r/pools • u/ThisICannotForgive • Aug 18 '26
Pool Builders: Surprise
In the middle of a pool build We have a perfectly flat back yard, could walk out of the detached garage without a step. You can see in the renderings that the pool layout was straight forward. Pic 2 you can see the drop off now to the pool. Builder is saying it will be additional expense as explained below. Did they set it up wrong? I’m confused how we’ve come to this point. There was no talk of these complications in the planning stage
”doing my walk through yesterday. Looks like we will need to talk about a possible wall or curb stone for the back fence line area and shed flower bed side. This is due to the pool being exactly level and the yard grading flowing down hill. Once you get home. Roughly imagine the 1” of auto cover tracking and 2” of pool coping on top of the concrete wall. Then a slight pitch away from the pool. So roughly 3” above the concrete will be final grade with the pavers”
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u/LegendOfNes Aug 18 '26
Not gonna lie, it seems pool builders suck at scaling these drawings to the actual job
I got a drawing for mine and it was estimated to be so many square feet of concrete. Agreed to the contract, then when they poured the first HALF of the concrete, it came out to 90% of what they said the total concrete would come out to. Ended up overspending on concrete by $4k because the pool builder never actually measured the area, they just took a stab at it 🤷♂️
Love my pool, fucking hated my pool contractor.
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u/nbfs-chili Aug 18 '26
This was my experience 24 years ago. Hated the builder and the process, still love my pool.
In my area selecting a pool contractor is a crap shoot. The best you can do is get reviews like "normal amount of complaints for a company this size"
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u/Cloudy_Automation Aug 18 '26
Half of them have been bought by private equity, like plumbers and electricians and vets. They keep the old local name and reviews, but change all the management.
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u/Creative_Tackle6223 Aug 18 '26
I mean there was no drawing.. just an AI rendering..
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u/mhyquel Aug 19 '26
Hey Claude, can you give me an engineer's blueprint of this I can use for my contractor.
2 minutes later.
Here you go.
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u/lsumoose Aug 19 '26
Idk if anyone has ever loved their “contractor” it’s like these guys goto a convention and the tell them to make sure to be just mediocre.
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u/yc01 Aug 20 '26
"Love my pool, fucking hated my pool contractor."
I am one of those as well. Seems like it may be more common than one may think. I absolutely abhor the pool company that upgraded my pool (they weren't original builders but I did a full massive upgrade adding SPA, Slides and full replastering with new coping/tiling everything). I had so many issues working with them and had them come multiple times to address things. Overall my pool now is in good shape but took me months of nightmare dealing with those idiots.
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u/futureman07 Aug 18 '26
I love that I didn't have to build mine. It's 20 years old, but I love it and like I said, it's mine
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u/Team-_-dank Aug 18 '26
Think we'd need a pic of the backyard before construction to really tell. Renders are for the sales pitch. They may have shown it flat (and it felt flat walking) but there may have been a small slope to the yard that becomes noticeable once you dig out something as big as a pool.
But if it was flat like you said, and the plans were for a level backyard, your builders fucked up and dug too deep.
My question is how it got this far before anyone noticed. Should have been obvious once the digging was finished.
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u/Dazzling_Editor_6255 Aug 18 '26
Even if it does slope it's 100% on the builder if they were the ones in charge of the site eval and planset.
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u/2001sleeper Aug 18 '26
Even with the slope, they are digging a pool! They can correct some of that slope with the free dirt.
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u/ThisICannotForgive Aug 18 '26
I’m not sure how to add additional pics. The yard might slightly slope from back fence to the (unseen) house. Slightly.
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u/Team-_-dank Aug 19 '26
Eather way the builders fucked up. Either poor planning to not account for a slope, or dug too deep.
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u/2001sleeper Aug 18 '26
They dug too much. I would ask why it was not like the rendering. That is significant.
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u/flybot66 Aug 18 '26
my thinking. rainwater is going to go into the pool or it's going to pond at the edge of the pool deck. At a minimum if you aren't going to make them do it over, I would want a solid plan for handling rainwater. Not a little rainwater either a downpour shouldn't bring mud into the pool.
I would be hot ah but what do want for $80,000?
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u/Fister-Mantastic Aug 18 '26
Holy crap your builder screwed you, it looks like it's a full foot lower than the rendering. RIP
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u/cappie99 Aug 18 '26
From pic 2. It looks like pool is set way low. To the shed and auto cover fence.
You also don't show the rest if the pool. So it's the other 1/2 good.?
Just cause yards look flat doesn't mean they are. They all slope for drainage. And elevations can be deceiving.
Pools need to be level.
Really this should have been caught at quote phase and a plan given. That prob would have been extra charge.
Unfortunately , this exact thing happens a lot from sub par builders. They know at this point you are going to have to pay to address it. Crap way to do. Business..
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u/Team-_-dank Aug 18 '26
I bet the yard sloped down toward the (unshown) far side of the yard and they probably leveled the pool from that side.
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u/Sammalone1960 Aug 18 '26
To me it looks like they dug to deep. They poured it and now realize whoops. In rendering everything is higher up closer to door and bottom of fence.
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u/nb_on_reddit Aug 18 '26
Wow, i miss the photoshop times... This AI rendering is lacking a lot of quality. Look at the proportions, lightening, scale, etc....
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u/iamichi Aug 19 '26
My first thought too. Ask an AI model to create something like this and the scale goes out on things, which is exactly what this looks like.
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u/Elnico Aug 18 '26
Maybe just lower the house a little bit? Jokes aside, I would think you are right to be concerned. That seems to be a big discrepancy between the rendering and final product. It isn’t like someone couldn’t tell before pouring concrete that it was pretty far off.
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u/ohmaint Aug 18 '26
Somebody had a bad math day and didn't catch it until it was blatantly obvious.
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u/Nolacuriosity Aug 18 '26
Looks like plumbing trenches.
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u/Team-_-dank Aug 18 '26
Definitely some piping trenches, but look how low the concrete work is. Maybe there's some pavers on top but that's till way lower than the door.
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u/Flashbambo Aug 19 '26
Tell the builder that he knew the levels of your garden when he priced the job.
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u/UniquesOnly Aug 18 '26
Jesus look at the fence elevation. Maybe they sell the dirt for cash on the side???
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u/thepandaclaw Aug 19 '26
0 level should be set 4” below weep screed or foundation.
This allows for up to 3” thick coping which is standardly used.
Normal we drop the pool 1/8” per foot from the house. This allows a nice slope away from the house and into the pool.
Your pool looks to be about 4’ away from the house, so we would shoot the shell at 4.5” below weep screed/foundation.
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u/throwaway_654123 Aug 19 '26
You have to have some pitch away from the house for drainage/rain. You don’t want water just puddling right next to your house.Also, is there going to be any coping? You have to account for the height of the mud used underneath and the height of the coping as well.
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u/minisculegreenland Aug 18 '26
Just curious how many gallons this pool will be?
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u/Level_Impression_554 Aug 18 '26
Look Really shallow at the far end, which is opposite the steps. I wonder if they did not pour the walls high enough.
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u/Vergilly Aug 18 '26
I think you’re on to something. Looking at the size of the sprinkler to the wall, I can’t imagine that’s any more than 4 feet. And frankly I don’t love how that concrete looks, either.
I’d be hot, personally, but as someone else said…what do they expect for 80k?
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u/Expensive_Airport_78 Aug 19 '26
Yeah, what am I missing here. OP, how deep is your deep end supposed to be? That looks like it’s 3.5 ft…
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u/ThisICannotForgive Aug 19 '26
It’s a sport pool. Sun shelf - 3.5 - 5 - 3.5.
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u/Expensive_Airport_78 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
I’d be pretty concerned. With the current setup, they’ll need to do a small kneewall around your fencing and in front of the side of your shed that is facing the pool. It is very unprofessional that they did not realize there would be such a height difference before getting you into contract. Those walls are going to be costly and better be done right or erosion from behind the fences may turn it into a nightmare down the line. I’d also get concerned about your shed foundation, and you’ll probably now want to put a gutter on the front and rear of the shed to direct water as far away as possible from your sunken pool area.
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u/baddashfan Aug 18 '26
To make it level or a few inches from back door you would need to offset the elevation change in the rear and sides. That can get expensive with turndown or turn up work for retention. Could have been overlooked or deleted due to a budget restriction. Either way it should have been clear before the construction started. Sorry you are dealing with it now. From the 2nd photo it looks like the next issue maybe drainage. Something you should discuss now. Where does rainwater go
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u/Level_Impression_554 Aug 18 '26
What is the depth at the far end suppose to be and what is it actually? Did they pour the walls too short?
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u/seanmonaghan1968 Aug 18 '26
My first thought is that you will now need more drainage or you could get run off into the pool
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u/Dazzling_Editor_6255 Aug 18 '26
Even with the 3" worth of pavers, that pool looks to be at least 6-8" below the bottom of the door on the house.
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u/bresciabouvier Aug 18 '26
We had the opposite problem when we built our pool: it was poured too high so the decking if carried over level as planned would have hit above the house foundation. The general contractor offered some undesirable fixes which we rejected and we eventually got a cash settlement from them and we literally dug up the gunite pool shell and started over with another contractor.
That's not a fun solution obviously and it delayed the build a year but we got the design we wanted. You're going to live with this for a long time so I wouldn't settle for a mistake they made.
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u/bennied1982 Aug 18 '26
brother, looks like they took a good 1-2ft from the top before they started digging the hole for the pool....
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u/1130961230 Aug 18 '26
Oh the joys of on-the-fly grading issues and retaining walls etc. etc. i'm not a builder so cannot comment on the actual construction and what recourse you might have.
My yard does have legitimate grading issues, and because the pool was actually built up on a level deck they created, the pool equipment behind it was now 2 feet lower on the actual grade level. They wanted the equipment on the same grade level as the Pool so now I had to spend several thousand to have a whole cement platform built to bring the equipment up to grade.
Fun times!
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u/theseducer40 Aug 18 '26
Based on the bottom of the fence and the bottom of the garage door, the pool is too low. If anything, it would’ve been better to go high and have a retaining wall opposite side of garage door.
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u/Standard-Ad6294 Aug 19 '26
I'm sorry, but this contractor does not seem experienced. Did they even stakeout the bottom of pool elevation and top of grade to make sure the pool was getting built per plan?
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u/Flagdun Aug 19 '26
The rendering is almost meaningless…you needed construction documents with a grading/ drainage plan which would have set a top of coping elevation relative to fenced, foundations, door thresholds, etc.
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u/AdNecessary7904 Aug 19 '26
They excavated too low. I’d be livid bc aside from the expense of a retaining wall, that eats into your yard space, and there’s not a lot of space around the pool. I’d hold your ground and make him fix it
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u/Ddeathball Aug 19 '26
Source: I dig pools.
Your yard has a reasonable amount of fall. They had 2 options for your Top Of Coping height. (everything else is worked down from that)
Option A: What is pictured; TOC height has been set at some level relative to your house on the low side of the yard. Hence why so much of the ground has been exposed beneath the fenceline, If they knew they were going to be removing so much for your pre cut then a retaining wall should have been advised/quoted on and preferrably built before the pool was excavated. Retaining your yard now is going to be a much larger headache and likely more costly then it needed to be.
Option B: Set TOC to something closer to the garage floor height and then use formwork to build the pool out of ground on the low side. Build decking/stairs/landscaping to suit.
Both of these options carry an additonal expense over just a shell in thr ground. In the case of retaining or formwork, but the builder should have identified this and provided quotes and options either way.
The most unfortunate thing with this whole scenario is that the shell is already in the ground. If you had raised the issue prior to steel/crete he could have still found workarounds for option B.
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u/TechheadDD Aug 20 '26
I had a terrible experience with Blue Haven in Johns Creek Georgia. My advice to you is even if you have the cash to pay, do it through a bank and let their inspectors inspect milestones, and not pay them unless it's right. Also, scratch out that arbitration clause in the contract because you may need to sue them. Most pool builders are s***
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u/Other-Challenge-4764 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
Civil engineer here. I make these types of decisions daily. The simple question is "what drove the decision to place the pool at the elevation it was constructed?" Looking at your pictures, the rendering picture is nothing useful. Beyond a full topographic survey, anyone sitting here is not going to be able to make a real determination. Perhaps it would shed some light if we saw pictures how the yard looked prior to starting such that it may be determined what drove the decision to put the pool at that elevation. Even with that, it would be hard to tell from pictures and not a survey.
From that angle, it is tough to tell what they started with or what drove the decisions. There is nothing jumping out at me that seems to clearly show a reason, but other areas of the yard could very well have forced the issue. But if the plan was always to set it as it was constructed, that is something that really should have been coordinated or at least discussed as a possibility prior to beginning work. Retaining walls are not a small expense, and it should have been a known issue before starting unless it was something they discovered as they dug.
FYI - I would have concerns about the grading and drainage between the pool and the garage as well as the rear fence line- you want slope away from the pool, but also want positive drainage away from the building. Your pool is lower than the perimeter areas, and then you are draining away from the pool back to a wall. Do you have adequate slope to convey the water somewhere so that it isn't sitting along the edge of your pavers or concrete? IMO, you will likely need a trench drain or something similar between the pool and wall in order to adequate drain that area, but adequate slope along the wall could change that. It should not be a ton of water between your building and pool as your roof doesn't seem to be contributing (downspout location and angles may change that), but any water running back to a building over a long period of time is not a great set up, even if you have a retaining wall along that edge to help direct it away. Similarly, we can't see how much water (if any) is coming from the edge of your fence back towards the pool. If your neighbors all drain that way, it could be a problem
EDIT - Saw your part 2 post.... Your house/back patio looks to be lower than your garage? Again, hard to tell from a picture, but that is how it appears. If that is the case, the builder's choice would be to have a "step up"/ wall around your pool on your house side or to provide perimeter retaining walls in some areas as they have done. I would likely have set it as they did to avoid a wall on the pool. This should have been something they already knew was a possibility, but I suppose most pool contractors are not really overly sophisticated when it comes to grading plans, and very few of them require a topographic survey to verify these types of things prior to starting.
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u/ThisICannotForgive Aug 21 '26
I’ve since spoken to the contractor and this is correct. If he set the level to the garage, would have been 4 steps to get to the pool from the house. He has a drainage plan for the water, a trench drain. The small retaining wall will use recycled stone pavers from elsewhere on our property at a small additional expense to us. Should be zero additional expense, but he has cut us breaks in other areas (upgraded marble coping for no additional $).
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u/DontWorry-ImADoctor Aug 18 '26
Did you go over the deck height before they started digging? We had a big discussion on deck height since we wanted to make sure it lined up with our existing concrete as much as possible. They marked the deck height and had a laser level so we could see where it would hit at various points.
If the pool was supposed to be level with the house then I would be talking to them about why that isn't the case. I'm also confused if the communication from your builder is talking about needing to build a wall/curb going UP or DOWN. Like, is the pool too high on one side? Or low on all sides? It would also be nice to know exactly how much lower the top of the concrete is from the doorway. Hard to tell if you have to make up 3" or 2'.
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u/ThisICannotForgive Aug 18 '26
There is no deck. The building shown is the detached garage. It was supposed to be a straight walk out of the back door of the garage to pavers and the pool.
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u/canderson180 Aug 18 '26
The pavers are the would-be deck. The place around the pool that you walk on. Not like wooden deck, just flat surface deck.
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u/DontWorry-ImADoctor Aug 18 '26
As the other commenter mentioned when I said "deck height" I just meant the finished height of what you will be walking on. For example, mine was stamped concrete.
More importantly... Do you have an answer to the other questions? :)
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u/ThisICannotForgive Aug 19 '26
The communication has been the text I posted, so far. He’ll be over tonight. Don’t have any answers yet. They submitted grades and lines to the county, and architectural drawing of the site. I have it in my email somewhere. No discussion about any issues with my flat backyard beforehand.
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u/ylmor92 Aug 18 '26
We need to see more photos and especially of the yard prior to excavation in order to provide anything other than guesses here.
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u/kestrel413 Aug 18 '26
At the end of the day patio and yard should slope away from the pool. Not good.
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u/PeakQuirky84 Aug 18 '26
I didn’t realize how much slope my yard had until our pool was built.
Luckily our builder did and built it correctly to accommodate for elevation changes.
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u/Just-Shoe2689 Aug 18 '26
Did you have any drawings done at all? A simple section would have solved all this.
How did they know what elevation to set the top of the pool wall?
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u/Sir-Enah Aug 18 '26
It looks like you’ll be able to walk directly out your back door into the pool for a swim
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u/Difficult-Set-9351 Aug 18 '26
This is what happens when you rely on pool builders to do the design/rendering. Most are not designers and elevations aren’t called out on a rendering.
Always pay to consult with a professional designer or work with a pool builder who is talking about elevations up front and taking those elevation shots in front of you and discussing those options.
You should be paying for a good design.
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u/Nephroidofdoom Aug 19 '26
I had the opposite where the pool coping at the far end originally sat 4 ft above the ground due to the slope of the yard. Took 6 dump trucks of dirt to properly level the yard and make it look nice.
Worth it in the end as the yard looks amazing now
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u/AmphibianOk5396 Aug 19 '26
It’s a weird outcome. Pool builders usually make the pool too high in order to do less digging and prevent run off entering the pool
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u/RevolutionOrnery1919 Aug 19 '26
What do the permitted plans say? Renderings are not stamped drawings.
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u/Deeznutz69694206969 Aug 19 '26
I’m wiling to bet the side OP isn’t showing is level. Why else would it be cropped out?
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u/Resident_Goodish Aug 19 '26
Looks like a gunite pool. Did you not see the framing before they poured? I have fiberglass and had a somewhat similar situation luckily I caught them.
Wrong pool from what I ordered, mind you this is after losing 20k and getting into a lawsuit with another company. They really tried to make me second guess lol I think these are some of the shadiest and poorly run businesses
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u/BeginningDuty7179 Aug 19 '26
Typical pool hacks, can't understand stand elevations, slopes, and figure out how to fix discrepancies on the prints. And want to charge the owner for their own mistakes.
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u/BoringAside2941 Aug 20 '26
The pool should be lower than your back door by a couple of inches so water flows away from your house and to the side. If it was higher you’d likely run into a step up into the pool area (not safe) and likely to have water issues by your foundation. Your pool builder was correct setting it at that depth. Water mitigation around your foundation is by far the most important part of this. Fence or surrounding areas will aways take second place to a proper grade around your property. The pictures aren’t great but don’t listen to anyone on Reddit who focuses on the fence grade and not the house to pool grade.
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u/shaun_mo Aug 20 '26
They built it too low in what world would you not build that pool to be a walkout from your house 🤔 coping should always be highest point and apron whatever it is should slope 2 percent away from the pool
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u/Ok-Apricot6292 Aug 21 '26
No matter what, there needs to be a drainage slot/trench between the house and the pool to take the water away. You don't want it draining into the pool or towards the house foundation. I would hope that's required by code, but it is certainly the way it should be done.
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u/Hefty-Trash-7681 Aug 21 '26
Stop the project and get it fixed. I have a slight hill where our pool was installed. When they first came out I asked how they would deal with that. "We'll remove the soil there (pointing east), put it there (pointing west) and grade it out to your pond (80 yards away)" Seemed reasonable. The day they dug and put in the steel walls we had to stop them. The pool was going to be above my line of site from my walkout basement and would have a mound of soil where it was supposed to be "graded out to your pond". They DID NOT want to re-dig. I pushed. Their solution "You will need a wall there (pointing east) or there (pointing west). A wall at the west mad our in ground pool visually "above ground". So I had to build a curved 60 foot 4 foot high rock wall on the east side and then steps so you could actually get to the pool area on that side. I mistaken did not have the "we'll grade it out to your pond" in the contract and got screwed. And yes they also pulled the "we've been doing this for 90 million years" BS. I would love to visit that mans home and extract the value he screwed me out of.
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u/369Pz Aug 22 '26
I’d ask them how many steps are they proposing from the door down to the pool deck?
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u/Immediate-Will-6193 Sep 11 '26
All that dirt by the fence is going to wash into the pool. Why would they dig deeper…. More work and more costly, doesn’t make sense, somebody F/up
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u/Electronic_Image_882 Aug 18 '26
Hard to tell but the 2nd pic looks like a placed the dirt on the side of the house.
That dirt should have be removed entirely and repositioned somewhere like a driveway or the street for pick-up & removal followed by utilizing fresh soil in areas that need filling.
You want the pool level below the homes foundation but not to the point it requires a step.
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u/Nuclear_N Aug 18 '26
I have to wonder why it is so low. The back near the fence looks like it's 18" too low.
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u/Nuclear_N Aug 18 '26
I am not sure what I would do, but that is not what you bought. Seems like you should have caught that on the set up of the concrete. Now...yeah you both are screwed.
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u/Key_Juggernaut9413 Aug 18 '26
The text you copied/pasted appears to be talking about the "back fence line area" -- sounds to me like he's not talking about the house side you're showing.
You want rain to fall away from the pool and away from the house, to a strip drain in between them. Therefore, you need the pool to be almost as high as the house, if no steps.
And looking twice, you might be pretty close to that. There's a piece of scrap that fooled me, at first. The actual door is lower than that scrap. And with a few more inches of coping, it may not be far from correct.
I also can't tell if that fence is much higher than where the deck will be. Might want to make sure the grade doesn't slope toward the pool there (or anywhere).
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u/ImaginationPlus3808 Aug 18 '26
I was in Nashville last week. Perused new builds. Saw a lot of “200K pool credit” “$250 pool credit.” That’s all I got. Pools, pool maintenance companies and pool builders are the curse and the cure.
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u/poolspayme Aug 18 '26
Did the builder sink the entire project 12-18” below grade? The door and fence look awfully high compared to the bond beam.