Well we are still receiving ideas, numbers, and plans and had a pool builder give us a bit of another spin to the others so I wanted to raise the questions to the forum. We have not yet decided what we are doing but since this is different than the others, I figured Id send it to the board for comments. We are curious about this equipment as all others were Jandy products. The pool itself would be a 14 x 24 w/ 3 fountain lines on a baja shelf. More of a social pool as it would only be to 5.5 feet or so. Equipment as follows: Shotcrete 1 skimmer Dual Main drain system w/ 3 returns Standard 6 x 6 waterline tile Colored concrete coping (we are not sure about this as we want flagstone but they said it would look great with this specific architectural design) 1.5hp pump Pebbletec (they quoted us pricing for stonescape however they recommend pebble over it due to our applicators in the area). Pentair clean and clear filter Polaris 280 with booster pump Duel time with freze contractol Aquareite salt sytems 400 w pool light (they said that is the watts they recommend for the shapeseems low). We do not like colored lights. Some Questions: They are saying that they prefer the pool equipment to be 30 ft from the shallow end and that is at our bedroom which is completely out of the question for us. Wed like it run about 100 feet out back off the deep end or at the basement side of the house which goes down the yard a bit. That side is also where the electrical is. Do we have any challenges with that other than cost? This was a lesser cost option to our original 17 x 32 foot plan w/ Jandy equipment so we are wondering if we have any issues. The design is pretty neat and more like a "dip" water feature. For a 24 x 14 pool, wed prefer a "real" deep end.is that too small to get a deep end? They have in the contract that the landscape will do the drainageis that normal? They suggested that in the middle fountain line they install a urn which we would purchase. Are there certain issues that we should be aware of or certain fountain/urn styles that we should go with given it will sit in a pool and sit in salt water? This company is more a "boutique" builder however the PM has over 20 years experience (so we are told) and are able to a bit more competitive on pricing and our budget is extremely tight for what we want. Their pricing on pebbletec was more than others but overall the budget was less.but then again it is a smaller pool with different equipment. Your thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated. Also if we should ask anything specific to them.

Thanks, brickeyee. I rarely see electrical service equipment indoors in New Orleans. I think it is highly unlikely that the house was ever divided. I suspect that the previous homeowner installed some panels that he had on hand and they might have been used. There are a lot of light fixtures around the property that are probably salvaged. Recall that he was an electrician. I have other indications that he was pretty tight with his money. That, and the fact that he moved towards an all-electric house might explain why he felt he needed two panels. I am sure the original cooking equipment was gas. That was changed to electric in the early 60s. Sometime after that, he replaced the gas water heater with an electric one, and did the same with the dryer. That left only the central heat furnace and decommissioned gas wall heaters. The panels, typically for this region, are pretty corroded. That is the North side of the house under a gable so they are often wet. Even though they are not in great shape, I wont look forward to replacing them soon because there are MANY other things that need doing around the house, roofs, floors, AC,. If I go to the trouble of replacing the panels, I might as well ask the power company to put me on a more conventional system as it would probably save some headache down the line. You cant tell from the low res picture that I put up, but I would rate the age of the components: mast = meter pan The history of power to this house might be interesting. I think I see one spot with some disconnected knob/tube. This house was built before central air, but three-phase might have been added to power an early adopter of that technology. The house next door has three-phase power with an ancient meter that looks like a cabinet with a glass window. At the same time the homeowner was frugal, he enjoyed convenience. So far, I have found 5 switches controlling one garage light. I thought there were 4, but I found the 5th one last week :-) There are 4 switches controlling a hall light. Not unheard of, but unusual in my experience are the split outlets in the living room. A photocell-controlled outdoor spot light is typical, but the same circuit controls a convenience outlet in the BR. All you have to do is remember to turn the lamp on in the morning and a light will come on to greet you if you are not home before dark.

@Rai Kai … I did learn so much!! Thanks for your contributions! @Beckysharp haha. I will be doing more research with the lawyer. I think overall my realtor was good—but I am not sure if overall we were the right fit. We will see if we stick with her. I know she put a lot of work and time into it --- so I do feel bad about us not going through with it. I will be doing more research and googling, and reading and using all my resources! Promise! @PitrateFoxy – I’ll probably be doing some research on a lawyer to have “on call” when we are at that point. You all were so right about all the other things – and I’m sure a few extra hundred bux (what like 500? ) will put me more at ease as I don’t like surprises unless they flowers, chocolate, or kisses :D @bellburgmaggie – isn’t that the truth. Alos.. Houzz app isn’t going anywhere! I love your story about finidng the right place! Man.. 3.5x your investment!! AWESOME!!! Were you ever concerned about over improving? That’s my biggest fear, especially if we buy very low… You know I always imagined buying the house with the crappy wall paper, shag carpet and pink or green tile in the bathrooms a horrible kitchen and then putting in my DREAM kitchen (or as im learning from houzzers, my 99% dream kitchen!). I think that’s something I was struggling with buying new. Even though I got to make a few selections… it wasn’t tailored to me really. So asking my husband in 3 years to redo the layout of the kitchen wasn’t going to fly :D Location location location is so hard for us. We are transplants – with family in the area, but are having a hard time finding the “right” home town. Everywhere we look is “safe” but I really want that neighborhood feel. I moved to Texas because I love saying yes sir, no ma’am, and I want to raise my kids like that. Sweet tea on the porch and waving to your neighbors. I want to make meals for new moms, or help out my grandparents when they need it. I may not have the Texas accent, and as the saying goes “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could!” @jannicone – I’m not deleting Houzz!! Just Realtor, Trulia and Zillow :D It may only last a week, but I need some distance! But I will use it as a resorce to keep an eye on the market and see what really happens during “selling” season. Happy to be sorta liked! @Denita , I should know better. I’m a firm believer that EVERYTHING is negotiable and if you aren’t willing to make any changes (they may not have lost me if they let me go to the design center and let me have 2 extra days – would have cost them nothing) I’m not inclined to play ball. Especially in an industry where negotiation is nearly expected. Looks like I have some more homework and research to do! I may need to find a new realtor. Not that she wasn’t good. I felt like she was doing a good job – but I’ll never know if she asked the builder for things. She did make us feel like her only clients, and she was very attentive and listened to my concerns. But I did get a slight feeling that she was “building” up the home a little more than she should have. We signed a contract for 6 months with her. She led with “if at any time you are done with me, I’ll just rip it up.” Who knows if that will come back to bite me in the butt. But, also thought we were going to end up with the first house and it would all be over. Again, lack of experience on my part. I've done some research on how you should select a buyers agent... and I did kind of do it all wrong.

I was going to suggest going off grid electric, but given the power demands for the hobbies, that is a lot of panels. Still, I'd do the calculations. Is that a good wind area? If you can do it, you might flip David's suggestion of one utility around. Going back at least a decade, there are plenty of people out there that got disgusted with the cost of brining in electricity and went off grid instead. If you have nat gat, genset manufacturers have finally come around to making DC gensets for that application. (You really need a generator to equalize batteries by my understanding. That may well be, however, for flooded cell batteries only.) How come 3 ph is not a better way than single? You'd get 50% more power adding a third conductor of the same size. If you can get the POCO to give you 3 ph open delta, you can have 3 ph and 240V. That said,as Mike pointed out, with the cost of VFDs so low, what's the point? I was shocked when I looked at costs online a few months back. Note that you have to be careful about how the utility bills other than residential 124/240 too. The local utilities commission regulates that and some make sure that commercial and industrial users pay more by charging lots more/kWh for anything 3 phase. If you build efficiently, your costs other than the shop, hobby and domestic hot water can be be nil. Tankless and recirc seems like a weird match to me. You have a system that provides hot water on demand so you have no standby losses, then you connect it to a system with standby losses. Is the recirc going to be on a timer or controlled with occupancy sensors? If I have gas and need a new water heater, I'd buy a Westinghouse WGR060NG076 or larger tank and never look back. That goes especially with hard water unless you plan to install a water softener. Have you done the well research yet or maybe drilled already? I'd go with induction for your cooking hobs if you want easy clean-up. There is nothing easier. If you are not sure about it, buy a plug-in unit and see if you like it. You may save a lot of AC costs in addition to the straight savings at the cooktop. Ideally, I'd like one resistance hob for simmering. They suffer from the same drawbacks of the duty-cycle controlled power output as thermostatic resistance heating devices. I don't know if inverter powered induction is theoretically possible or practical as it is for microwave ovens, but it might work well if it is.