I don't know much about pool pricing, but I would require them to hook up all plumbing and electrical and remove all soil. It will cost you a lot more to hire a licensed plunber and electrician and a hauling company than it will them.
Go with the one you feel comfortable with and present him with the lowest offer and tell them that that is the price where you need to be.
Really, the best thing to do is get as many quotes as possible... that will tell you more than anything else if you are getting a fair shake.

you have to get multiple bids first. Then I would evaluate which one you liked better. Then I might go into pricing. I negotiated about 5% off the the price, but I had to use the other bids to get the pool builder I wanted to be a little more flexible.

Tara

To me, that seems high but it could just be the different areas we live in.
See if your pb will itemize the costs for you. When we got the bid from the pb we ended up choosing, he had listed, w/o prices, everything that is included in the basic cost of the pool and that price - if we went basic. In our pre-plan discussion, we had gone over everything we wanted. He included those items (upgrades if you will) on a separate sheet with prices. Such as: 4x8 tn ledge $240, extra light with colord lens kit $500. If we want SAM lights, $700 ea. fire pit, X amount, gas line to fire pit, x amount. etc
The actual pool bid with 700sf pool (29,000 gallon)+ 10x10 pergola, 50 ft retaining wall oklahoma flag, OK flag coping, grotto with bench & waterfall, 20 ft moss rock, wall came in at mid 40's, we were shocked. It seemed too good to be true for it all. Then, we went with paver decking (we had to hire out) move electrical (not in pool bid and $1700 expense), we started deleting items.

Get what it will cost you to move your electrical and any added expenses you will incur not in the pool price. That helped us a lot.

I wanted colored plaster and a fire pit, but with the decking cost doubled over the aggregate bid and the electricity reroute, I got neither of those things to keep the cost where we were comfortable.

Good Luck!

You can spend as much money on a pool as you want...there is no limit.

However, it sounds expensive since they aren't doing the electrical, removing the dirt(normally a part of excuvation), supplying some dirt for fill and just plain plaster.

I would expect to pay about 50K for what you are describing or about 45K if the pool was a tad bit smaller....but thats me.

I was advised to keep the total cost of the pool at no more than about 15% of the value of your home for various reasons.

At about $55,000 without the added cost of electric, plumbing, etc., this rule of thumb would be that a $55,000 pool would be appropriate for a home worth about $366,000.

Seems high to me especially since it doesn't seem like you're getting much for that price. I'm not too experienced in this. We just barely built our pool, but I got 5 bids and only two were under $45,000 but they included everything we needed done including the spa, jets, removing our existing patio, using a small bobcat and backfilling when they were done. The actual price we went with came in at $42,000. The other 3 bids didn't give us much for the price they were charging. I'd really shop around more. That is awfully high in my opinion.

Did all 3 pool companies give you about that same price? That seems high to me too, but the prices vary a lot from region-to-region. That pool would cost substantially less in TX.

How many skimmers?Are their actually two main drains tee'd together(an important anti-entrapment feature)?

This pool would be in the $36,000 range in the Charlotte,NC area.

I thought that seemed really high as well...what sticks me is that I acted as a GC on a project that all the bids came in over 90k and I did the same project with even better equipment (appliances/HVAC unit/plumbing fixtures/lighting) than I had planned for less than 45k! I had incredible subs that didn't cost me extra by mistakes or poor workmanship, but I have a fair idea of what things cost and when I put a number to the hard cost of just the items and subs (have a friend who does backhoe work) I came up witha much different number. Our property is valued over 400k but we have 6 acres, a barn, a pond and stuff that figure into that...so I'm trying to stick to 40k for the pool and didn't think 40k was too little to ask for on this project. I truly think they see you, where you live, what cars you drive and just throw out a number to see if you'll bite...I hate that...

Another pool builder came in at 54k and the other came in at 48k without the bubblers/light...I wanted to go to each of them with my finalized plans (I'm doing all the drawings myself, I planned all the designs on my remodel and have experience with hard landscaping design..have designed a few yards for my friends) and see if I can give them a quote and see if they'll come back with a counter...just not sure if that's an insult to pool builders...

Thanks!
Tara

The best way to judge the price is by getting a few more. The PB's sub out the electric so if you pay direct you pay what it costs, if you package it up you pay what it costs the PB (maybe a little less than you) but he'll add his 20% markup. Some people want a larger sub panel, heater/no heater, 2 sp pump/single speed pump, light switch inside, extra plugs etc, electric service on the right side of the house with subpanel on the left, electric run through the attic, crawlspace, underground around the house in conduit soo many variables. Electric can go from $500-$2000+, so it also hard for the PB to estimate this since there is no cut and dry formula like the cost of a patio using differing materials, thats simple sqft. If you know for sure that you are going to remove all of your dirt and not use alot of it to fill in a slope, low spot etc, ask him to put that in the price. They may leave the hauling of the dirt out because alot of people in your area may use it on site, so why charge to haul it all away? He may also charge to haul it off because he has no place to dump it, in which case you will be screwed into paying to take dirt across town where your PB is comfortable sending it. Be careful because a standard dump truck doesnt haul as much as you would think and the costs can be relatively high. Now that I think about it, tell them to put the dirt in the price.

I know this is no help at all. But every time I see this thread all I can think about is this very funny video thats on Youtube...

Here is a link that might be useful: How Much Wiggle Room?

bella, that is too funny! The badger actually sounds like one of the pb contractors! :) I'm praying for your situation! I hope you demand they take all that diamondbrite OFF and redo...not a good situation....time to pull out your STRANGE ness and get everything in writing!!!

Tara

Tara,

I am not the owner of the pool in the other thread... just a PB giving my 2 cents. I hope everything works out well for them as well.