realizing something needed to be fixed. How did you handle this issue on your first build? Can you please also share where you got your pool equipment from?

Thank you!
 

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This is my first pool build, I built my own houses before. I am a bit nervous when I see the issues people posted here, but it does give me clues where to look at each stage of the process. Having my engineering spec'ed for highly expansive soils even though my area is not in a high expansive area. This is an example on how to avoid issues later. It costs more for addtional steel but i see it as cheap insurance. Mistakes happen when a pool company builds a pool and from the current state of the constuction would probably get missed by the builder until issues starts appearing. I caught many mistakes when our current homes was being built, I had to call the construction manager many times. That was another reason I wanted to Owner Build, for the ability to control quality. Subs are being paid by me and will listen to my concerns, no middle man to deal with. My pool equipment bids so far the cheapest has been Monster power. He included equipment as a seperate bid when he bid my electric. Polytec pools was next closest.
 
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Don’t dismiss that it does take your time to coordinate with the contractors for bids and lining up the work. That does take quite a bit of time and effort, although it does depend on how much you want to be involved and how unique your pool is from what is a typical build. I was fortunate to be retired and be home while every contractor was doing their work.

I didn’t have a QA/QC plan but I was very familiar with the design and engineering plans. I looked over their work several times each day and when they finished. I didn’t catch every thing but I did catch quite a bit and had corrected. Also this forum was extremely helpful. After reading many build threads I felt I could handle my first pool construction with some help from the TFP community. Create a build thread and post lots of pictures and questions and members on here will chime in. Some things I missed and found later doesn’t look to be a big deal (we’ll see after I get the pool up and running).

I ultimately decided to go the OB route because I didn’t want a middleman, and I’ve heard horror stories, and great stories about the same pool builders so it seemed like it was almost the luck of the draw. It’s been great to control my own construction schedule. If I had something going on I didn’t schedule anyone.
 
I am currently working with Craig from Independence Pools and I am about halfway through my project.

I would agree with some comments here, but also provide a different perspective and say… As someone that works full-time and also doesn’t have a large amount of experience in the construction field, I am really glad that I decided to choose a resource like Craig to work with. Just the simple things he has caught within my design, as well as during his initial work inspections has been well worth the cost.

I would not have been well-versed enough to catch the things he has so far, or confident enough to point them out to the contractors, since I really don’t know all the ins and outs of the business.

Ironically, I have a friend going through a 100% independent owner build right now, and we are about at the same stage of construction… I can already see things that will be problems for him in the future or are problems for him now that were either not thought out or not caught. The $3,500 savings he will have by not using someone to oversee things will seem silly in the end.

Definitely not saying it can’t be done 100% on your own, as plenty of folks, including some here, have done just that. Just trying to give a different perspective that it may not be for everyone.
 
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