"Received call from builders assistant that there is a gas line too close to the hole for the spa and I need to call gas co to have it re-routed. Came home to find pipe not close to spa, but right through the middle. They have also not only continued to dig the spa"

There's your answer right there. They did locate it ahead of time, but either didn't communicate the information to the excavation crew or chose to ignore it.

I'd say not your responsibility, and I'd halt all payment of the cost of redoing the spa (after the gas line is moved) or moving the spa elsewhere. Your PB needs to cover that.

However, the cost of moving the line (what is paid to the gas co.) is your responsibility.

poolg8tr,
PB should have called USA locate or appropriate entity for utility location before beginning work. Utility companies will locate lines that run from the source to the meter. Everything after the meter is generally home owners responsibility. Easement info usually comes up during permit process. The problem with remodels is that a lot of PB's don't get permits for remodels. Sounds like the cart got in front of the horse.
Your responsibility, at this point, appears minimal. If you don't want to spend money to move the line then you should tell PB to move spa at his expense. Good luck.

It sounds to me like the main problem is the easement. I once made a mistake on a pool renovation where I poured some decking inside the easement and was stopped by the building inspector. The homeowner wanted to leave the deck the way that we had designed and poured it, so off to the city I went. To make a long story short 9 months and about 1500.00 later I got a variance and was allowed to leave the deck where it was.

The gas company may not have the line in the easement, which could also be the case. In my experence it was still the responsibilty of the homeowner to pay for the re-route. Good luck trying to get a utility company to admit fault.

As far as the cost of the re-route that would be at the expense of the homeowner.

Moving the spa to the deep end should not compromise the pool or spa if the PB has experence in this type of renovation.

As for the gas line inside the spa I have in the past left a utility line hooked up untill after steel and some times after gunite. The reason for leaving the line is not to disrupt service until you absolutly necessary. After the line is re-routed the line can then be cut and removed.

If permits were grated by the city then many time they would have caught where the easements were.

I do not know if your PB got permits or not but if he did not, I can not say it enough if the PB does not care enough to do it right by getting the approiate permits then why do you think he would care enough to do the job right.

Hope some of this helps

Thanks everyone for your input.

The PB is suggesting that if the line isn't/can't be moved, that we could go ahead with the spa in this location, push it towards the pool about a foot. This would have the pipe running through the seat area on the outside. He said as long as the pipe is surrounded by steel it would be protected and no problem. I told him I did not think that I was willing to gamble that there would never be a need to get to that pipe.
We are not in the city limits, so I don't think permits are needed.
Located our survey and it looks to us (husband has returned), that the pipe is a couple of feet outside the easement. Guess we'll try that route first.
Question for POOLs, what is different about the process of adding a spa at the deep end?

The PB did come by Sat afternoon. Everything went pretty much as I anticipated. When I asked about the utility locate, he said he figured we were safe here and he looked around and didn't see any transformers etc. He is calling first thing Monday though. It never came up about cost for relocating the spa, but when I brought up the possibility that we might have to just nix it altogether, he said sure, we could close it up and I'll just charge you for the work done. I didn't comment. I figure we can cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

When a spa is aded to the deep end, you just need to make sure that the common wall and the new spa is supported by extra steel that is tied into the existing pool shell to help support the new spa.

In the shallow end the common wall will rest on the old pool floor. Where as in the deep end the floor of the existing pool may be several feet away.

If one is not careful you basicly create a "hinge joint" where the old and new meet and this hinge joint may crack over time.

Thanks pools, that makes sense. Hopefully it won't come to that. Gas company is going to re survey, our's shows the pipe is not in the easement. We'll see what they come up with.

I had a utility easement all along the back of my yard and neither my electric or gas line were in the easement. They both ran right through the pool and both had to be rerouted at my expense. PB made it very clear that reroutes were my responsibility upfront and suspected they were going to have to be moved even before he called DIGTESS (Texas dept that handles marking utilities). PB I chose was the only of 4 that I interviewed that made this guess and made sure I was aware of the cost. When I asked the others, they had no clue. They cut my phone/cable line twice - even though it was marked the first time (apparently there is approx. 1 ft variance each side of line). Phone/cable line was still my responsibility (though phone company didn't charge to fix it) because my contract said buyer responsible for underground utilities including any re-routes. Sorry to be pessimistic, but my bet is you will have to take care of it. PB is not going to and extremely unlikely utility companies will. The easement was to run the line down the alley not for the service line that ran to my house. Good luck! Hopefully I am wrong and you will be able to have someone else deal with the cost. (By the way, I wouldn't be comfortable with the line running through my spa with steel surrounding it either.)

Re spa placement, my PB suggested closest to my backdoor as it will be most convenient to enter - even though it is a little further from the equipment.

Quote: "The PB is suggesting that if the line isn't/can't be moved, that we could go ahead with the spa in this location, push it towards the pool about a foot. This would have the pipe running through the seat area on the outside. He said as long as the pipe is surrounded by steel it would be protected and no problem."

It sounds like the spa would still be in the easement though. Do NOT build anything in an easement, it will likely get redtagged. At this point you've got to have the easement verified and marked on the ground so you know what you're dealing with. I am AMAZED that the PB did not have a line-locate done before starting excavation, this is standard procedure in all areas of the construction industry. Our PB also wanted a copy of our plat/ survey which we gladly provided, the plat will show any easements that may be on your property.

Oops, just noticed you said the line appears to be outside of the easement. As the others mentioned, that would not be too unusual. I'm an architect and have to deal with these same issues on commercial projects as well. Life would be a lot easier if utility lines were always where they were supposed to be :-) PB still should have called for a line-locate though. It can usually be done in 24-48 hours and gets rid of most guesswork.