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Wow! That title is a serious mouth full! But I want to cover many of the early steps in getting this pool project moving. Most of them didn't require a whole lot of work on my part, mostly it was just me paying money.
Lets first start with the Boundary survey. Some people may not need this, but for me, I needed it for a few reasons. First, we have setback laws. The pool had to be at least 10 feet away from all property limits. And secondly, I did not want to fence only the pool, but the entire back yard, so the survey was needed to make sure I put the fence on within the boundaries of our property.
This was easy for me. I contacted a couple survey companies, and basically chose the company that was the shortest wait. Because even with them, I was put on a 5 week waiting list.
As of the time of me writing this post, I have not gotten a final price on the survey, but I was quoted 600-800 dollars. Seriously, 600-800 dollars. And I can guarantee you that it is going to end up costing 800 dollars.
I let my wire deal with this part. She found a local tree service that gave a a decent price, and had good reviews as well. We had 15 medium sized pine trees removed, and one monster maple. The thing had to be about 3feet diameter. They also ground all the stumps, except for the huge maple stump, which was way beyond their capability. They showed up on time and spent most of the day at our house, they cut down all the trees and removed them all, and ground the stumps for 3900 dollars. I thought it was well spent. And they did a great job. They also spent some time cleaning up all the wood chips and lose branches that fell during the process. You could barely tell that there were any trees at all by time they left.
Excavation is actually a multi-visit proposal. I am using Brian's Lawn & Landscaping They spent their first day dealing with the monster stump in the back yard. Due to the difficulty of the stump, I ended up having them bury it in my back yard, there was just no reasonable way it was coming out of the back yard. The following Friday, they came back and dug the pool hole. Michigan has an extremely large amount of clay, and my back yard is no exception. You can see how heavily packed it has become over the years, it is amazingly dense ground, and there is literally no way you could possibly do it without heavy equipment. Brian charged me 1200 for the stump and pool hole, and they will end up coming back to back fill and final grade. I think the price they charged way more than reasonable. For me to conquer this job on my own, I would have had to rent an excavator from a local equipment rental company, which would have cost me about 800 dollars for a weeks rental. And I am not even sure I would have been able to do anything with that stump, let alone get it done within a week. Along with digging the pool hole as well.
In my mind, there is no way that this is a portion of the project I recommend people try and tackle on their own, unless they have the excavating equipment and the time on one to be able to do this correctly. The hole needs to be fairly accurate. Even with an expert doing the dig, I still have to spend several hours in the hole, cleaning up highs and lows, and making sure it is 100% level. Any issues with the level of the pool will be extremely apparent once you add water to it. If your water line is even a half inch different from one end to the other, it will be very noticeable. It will be for me at least, so for this portion of the job, I am giving it a considerable amount of my attention.
Boundary Survey
Lets first start with the Boundary survey. Some people may not need this, but for me, I needed it for a few reasons. First, we have setback laws. The pool had to be at least 10 feet away from all property limits. And secondly, I did not want to fence only the pool, but the entire back yard, so the survey was needed to make sure I put the fence on within the boundaries of our property.This was easy for me. I contacted a couple survey companies, and basically chose the company that was the shortest wait. Because even with them, I was put on a 5 week waiting list.
As of the time of me writing this post, I have not gotten a final price on the survey, but I was quoted 600-800 dollars. Seriously, 600-800 dollars. And I can guarantee you that it is going to end up costing 800 dollars.
City Permits
City permits do take a little work. At least here, in Michigan, I was required to provide a basic drawing as to where the pool would be located, and the setbacks and distance from the house. They also needed detailed information on how I planned to fence the pool, and how I was planning to gate the pool. The fees here were 75 dollars to process the permit, then 500 dollars for the actual permeit, total: 675 dollars.
There will be a electrical permit as well, but I will cover that later.
Tree Removal
I let my wire deal with this part. She found a local tree service that gave a a decent price, and had good reviews as well. We had 15 medium sized pine trees removed, and one monster maple. The thing had to be about 3feet diameter. They also ground all the stumps, except for the huge maple stump, which was way beyond their capability. They showed up on time and spent most of the day at our house, they cut down all the trees and removed them all, and ground the stumps for 3900 dollars. I thought it was well spent. And they did a great job. They also spent some time cleaning up all the wood chips and lose branches that fell during the process. You could barely tell that there were any trees at all by time they left.
If you are in Oakland County, Michigan and need some tree work done, I recommend Seasonal Property Maintenance. I am not affiliated with them in any way, I just think they did a great job at a really good price.
Excavation
In my mind, there is no way that this is a portion of the project I recommend people try and tackle on their own, unless they have the excavating equipment and the time on one to be able to do this correctly. The hole needs to be fairly accurate. Even with an expert doing the dig, I still have to spend several hours in the hole, cleaning up highs and lows, and making sure it is 100% level. Any issues with the level of the pool will be extremely apparent once you add water to it. If your water line is even a half inch different from one end to the other, it will be very noticeable. It will be for me at least, so for this portion of the job, I am giving it a considerable amount of my attention.
Whats Next?
Well, in my first post a basically covered the basics and reasons for taking on a DIY in ground pool project. In this post we cover some of the services I had to had done, up front. This portion of the process has been highly boring for me, as far as work load.
But I think things are about to get crazy for me. We will be talking about the Pool Warehouse and the process of ordering the pool in the next post. I am not affiliated in any way with Pool Warehouse. I am receiving anything for promoting the company, and I will not be sugar coating anything. (Spoiler, they have been decent so far, but I have yet to receive anything)
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