Hi Jenn,

I just had a Viking fiberglass pool installed with tumbled sandstone as the coping (softer edges after tumbling) and regular sandstone for the deck. It looks nice, and the I don't find the coping to be unconfortable to hang your legs over. I have heard that using regular sandstone can leave some sharp edges. (Our builder has it, and is going to use a router to smooth out the top edge of his pool).

One challenge with natural stone is variable debth of the natural stones. I didn't mind this, but some might. Our stone supply house did have machined and cove edged sandstone that was consistant dimentionally and would have made a nice coping. However, I didn't want to mix the machined/cut stones with the random natural stones of the deck.

Good luck on your project

dpz1 thanks... do you have any pictures? You must be in a high pool construction area? CA FL? Can I ask how much $ per linear ft. something like that goes for? We are in WV and it is hard to find any variety of coping, especially stone.
Thanks again, Jenn

Hi Jenn

I don't have any pictures of the finished deck yet, but will try to take some this weekend.

The installed price for the sandstone was $25 a square foot including a 4 inch rebar reinforced slab with 8 inch footings.

We're in the San Francisco Bay Area in one of the highest construction cost markets in the country, so I would expect that you could get it done for quite a bit less, as long as you can find the materials.

DPZ1....I am in the process of getting bids for a Viking FG pool now. I would be very interested in your install story, as well as pics. I am up in oregon, so not a whole lot of installers to choose from. 1st bid for a 9,000 gal Key West with a 20 sf water feature and rock coping is 42,500

Some advice for those getting fiberglass pools:
Make sure you thoroughly check out the installer! We have a Viking fiberglass pool and after having problems (and a non-cooperative installer), we tried to contact Viking just to ask some questions. Their customer service is non-existent. So if you do have problems, you better hope your installer will take care of them. I've heard that Viking usually tries to blame the installer for any problems that arise so they don't have to cover the warranty. From our experience, I wouldn't doubt this.

We love our fiberglass pool, but just be careful!!!

kjd_oregon, we live in Utah so didn't have a lot of options for installers either.

We have a Trilogy fiberglass pool with flagstone coping and waterfall. We are so glad we went with the waterfall and flagstone. The pictures are after the install in October 2006.

Posted by kjd_oregon (My Page) on Tue, Jun 12, 07 at 20:54

DPZ1....I am in the process of getting bids for a Viking FG pool now. I would be very interested in your install story, as well as pics. I am up in oregon, so not a whole lot of installers to choose from. 1st bid for a 9,000 gal Key West with a 20 sf water feature and rock coping is 42,500

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kjd_oregon,

We literally just passed final inspection yesterday, although we've been using the pool for a little over a week. Solar goes in next week, and then we have to put the landscaping around the pool back in.

Overall, I am very happy with both the pool and the builder. We have a 15000 gallon (14X30) Laguna model in the saphire blue color. We started on May 2, and we were effectively done by June 4th. Had we just gone with the original salt finish concrete deck, we would have been done in only three weeks, but adding the sandstone took another couple of weeks.

As Sharla stated - the installer is key. Check them out thoroughly and go see several reference installations. Ours has been in business for 25 years, had no BBB issues and no license issues (California has a contractors license board that you can check on licensed contractors in the state). They provided us with 5 references within a mile of us, eventhough they are headquartered across the bay from us. They install about 50 pools a year, so we had a bunch of refernces to choose from.

Going to the references is key because you can see the quality of the work, hear what the buyers would do differently if they were doing it now, after having used the pool for a while. It also enables you to get an idea for the true size of the pools and how they might fit in your yard.

In the end, we moved up from a 12x25 Bermuda to its larger Laguna cousin after seeing a Bermuda and realizing that it was narrower than what we wanted.

Also, if you have landscaping to demo. You should do that, too before you make your final final pool decision. After taking out the old inground spa and deck, we realized that we had more room than we thought for the pool.

We paid $47000 for the Laguna with 3 ft of concrete deck, 1.5 hp jandy motor, 460 sq ft jandy filter, suction side 'the pool cleaner' sweeper (that works incredibly well). Solar and Pool shed not included, plus an additional $8000 for additional decking (150 more square feet) and the flagstone. I would think that you could get if for significantly less since this is a ridiculously expensive area for construction - up to $380 a square foot for new building...

I can not imagine the project going more smoothly. Our builder - I'll give them a plug since they did such a good job - Custom Fiberglass Pools of Fremont - gave us a schedule and constantly called us to update us for when they would be onsite and what the next steps were. The only sub on the project was the concrete/stone company, and they had worked with our builder for 25 years. I think minimizing the subs contributed to the smoothness installation, since there are less communication errors and missed dates.

The only thing I'm not sure about right now is the pump. There are more energy efficient options (intelliflo or two speeds out there, but I'm not sure that they would drive the cleaner, and we have a lot of trees that drop leaves and pods into the pools. We'll see how it goes for a couple of months and then decide if we want to look at other pump options.

I have pictures that I would be happy to post, but I cannot figure out how to do it on this forum....if someone can explain the process, I'll be happy to add them

Finally got a picture...but can't figure out how to embedd it directly...so there is a link below.

By they way Jenn - I was just at HomeDepot this weekend, and see that they have a bulk stone program now. They had several stone samples right by the entrance.

Here is a link that might be useful:

dpz1
...Great pool, nice stonework...I didn't actually think your price was too bad at all, and I'm in WV.
The problem I'm having is installers for the stone. I can find masons who have done stone, but not for coping...and I can find a coping person...but not comfortable with him doing the stone (various reasons). I have found that NPT has a distributor in PA with the Durango Durado (new product) that I like a lot. Bullnose travertine. Not exactly what I had first invisioned...but have been changing the design a bit along the way. I need a stone wall, troweled (slate texture) colored dusted, concrete, and this coping to be in harmony...but not necessarily to be matchy matchy.
As I'm sure a few of us have been overwhelmed with choices and more choices, with price, availablity and contractor knowhow playing a big part.
Thanks for your input and enjoy your pool...I will post a pic. of mine in progress. I haven't seen another black fiberglass on the site...some may be interested to see a pic.
And on another note from another thread...I too think dark color plays a part in the temp.
thanks again, Jenn