Time to Play Catch Up

It's been a while since I posted. The last time I wrote the hole had been dug. Since then, we've had the pool shell installed and concreted in, water filled, enjoyed a few swims over spring, got most of the tiling done around the pool and the glass pool fence is almost complete. We have not even touched the landscaping (that will be a spring job) but it is getting there...slowly! 

Here are some photos. 

The crane arrives!

The shell arrives!

This crane is one big boy.

Up she goes over the house.

Down she goes in the hole.

The temporary fence goes up. Concrete gets put in all around the pool (to get it ready for tiling). 

It's not a large area of concrete but enough. 

Next blog post will show photos of the tiling and glass fence. 

The Hole is Dug!

We have a hole! On Saturday our backyard became one big construction site. It was originally going to be on Tuesday but some of the people were not available to do the work.

My 20-month-old boy thought it was Christmas. He enjoyed his front row seat to the digger as the mound of dirt and hole in the ground got bigger and bigger. Dean our pool builder was on hand to make sure the bobcat guy dug the hole exactly to specifications.

Usually the dirt is taken away on the same day but because the truck guy wasn't available on Saturday, the dirt was left on site. Lucky we have a big enough yard so this was possible. The dirt was collected on Monday. 

There are two things at this stage which could potentially cost you more money. The first is if you have rock under your soil. If another marchine is required to break up the rock, be prepared to pay a couple of extra thousand dollars. This is specified in most contracts. We were lucky we didn't have boulders down there. Lots of shale yes (as we suspected) but no huge rocks. 

The second thing that could be an unexpected expense is where the soil gets dumped. Some contracts say if they have to dump it outside of a 5km radius from your house, you will get charged more. Our contract did say this. However, I clarified with Ivan our sales rep if we would be slugged with extra costs. He said no as I'm assuming the cost to tip to wherever the closet tipping site was had already been calculated into the price. It didn't hurt to ask though so no nasty surprises. 

So digging the hole caused no dramas which was a relief. We hit no wires or pipes under the ground and nothing got damaged in the process. 

Here are some photos of our site:

Sometimes you will see water left in the hole. This will be suctioned out before the pool goes in. 

Here are just two things to be aware of once all the action starts in your backyard. Dates could easily change. Our digging date was originally Tuesday but it changed to Saturday. Our pool delivery date was Thursday but now it is Tuesday. If you plan on taking time off work for these things be prepared that dates could change at the last minute. 

The other thing is the weather. If it started raining this weekend then everyone's pool gets pushed back. This again could stuff up the annual leave you booked so be prepared to be flexible when you are dealing with the pool trade. 

How Much Does a Pool Cost?

How much a pool costs is a question I often see on forums and one I wanted to know myself when I first started researching pools. I realise now it is hard for any pool business to give exact figures on the spot. This is because every pool location is different and every pool is different. It's like building a house - where you build, how big your block is, what soil conditions you have, what house design you choose, whether you do the driveway later - all these things contribute to the final cost of your house. 

Below is a breakdown of the cost of our pool. It came to $39,010 which does not include any landscaping, coping (tiling around the edge of the pool on the bondbeam) or permanent pool fence. It also doesn't include any accessories like pool blanket or automatic pool cleaner. 

The cost of the pool can be broken into five sections: 

Section 1: Approvals 

Home owners warranty insurance - $600

Building permits (CDC) including building site plan - $1,600

TOTAL: $2,200

Section 2: Installation

Flat fee for installation of filter, pump, lights, heating provision and spa jets as well as filling pool with water

TOTAL: $5,000

Section 3: Excavation

Bobcat - $800

Soil removal - $2,300

Excavator - $1,100

TOTAL: $4,200

Section 4: Concrete Bond Beam

Flat fee for installation of bond beam

TOTAL: $1,550

Section 5: Supply Agreement

Fibreglass pool shell with crystal granite colour finish, 1 hp pump, salt chlorinator, cartridge filter, heat provision, manual cleaning kit and 1 LED light - $20,000

Crane hire - $770

Temporary fence hire - $450

9kw electric heat pump - $2,990

3 speed pump - $550 

Extra LED light - $450

4 spa jets - $850

TOTAL: $26,060

We wanted to have the pool heated and looked at solar heating, gas heating and electric heating. All the pool builders we spoke to leaned us towards electric heating as the best way to go. The three speed pump will also help save on power bills. 

There are lots of extras you can get but the extras we settled on were the spa jets and one more LED light. The lights are multicoloured ones which add to the ambience during the evening. 

The First Bump in The Road

Nothing is without its fair share of hiccups and with any big project, there is bound to be a few. We hit our first bump in the road (or ripple in the pool!) after the private certifier said we could not build the pool 1m from the fence line due to our street being in a heritage conservation area. Actually it wasn't even the entire street, just our side of the street. This meant that a new rule now applied to us that neither us or the build saw coming. 

The rule was that the pool had to be in line with the house. As the house is 1.5m from the fence line and coping is around 400mm, the private certifier said the pool had to be 1.9m away from the fence. We needed every centimetre in order to not obstruct the first shed roller door so simply moving the pool over wasn't going to work. 

I spoke to Dianne from Narellan Pools to see if anything could be done. She suggested to put the DA through to Hawkesbury Council and see if they would approve it. I rang the council who initially said 1m was all we need. Hooray! However, it turned out he misread the policy and later said it must be in line with the house. Damn! This was before Christmas so there was nothing that could be done until everyone was back on deck in January. That gave us a bit of thinking time to see if we could come up with any other solutions.

We contacted Ivan to give us advice on what we should do. He came to see us after Christmas and he could sense we were anxious about the location of the pool. Ivan was amazing. He was patient and really invested a lot of time to try and find a solution that we would be happy with.

We knocked on the neighbour's door as they had a pool and we wanted to see if they also had to comply with the 1.5m rule. We found out that they did. However, the rule was not 1.5m plus coping for them. It was 1.5m including coping. This meant we potentially had another 400mm to play with. As long as the private certified accepted this, we would take every centimetre we could get. 

We also decided to move the pool from going lengthways along the boundary fence to lengthways along the pergola. Now the pool would become the focal point of the backyard rather than being tucked away in the corner. We both liked this area better but again we needed to get this approved. 

Within the next few days we got the good news that 1.5m from the fence line would be accepted from the private certifier. We now had approval to start excavation. We locked in a date of March 3 to have the pool delivered. Excavation would start a could of days before. It was all finally coming together. 

Which Pool Builder to Go With

Now that we were sure we wanted a pool, we now had to decide which pool builder to go with. I started doing research online, reading lots of forums and reviews, as well as asking friends who they went with and if they were happy with the overall experience. 

We also toyed with the idea of getting a DIY pool kit and essentially being the owner builder of the project.

We went down the owner builder path when we built our triple bay shed so we had a idea of what steps we would have to take with council etc. It would have been a lot cheaper.

However, there were a few things that made us ditch this idea. The major one was that we are complete amateurs when it came to pools. If something went wrong with the pool, we wanted a reputable company who we could call now (or in years to come) to assist us. With a DIY kit, I felt that if we had any problems, we were essentially on our own. With our pool budget at $50,000, that was a risk I didn't want to take. 

After yet more late nights scouring the internet, we narrowed it down to three fibreglass pool builders:

1. Narellan Pools (who sell their own pools)

2. Irresistible Pools (who sell Barrier Reef Pools)

3. Compass Pools (who sell their own pools)

Although we had a big block (1000 square metres), our triple bay shed and side access to it took up a big chunk of space. This meant that the size of our pool had to be under 4m in width and no more than 7.5m in length. Any bigger and there would be no room to drive a vehicle into the first bay of the shed, defeating its purpose. 

Below is a photo of the area where we want the pool to go with the length parallel to the fence:

With this in mind, it really narrowed our selection down of rectangle-shaped fibreglass pools. We also preferred to have a pool with a decent seating area, not just a few steps leading into the water. Again this narrowed the selection down as most of the pool models we saw had limited seating space. 

We found a few models we liked with Irresistible Pools - the local business who supplied Barrier Reef Pools in the Hawkesbury area. However, it was virtually impossible to get in touch with them to even organise an inspection. After two emails, a phone call and a request to text my address details, I heard absolutely nothing. So we decided to take our business elsewhere. 

I was impressed with Compass Pools based in Dural. However, after a 45-minute phone call about technical and non-technical aspects of installing a pool, I felt completely overwhelmed to the point where I didn't think I was ready to take on such a big responsibility. I also got the impression that their pools were the top of the range with a lifetime warranty. We are not top of the range people therefore I didn't feel comfortable going for the biggest, the latest and the best. 

In the end we signed a contact on December 3, 2015 with Narellan Pools after four meetings with Ivan (two at our place and two at other people's homes to inspect their pool model and colour). Ivan really knows his stuff and has been a pleasure to do business with. He responds to my emails within 24 hours and has answered all my questions, making sure I understand the entire pool process. 

Narellan Pools had the exact model we were after (the Symphony) with a long bench seat along the whole width of the pool. We decided that the Symphony 7 (3.9m by 7.3m) would just fit in the backyard without obstructing the shed as long as it was a maximum of 1m away from the fence. 

This is an example of the pool and colour we are getting (in their brochure):

These are the specs of the Symphony. We are getting the Symphony 7:

The four big things that made us take our business to Narellan Pools was: 

1. 25 year structural warranty on the fibreglass pool and the confidence that if something went wrong, they could assist

2. Their pools are made in Australia so we were confident it would more than comply with Australian standards 

3. No hidden costs "at any time" so once the amount is agreed upon, it shouldn't change unless something disastrous occurs like hitting rock when the hole is dug 

4. They are a local pool builder so they have done this before (many times in fact) in the local area. Their brochure boasts:

"Because we are local, we have a sound knowledge of your local area and conditions." 

My Reason for Wanting a Pool

I have never been the type of person who wanted a house with a pool. Ever since I was a young girl, my mother drilled into my brain that kids drown in pools.

I grew up near the beach on the Mid North Coast of NSW. I loved the sound of the crashing waves and the feel of the sand on my feet. However, I was never confident swimming in the ocean.

I also never learned how to swim properly. My extent of swimming lessons were the few we had in primary school in the late 80s. My swimming teacher stepped on my fingers to try and get me to let go of the edge. I mastered dog paddling but that was about it. 

When I became a grown up and got a gig as a journalist, one of the interviews that always stuck with me was with a mother whose two-year-old son almost drowned in their backyard pool. He got through a loose bar in the fence while mum went into the house only moments earlier to bring the washing in. Luckily he survived but it left him with permanent brain damage. 

So when my husband brought home a pool pamphlet one day, I was of course nervous. We have two children aged 5 and one. I didn't want one of my children to end up brain damaged or worse. But then something inside me changed. Instead of thinking that a pool could cost a life, what if it could save one? If my children had the opportunity to be around water and learn to be confident swimmers, they may not grow up fearing water like me.

Australia is surrounded by water. It makes sense to learn how to swim and understand that water is fun but you also have to respect it and be safe. That is my goal for them. 

Me as a young tot at the beach near our family home.