Anyone built your own pool? Subbed it out yourself?

[Mayhem]

Add up the insurance, storage, maintenance and other associated cost of a boat and bet you’re off on that statement.



OP I think the key is how long do you plan on being in you’re home and do you truly believe your family will use it to justify the expense. Do you enjoy hosting people and entertaining guest? Everything I read and discussed with realtors is you can expect about a 10-20% return on your expense so you are obviously not doing it for an investment but my girls use the hell out of it so the expense didn’t bother me. In regards to maintenance I empty the skimmer baskets one a week add chlorine once a month in the winter and 2-3x during the summer. There is nothing to it.

In regards to GCing it your self if I could do it over again I would definitely do it my self but if you are financing it that may not be an option. It’s hard to repo a pool much less a incomplete or half *** one.

I suspect if you reach out to a few people on here and a local tile coping distributor you can come up with a deep sublist and talk through all hurdles and successfully build what you are wanting. If there is something you are un certain of specicifcally with the structure pay a engineer for a inspection before gunite. Just like building a home you could spend 250$ a SF or dummy it down to a 110$ a foot. Just figure out how elaborate/custom you want to go. I think you can easily build a nice pool for between 35-45k. I would recommend a spa and extend that use throughout the year.

If you decide to do one I personally wouldn’t go the fiberglass route from the horror stories I have heard and from a personal aesthetic standpoint.



I think the most important thing will be do you have the time (which will be significant) for about 2-3 months. If so then do it.



Just my opinion.

$500 a year on insurance and 1 oil change a year and I can use it 12 months out of the year and it helps to food in the freezer, along with recreation. Hell I could get my captains license and charge people to take them fishing if I wanted. [emoji848]


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[txtrophy85]

I’m in the process of getting pool quotes now. We have settled in a 20.2’x 31.5’ pool with a hot tub and about 600 sq.ft of pool decking and it’s quoted anywhere from $78k-$98k

The fiberglass liner pools we looked at were cheap looking and still cost $60-$70k.

I don’t want to get a pool, but the wife and kids want it and we all would use it. I say I don’t want one now but ask me in July and I may give you a different answer.

We looked into GC’ing our own but it was gonna be around $60k with no pool decking and I had to remove my own trees. Might have saved a few bucks but I don’t really have the time to mess with it. Buddy went this route and it took him 9 months to get his pool built because the subs would only show up on the slow days

Pools are expensive, And I believe most men will have a hard time justifying the cost. I am having to look at it as a gift to my family and nothing else.

[Bassdeer]

I’m going to call and get a quote. Do you know if that was with all the bells and whistles like rock water fall, boublers on tanning ledge, etc. or just pool and equipment installed. I will say the pools we were quoted were very nice with lots of extras. And yes our neighborhood will support the investment. Most homes here have very nice pools and most homes are $500k and up, which actually in today’s word really isn’t that expensive of a home I guess. Still don’t want to sink that much money into a hole in the ground.

All he told me it was with a heated hot tub attach to it and they were going to plumb it for a water fall and he was going to build that.

[panhandlehunter]

https://discussions.texasbowhunter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=634251

Here’s some good reading on it.

[Razorback01]

We have a 18k gallon in-ground pool, located in Burleson, I'd almost pay you $40k to come dig the SOB out and haul it away.

[ColinR]

Bump for those screwing off at work. LOL

[jlp04c]

Wasn't there a guy on here who subbed out everything, and now owns his own pool building business? Crazy story

[tmurray]

Wasn't there a guy on here who subbed out everything, and now owns his own pool building business? Crazy story

Was thinking the same thing, there's a great thread on here somewhere on this very subject.

[Take Dead Aim]

Was thinking the same thing, there's a great thread on here somewhere on this very subject.

Pools are roughly a 15% markup on average. That 15% is made up of insurance, taxes, overhead and yes profit. I used to think it had to be around 40% markup. It's not. My wife owns a pool building company in Austin. When you see the amount of plumbing that can go into some it will blow your mind.

The plumbing alone would scare me off as it not like you can just dig gunite up to add or move a line if you missed something. Outside of that they are pretty simple if you have good trades. Good trades being the key word. Building a good quality pool is going to take staying on top of trades and keeping a tight schedule is a must.

[myway]

Wasn't there a guy on here who subbed out everything, and now owns his own pool building business? Crazy story

See post 19. He did a great job.

[ateague11]

I am the GM for a custom pool builder and can answer any questions you may have. We build in the Houston area so I'm most familiar with sub pricing in our area. Compared to a homeowner building his own, a pool builder will get better pricing and dependability from pool subs due to the volume they get from us. Pool subs will also make a builder who is giving them 50 -100 pools per year their priority on scheduling which could make it difficult for some homeowners wanting to sub out their own pool. We also get materials and equipment way cheaper due to the volume we buy from distributors that don't sell to the public. There are certain fixed costs associated with any size pool. For example, we use top of the line Pentair equipment packages that on average run $12-15k....just for the equipment. We use only the best company in Houston (Modern Method) for gunite and plaster who are far superior to the average small gunite company and give great warranties. This isn't cheap. Joe Smo that has a crew that can do gunite, and plumb your pool, and has a cousin that does plaster on the side will not have this. So the guy building his own pool for $30k leaves me with a lot of questions about what corners are being cut. Maybe a tiny pool without a spa, minimal decking, cheap tile and coping materials, using inferior equipment, etc, you MIGHT do one for $30-35k. The average fiberglass inground pools cost around that in our area from what I understand. I can build my own for cost and couldn't come close to doing it for $30k. For example....I have a design for my own pool ready to go but have to decide if we are staying in this house or not. It isn't a huge pool but will be nice with some nice features and materials... 130 perimeter ft including spa. It has a 5 ton rock waterfall, stone firepit, and only a moderate amount of Decking. My cost to build this for myself would be about $52k. That's with a break from Pentair on my equipment and my subs giving me a big break. Our average pool that we build is from $60-70k with many over $100k. I believe $60k is the cheapest one we've done since I started with the company last June. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to PM me. I would be glad to offer any advice that might save your family money and give you a pain free process.

Example...This is a pool we finished last week and cost us about $68k to build.

[ATTACH]993164[/ATTACH]

It cost you $68K to build but how much did your company charge the owner?

[ROBINHOOD11]

I am the GM for a custom pool builder and can answer any questions you may have. We build in the Houston area so I'm most familiar with sub pricing in our area. Compared to a homeowner building his own, a pool builder will get better pricing and dependability from pool subs due to the volume they get from us. Pool subs will also make a builder who is giving them 50 -100 pools per year their priority on scheduling which could make it difficult for some homeowners wanting to sub out their own pool. We also get materials and equipment way cheaper due to the volume we buy from distributors that don't sell to the public. There are certain fixed costs associated with any size pool. For example, we use top of the line Pentair equipment packages that on average run $12-15k....just for the equipment. We use only the best company in Houston (Modern Method) for gunite and plaster who are far superior to the average small gunite company and give great warranties. This isn't cheap. Joe Smo that has a crew that can do gunite, and plumb your pool, and has a cousin that does plaster on the side will not have this. So the guy building his own pool for $30k leaves me with a lot of questions about what corners are being cut. Maybe a tiny pool without a spa, minimal decking, cheap tile and coping materials, using inferior equipment, etc, you MIGHT do one for $30-35k. The average fiberglass inground pools cost around that in our area from what I understand. I can build my own for cost and couldn't come close to doing it for $30k. For example....I have a design for my own pool ready to go but have to decide if we are staying in this house or not. It isn't a huge pool but will be nice with some nice features and materials... 130 perimeter ft including spa. It has a 5 ton rock waterfall, stone firepit, and only a moderate amount of Decking. My cost to build this for myself would be about $52k. That's with a break from Pentair on my equipment and my subs giving me a big break. Our average pool that we build is from $60-70k with many over $100k. I believe $60k is the cheapest one we've done since I started with the company last June. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to PM me. I would be glad to offer any advice that might save your family money and give you a pain free process.

Example...This is a pool we finished last week and cost us about $68k to build.

[ATTACH]993164[/ATTACH]

Perfectly said here! I sell and design pools north of Dallas and built mine last year for cost getting a break from every sub I could also got a break on my equipmnet from Zodiac. There is no way that a homeowner could come close to that savings. My guess is you will save about 10% with no warranty or backup plan if something goes wrong. My biggest worry would be gunite and plumbing.

[Sparkles]

Perfectly said here! I sell and design pools north of Dallas and built mine last year for cost getting a break from every sub I could also got a break on my equipmnet from Zodiac. There is no way that a homeowner could come close to that savings. My guess is you will save about 10% with no warranty or backup plan if something goes wrong. My biggest worry would be gunite and plumbing.

Who do you work for?
Pm me if you’d prefer.

My biggest worry would also be gunite.
I’ve seen too many cracked and shifted pools



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[myway]

Perfectly said here! I sell and design pools north of Dallas and built mine last year for cost getting a break from every sub I could also got a break on my equipmnet from Zodiac. There is no way that a homeowner could come close to that savings. My guess is you will save about 10% with no warranty or backup plan if something goes wrong. My biggest worry would be gunite and plumbing.

Out of curiosity what is a typical or standard warranty?

[Pineywoods]

It cost you $68K to build but how much did your company charge the owner?

That's a $82k pool for the buyer in the wintertime. We finished it in under 7 weeks with lots of bad weather and taking a week off for the holidays right at the start. Most of our average sized pools with a spa, tanning shelf, small waterfall are done in under 30 days. I am designing a $300k pool to go behind a "mansion right now. It looks like it belongs at a resort.