That's awesome, congrats! If you are thinking about switching the light then definitely do so. It doesn't cost much and it adds a lot of pizazz to your pool! Your kids will LOVE it! If you go LED it will consume a lot less juice than a 500w lamp too.

Good luck with the groundbreaking!

Congrats on the new pool!!!

I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, who did you sign with and where was their price.
Please don't feel obligated to answering if you don't want to. It just helps me with market feedback on my quotations to potential buyers in a particular area.
If I remember correctly you were a quote that my organization was slow in responding to.
I always make every attempt to get feedback from lost quotes to assist me in future bids by determining who I may be bidding against and where I feel they might be making the quotation.

Thanks for supporting the industry with your new pool purchase. You'll soon experience what the hoopla of pool ownership is all about. I promise you this, having a pool at home is some very sweet stuff.
I don't say this just because I'm a pool guy, I'm actually a pool kind of guy, LOL!!!

See ya,
Kelly

Hi Kelly:

We went with The Pool Man in Tomball. Our pool cost right around $28,900. We already had an existing sundeck of 400sq ft. so we are just adding 388sq ft of decking-- maybe more.

Thanks for promptly responding to my previous posts and for contacting me personally regarding the response time with your organization. I know it gets very busy during the spring/summer months, and with all the positive feedback that I hear from this site regarding your organization I understand how difficult it must be to service every customer to satisfaction!

P.S. Im glad pool kinda guys like yourself post on this forum to help first timers!

Hopefully, we will have a good pool build experience!

Congrats! I'm glad you were able to get your pool, at your price!

I love weeping walls. That's what I started to go with on my pool, but decided on the sheer decent instead because of my Golden. She loves to stand on the bench under a spillover for some reason. I guess it feels good on her back?

Kelly's crews have been rocking and rolling here. Today's the first day of total peace in two weeks, and I have to admit, I'm loving it! Of course, I'd be loving it more, if I were enjoying it out by a pool! ;-)

By the way, you can load your pictures on a free photobucket account, and then post the HTML code here to post your photos.

Wow, firsttimepool, The Pool Man is doing our pool right now, too! We've been pretty happy so far. Our rock work looks great.

Kelly -- I didn't call you because I thought you had a Magnolia address. I only called builders with a Tomball or Cypress address. (I'm in Cypress, and as I'm sure you know, there are tons of PB's around here.) I called 4 PB's, and The Pool Man was the highest bid, but they did the best job listening to what we asked for and including it in their design. When I tried to do an apples-to-apples comparison of the bids, I didn't think they were too far out of line.

firsttimepool, I hope we're both swimming soon!

SueinTexas

Woo Hoo, Firsttimepool & SueinTexas!!

Doing the new pool happy dance for you!

I wish could have built my pool for $28K...then maybe I could afford patio furniture!

Congratulations to you. Kelly is right, having a pool in your yard is SWEET!

Actually, firsttimepool, I was interested in that you're building a Salt pool with The Pool Man. I don't know the exact numbers, but they seem to build about 98% chlorine. Were you concerned about having them do a salt pool for you?

I was surprised as we went thru the bid process that of the 4 PB's we talked to, they were all either almost 100% salt or almost 100% chlorine, with 2 PB's going each way. The ones who do maintenance seem to like chlorine a lot more. The ones who only build but don't maintain preferred salt. Coincidence, I think not!

Ours is supposed to start out chlorine, but we may switch it to salt, unless you all convince me otherwise. :)

Would you be concerned about having a builder that builds almost 100% chlorine pools put in a salt pool for you?

SueinTexas

SueinTexas:

I am thrilled that we are finally digging our pool. The excavation crew is here right now! Yipee! The reason that we chose the "Salt System" is because of our kids eczema! 100% chlorine is so bad for their skin. In answer to your question, we were told that it was our personal preference, and not a factor. We were also told that most people were choosing to use Salt more and more. In fact, we were encouraged to use the "Salt System". At first, I had concerns with all the stories regarding corrosion that we almost decided against it, until "The Pool Man" helped calm our fears. It cost a little more, but we thought it was worth it for the kiddo's.

Quote: "The reason that we chose the "Salt System" is because of our kids eczema! 100% chlorine is so bad for their skin."

A salt pool actually has chlorine as well. The SWG generates chlorine from the salt in the pool. The chlorine levels are the same as a non-salt pool. Chlorine gets a bad rap because everyone remembers swimming in public pools that had a strong smell, burned their eyes and dried their skin and hair out. In fact all those problems are a result of an improper chemical balance. Our son has eczema, but we didn't go with an SWG because there have been a lot of problems in our area with stone decay. We've been keeping the chemical levels within recommended range and our pool water has no smell or taste at all. We don't get that dry skin or hair feel when getting out either and our son's eczema has been unaffected. I think SWGs are great and certainly am not trying to talk anyone out of one, but chlorine gets unduely blamed for a lot of problems.

Tresw:

I am not against or for one over the other at all! A SWG is what we chose. Hopefully we won't experience the stone decay. We will keep our eyes open for it! But thanks for the great input though!

I'm not pushing one or the other either, just clarifying that people should realize that an SWG doesn't eliminate chlorine and doesn't eliminate the need for testing (two common misconceptions). I like SWGs because they do away with the need to add chlorine manually (unless shocking) and they get rid of the climbing CYA issues that we all face when using trichlor tabs. We may convert our pool to a SWG at some point. I'm concerned about our stonework though.

Since this is our first pool, I appreciate all of the info! Keep it coming! I will try to post pictures as soon as I get around to doing it! I would like to show our progress too.

I have psoriasis and chlorine actually helps mine. I'm surprised it doesn't do the same for eczema. So does it cause flare-ups?

My last pool was a chlorine pool too, and one time I tested my pool water against my tap water, and my tap water had more chlorine in it. Go figure.

smbnobles:

During the summer months when we spend a lot of time at the pool then my kids eczema is bad. Water dries the skin without the added chlorine and each time after bath we have to apply lubricant to help keep moisture. It is so hard to see their skin so irritated. My 9yr old had it, but as she gets older it seems to get better. It's my 6yr old's skin that gets irritated from the water!

P.S. Still trying to post pictures from our exciting first day of our Pool Build!

I was misdiagnosed with eczema for ages, and when I was little, I remember my mother putting ointment behind my knees and on my elbows, and then wrapping them in Saran wrap before she sent me off to bed.

Ah, good times.

Not.

LOL! That's a riot! Well get this. When I was a kid my baby brother sucked his thumb so much that it looked like a bleached white prune all the time. My parents tried all kinds of remedies. One was to stick socks on his hands every night at bedtime. Well they stuck socks on my hands too, because they didn't want him to feel bad! Good grief, I never sucked my thumb in my whole life!! Plus I was old enough to wonder why in the world I had to sleep with stupid socks on my hands :-)

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG... tres, that's too funny.

I need to make sure to ask my mother why my two sisters didn't have to sleep with Saran wrap around *their* appendages, on tomorrow. I'm going to tell her that I have to use foil now, because I'm so traumatized. ;-)