cnr1089,
Why bother with a PB in the first place? You could cut him out completely and hire it all out yourself?

As a PB it is aggravating to deal with customers who think they can piece meal things together and save money. The PB schedules the subs as well as supervises their work to make sure it is done to code.

When I have had customers use friends or family members or someone who is going to give them a great price it is inevitable that the amount of work I have to do increases. And when I say it needs to be redone or something added I hear howls because they say they didn't know it had to be done a certain way.

I want total control over the people I use and the work they do. I'll take responsibility for the entire project if I control the subs. If the retaining wall fails 5 years down the road it's the damn PB's fault even if he wasn't responsible for that part of the work. That's just the way it seems to happen.

If you're worried about money there are plenty of fly-by-night guys out there eager to take your money. Good luck.

Of course it's going to have some markup on it coming from the pool builder.
I can't speak for the Boston area but can about SE Texas.
The subs know precisely what we sell their marked up services for and will raise their price to within 5 percent of it when an owner contractor is willing to entertain contracting the work directly.
If there is a problem the owner/builder has an issue, getting them back is more difficult because you don't have the leverage of an open invoice you can hold back payment on or with the threat of finding one of the subs they compete with to handle their new account which used to be yours.
I just let go of a plaster contractor who provided me service for almost 12 years. I handled 2 things myself that he never addressed after multiple calls. I would have rather held his money on work but almost everything we've sold lately has been PebbleTec and I didn't have an open invoice.
He literally cried to me because of the lack of work this year and the fact he had to cut help. I was like why didn't you go handle it yourself to save face rather than making me do it myself. I really lost respect for him over this because there is absolutely nothing I ask my men to do that I wouldn't hop in and do myself if necessary.

My suggestion is to purchase the patio pavers yourself for $ 4 per sq/ft, purchase the additional tools and supplies, get a DIY patio decks book from Home Depot or Lowe's and save the major bucks by doing it yourself. A few strong teenage boys wages on top of these material costs will deliver big rewards to your pocketbook.
Trust me, this isn't rocket science, it's just good old fashioned hard work and lots of sweating.

See ya,
Kelly

I disagree with golfgeek.

I am remodeling my pool and, as owner-builder, have broken it down into 1) pool builder who demo'd the pool, did structural renovations including raising the deep end and adding a baja shelf, installing new tile, new coping, new plumbing all the way around; 2) concrete decking contractor who demo'd my old concrete deck and has installed new stamped concrete; 3) ordered all new equipment online; and 4) hired an electrician/pool svc tech to rewire everything and install the new equipment.

This has all been done to MY specs and I HAVE CONTROL over the work they all do -- you know how? Because I tell them exactly what I want, post reminder notes where needed as I'm at work all day while they are here working and, most importantly, they get paid only once they do it the way I want it done!

By piecing it out I am getting the best of everything, at a significantly lower price than if I had relied on the pool builder to provide it all.

There is one drawback to doing it this way, and that is the time it takes to get it all done. If one contractor is scheduling everything, it would have been done much more quickly. What would have taken one month has now taken three months. But really, there is a benefit to that too because as time has passed in between each phase I've had time to rethink the upcoming phase and rework a thing to two that I know will make me happier in the long run. If it was just done lickety-split by the single contractor, that wouldn't have been the case. I know I would have looked back on it and wished I'd done some things differently. I'm going to be in this house for a long, long time (Lord willing!) and I'd rather miss some swim time this summer and have it done the way I want it, than rush thru and have regrets.

BTW the permitting doesn't allow things to be done incorrectly. That Inspector catches everything. These inspections can be a PITA but really are for the best in the long run. If I had a retaining wall, rest assured it would not be tumbling down in 5 years so I wouldn't have to worry about who to go after.

Thanks for the feedback. Let me be clear, I am just trying to be a smart shopper. I really want to use the pool builder and I am hoping his cost is within 5-10% of other reputable installers, but since this is our first time building a pool, I wanted to know what others have done and what makes sense.

When buying a computer, the RAM upgrades are usually a huge profit maker for the sellers (check out apple's mark up on RAM), being knowledgable about this I can make recommendations to friends buying computers. I was hoping to get similar advice here (even if the advice is, have the pool builder do it, it will get you the best quality).

If it was 100% about cost, I would just do it myself (or with the help of friends), but it is about quality, time (I don't want it to to delay the pool so to the point where it isn't finished before freezing temperatures are here), and price ( if I am installing 1100sqft+ and the install alone is going to be 12k, it is only fair that I know I am not getting completely ripped off because the pb thinks have no other choice).

Either way, all feedback is welcome...

Thanks!!

My decking is also 1100 sq ft and the price I was quoted by a PB for a new deck was $12k though I don't recall if stamped & colored concrete was included in that price. That's what I've got now, at about 30% less, using a concrete decking contractor that's been in business since the 60's and is highly rated A+ with BBB, so this is not a cut-rate contractor I'm using.

The equipment I purchased online including the cost for installation and new wiring, was about 10% less. The PBs price did not include any electrical at all, so I'm saving even more than that really. And I got better stuff too: my pool light is the Intellibrite, PB's was just a regular white light. The PB timer was the standard Intermatic, the one I've got now is the TightWatt2 Programmable Digital Timer. Plus I got to choose which pump and filter I wanted (based on recommendations from this forum!), not just what PB decided to install.

Now let me say that my PB is also a highly rated A+ BBB company that's been in business for over 50 years. They are one of only two Pebbletec contractors in my area and they have done an excellent (but slow!) job. They also charge more.

While the convenience is definitely there having your PB take care of everything, its going to cost you... probably more than just 5-10%. While this has been a real hassle for me playing general contractor, I think its worked out better not just from a cost standpoint but also when considering the final product.

I would recommend you do some looking. The cost of concrete flatwork has gone down significantly. Here in Cali you can get stamped patio with color installed for as low as $4.50sqft. We have 4150sqft of decking surface and the best the PB could do was $6.50sqft for no color salt finish and their guys don't do upper deck lightweight pours which we need on the balcony. The best we could do for lightweight was $9.50sqft plus coping forms.

This is all understandable and the PB feelings weren't hurt since going with their contractor would have blown the budget and nixed the pool. Our PB has been great when it comes to this stuff and has worked with us to get the look we wanted within our budget.

In the end, we went with travertine pavers and managed to get excavation, base, material, installation, delivery, and drainaige done for less than $6.00 sqft. We haven't completed the job yet since we have other projects that are in the way right now and the pool dig has not begun, but we have 25 pallets of tumbled travertine pavers sitting in the backyard. They look good even in the crates!

All that being said, my paver installer comes highly rated and has many jobs that were completed and referenceable in travertine. I called several paver installers and the highest price I got was $5.25 sqft for base, excavation, and installation.

Just remember - paver install costs vary considerably by climate and what someone says in CA or FL is not the same in Boston....

I'd bet your PB makes 15-20% on the pavers. Similar to what a custom builder usually charges for a nice house.

Hi, would love to hear which PB you decided on in the Boston area and any specifics you are willing to share. We're in research mode, but will likely be on a schedule similar to yours (if I read correctly in another post that you will dig before winter and plaster in spring?). Thanks in advance!

I am in the Boston area also and just about finished with our decking. We choose pavers because we liked the look better and didn't want to risk cracking with stamped concrete. Hate the feel of exposed aggragate on feet

We also choose not to go with the PB for the pavers or the stone wall we built. Why? They charge more than you can sub it out for. We had a few PBs quote us $15 SF for pavers also. I has two independant companies quote about $12 which saved us about $5K considering we are doing about 1600 SF of deck and pavers. Also, some PBs charge wicked premiums for unanticpated extras as opposed to just time and labor. We did have the PB do the coping though to separte the pool from pavers as much as possible.

We were lucky and got our pavers through Unilock at the one day sale they have every year and saved about 75%. We then worked with our landscaping company (Renovo's landscaping) for the stone wall, pavers and misc site work. These guys have been working 8-7 every Mon-Sat for the last 2 weeks. Hard workers and great work. We got a price to for just the pavers install since we already had the pavers.

As of today, our deck is almost done and the pool will hopefully get filled this week. See the deck at the following post.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pools/msg0513062329559.html?18199

marta_p,

We chose Environmental (contract signed). I think all 3 of the ones most people mention here (Environmental, South Shore Gunite, and Andrews) will probably do a great job. Although Environmental came out slightly more expensive then the others, by the time I matched up the specs (and equipment) to be close to the same (on my own, since it wasn't easy to do it with the salesman), they weren't too much more.

As for when we are building, dig should start August 9th, although we have in our contract that it must start before August 22nd and be complete 45 days (after excavation) so that it doesn't go too late in the season.

cutter2010,

That is really tempting. I agree that getting the coping done by the pool company is probably the way to go. As for having the PB do the pavers, I am going to reserve my judgement until I get real quotes with real product choices (it has all been rough estimates up until now). Now that my wife and I are leaning towards specific products, we have a better chance of figuring out what we want. I don't know how having someone else doing the decking will be affected by the raised beam in our pool design.

michelle16,

Your pool looks great. In fact, that is the color we would go, if we choose Inca. At our local shop, they only had 1 Inca paver on display (it was raining, so we didn't look at them in the yard) and it looked very fake. From all the pictures I have seen, I love the look (and luckily we have a pool done by environmental in our area that is Inca). Do you consider Inca slippery (my wife seems to think it would be, but the whole point of the "stone" look is for it not to be).

cnr- no not slippery at all, quite the opposite, it doesn't look fake at all, very texturized, I know what u mean by the fake thing, we had a sample of ep henry devonstone and thought it looked fake, the only thing u will get with inca is some differences in thickness occasionally, which I think looks good and natural.

cur1089,

Our bond beam is raised out of the ground 12" for seating all the way around the pool. We chose to purchase travertine pavers from Florida and we live in California at a great savings for the overall job. We chose to have the PB do the coping since it is part of the pool and is also in travertine with a bull nose edge on both sides.

The original cost of concrete was a bit nutty since it started out at $7.50sqft from the PB contractor so we began searching for alternatives. First we looked at travertine locally and had completely written them off since it was around $15/sqft just for the pavers. We have a lot of deck and that placed the cost around $62k plus installation.

Quality concrete pavers were cheaper but but still way more expensive than plain old concrete. In our quest to be able to walk on something other than dirt we looked really hard for alternatives all the while remembering how awesome the travertine pavers were.

We finally found a contractor that could do the concrete at $4.50/sqft but we needed a large amount of that to be poured on top of the upstairs balcony (1392sqft of 4150sqft) at $9.50/sqft. The cost ended up being more manageable at $25k. However, we couldn't get the look of the travertine out of our heads and began searching for alternative sources.

In the end we purchased travertine from a wholesaler in Florida, had it delivered, and found a local installer. All told we will be saving $3k over the lowest price on concrete having the entire job come in at $22k for a look that is just stunning. We went with an ivory french pattern.

Hi Typea- this is just stunning! Would you be willing to share the name of your wholesaler in Florida?

Thanks so much!

nylsor,

We went with Stone-Mart. There are a few options out there however and you should get a few quotes.

Here are the places where we looked into.

Stone Mart
Travertine Mart
Travertine Warehouse
Artemis USA
Build Direct

Most of these places deliver the travertine and you will need to either have someone unload it from a box truck or do it yourself. I chose to rent a forklift and unload the trucks with a helper. I had (~4,300 sqft) to unload on two 85ft trucks and it took less than an hour for each truck.

I stressed at first over doing this but you really shouldn't. The forklift was a bunch of fun and a real no-brainer to operate! Steering wheel, gas pedal, and a lever.

Michelle16:

We finally got some quotes for Inca for our deck. Our deck is going to be about 1200 sqft + possibly some extra walkways to the pool fence. The rough price I got was between 21-23 sqft depending on some of the details. Is that in line with what you paid?

The decking company suggested the techo-bloc blu product as an alternative. I have seen Inca on a pool, but not blu. Anyone use it?

cnr- sorry to get back to u late, I was on vacation- I paid 15.00 sq. ft for the inca, which I think is great, my friend got the blu, I don't like it as much, it's a diff. look all together, very contemporary, not as textured and rough looking like inca, hope that helps, Michelle

Michelle16: Thanks for getting back to me. That is a pretty good deal for the Inca. Everyone I talked to around here said it was really hard to install (the cost for the Inca itself isn't that much more then the other products in the grand scheme of things) due to the varying heights of the pavers. In fact, almost everyone I talked to tried to talk me out of using it, even though they have installed it many times.

We had a chance to see Blu installed and to see various pool installs with it and really like it (we are going to go with a mix of shale grey and champlain)...Also, we are getting a really good deal.

BTW, as an update to this whole thread:

We chose to not go through the pool builder for decking. The reasons where as following:

We didn't really know what product we wanted (we knew we liked Inca, but didn't see anything else we liked). Our PB has been great about pool stuff, but as far as decking, we just didn't get the sit down time for going over decking options (and pricing)...Even after excavation (before gunite), I hadn't gotten a single price even on INCA.

We go to the point where we were really frustrated. Didn't know what the project was going to cost and didn't have a good idea what the complete thing would look like (other then the pool). When I got wind that Inca could cost me $31k for the decking alone, I was pretty worried.

One of our good friends is friends with the owner of Triad Associates (they do decking, walls, pool finishes, etc) and kept telling us to just give them a call and ask them for ideas (and pricing). It turns out that we had met the owner at a Super Bowl part earlier this year.

Either way, we also found out that our favorite pool done by our PB (in Inca no less) had Triad do the deck work (and the pool finish). Once we figured that out, it made us realize that our two companies work together all the time and it wouldn't be as much as an issue as I thought.

So, in 10 minutes with Triad, we had seen all the different materials installed (so we could walk on it, etc) and had the different pricing options. Now we have a great design and our "Pool Studio" designs have been updated to reflect the exact materials we will be using (for the most part).

I know it is more of a pain for our PB, but having a middle man when deciding one something expensive as this for our backyard really gets in the way. We saw samples, had pricing, got to see all the different products all in one stop and my wife went from being worried about what things would look like in the end, to being very happy about what it will look like (if things look like the plans).

I am sure we are saving money, but I can't say how much because I never got a price for the decking from our PB (just ranges for the different product types). I am not un-happy with the pool builder, but IMHO, they are good at pools (and overall design) and the people that do decking (and will be doing our retaining walls and River Rok finish) do that all the time, so they are good at that.

michelle16, I am considering the Techo-Bloc Inca in Baja Beige (or Sahara) for pool deck and am also located in NJ. Do you have any photos you can send my way of your pool w/ Inca? My pool gunite shell is in, waiting for spring to finish and trying to decide on decking.

Also, how is the temperature to foot on a hot day?

Would love to see it, thx.