How to Determine the Price of your upcoming Pool Project.
There are many factors to consider when starting this adventure of adding a swimming pool to your backyard, but let me assure you that the focus must be on going through this in a methodical way to achieve your goals. My average callers statement within the first 3 min of their call usually is “We received three bids from pool contractors and all three are unrealistic for what we want”
I have made a career out of assisting people throughout this process to determine costs of building a swimming pool and building the pool on many levels, both Commercial and Residential pools.
To determine where to rein in overall costs clients can maintain the look and feel of a design but scale down the size of the pool and areas of concrete if need be.
Excavations are the starting place of building our total budget so maximizing the use of this contractor is key. With Bobcat on site, demolition of parts of an existing backyard not needed such as existing concrete, masonry walls, grass areas removed utilizing this sub makes since. Also, if the project design will have structure walls or other construction that will be built into slopes and as part of the process will require removal of large amounts of soil it would be best to have this contractor provide this service. Bringing in truckloads of gravel or top soil, this would be the sub to use. If your excavator owns and will have a mini excavator on site day of pool excavation and your project includes future planting of larger box trees, have this contractor provide this service. Excavating a pool, not including these other listed tasks will average between a small pool (normal access, normal soil conditions) from $2500.00 to $3500.00, Larger pools obviously would go up from there. Soil with heavy rock and demolition of concrete, removal of grass all require special sites for disposal. Additional fees for these services will need to be considered. The best part of all of these details are you are only paying for what you need direct to the person providing this work, so no add-on costs when building your own pool.
Structural Steel rebar for a basic pool and spa will run you for an average sized pool between $2,000.00 and $3,000.00 depending of the elevations of any raised bond beams along the perimeter of your pool. Raised Bond beams are the portions of the pool walls raised in increments of 6” lifts. Details attached to a plan represent the guide process to the rebar installer and a tool used by the inspectors to reference the requirements imposed by the engineer as to how the pool should be built.
Swimming Pool Plumbing and costs range based upon the quality of work a contractor is known for. All Plumbing contractors licensed in their trade will provide a service…This trade has a few factors that drive the overall costs to each bid. Knowing the background of your potential contractor and products they offer will help to determine those differences in bids received. Lengths of pipe runs of Gas lines, sizes of pipe will factor into these equations. How far the pool equipment pumps are from the spa plays into this determination of the overall costs. Average plumbing costs of a basic pool & spa range from $4,500.00 to $6,500.00 utilizing basic project factors.
Next cost considerations are the Electrical factors of your project. Power from the meter to the equipment location as well as any other power runs to other locations such as outlets, barbeques or yard lamps will determine the overall costs of this phase. Average electrical costs of a basic pool & spa range from $2,100.00 to $2,900.00 utilizing basic project factors.
Pool Equipment is like buying a car and I like the best. Not the most expensive. There is a difference. After 25 years in this industry of Building, Service and Repair you just know what lasts and works best and that is why we are 100% Pentair.
We afford our clients a source through our company to obtain all new equipment with full warranties at wholesale. So our average client saving thousands on the construction costs of the pool tend to get the bells and whistles. IPhone controllers, Magic Stream Laminars, Bubblers and Color lighting. But for this article let’s give three scenario’s, Basic $5500.00 – Mid Level $6,800.00 – High End $14,500.00. The differences between the three are the number of pumps and options (bells and whistles).
Gunite Vs Shotecrete is covered in a blog here on my website. But again, we have factors that will apply in determining the cost of this service. How large the pool is, how many and how high each raised bond beam is. Will any of the raised portions of the pool or spa require a strip and finish as so these surfaces are ready to face with tile or stone. If your project includes rock work, in many cases the build-up of these structures are done by this contractor and will need accounting for. Basic Pool & Spa Gunite/Shotcrete averages from $4,500.00 tp $6,500.00 on up based upon size of pool & spa and additional for the yardage needed for other structures with the scope of your project.
Underground drain work for a standard size yard around a pool and runs to the street may include tying into existing downspouts. Average budget costs needed – $1,500.00 – $2,500.00
Concrete, Masonry these contractors range based upon the history and quality of the company. Remember this is the gingerbread of the project, I highly recommend going to see some of the work by these crews to ascertain the quality you will be expecting.
This goes for the Rock crews for their trade as well.
Tile and Plaster, Pebble Coat or Mini (the new product) all have square footage or lineal footage cost factors. I recommend going to see this work provided by this contractor and using the square footage and/or lineal footage costs as a tool to choose the final contractor for this phase. Basic White Plaster & Tile of a Pool & Spa of a 15’X30’ will cost you $5,000.00.
In a nut shell – The average pool and spa building it yourself will run you about $37,000.00 Buying that same design, size and scope of project from a pool contractor would be like spending $48,500.00 to $52,500.00
I hope this article will give the reader some sense of round number costs to understand each phase of building a swimming pool. We look forward to assisting all families with this process. Log in and join, there is so much more to aid you in the member’s area.
Best Regards,
And good luck on your project please let us know how we can help!
Jesse Oren
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