“Proper planning can help to avoid unforeseeable headaches.”
-Donovan Marhold, Project Manager
What you see below is a hydraulic hammer. Its presence on site during this pool construction project was a result of hitting solid bedrock on the 8th foot of a 9 foot excavation. This is an example of what we call an “Unforeseeable”. These little surprises can be quite costly and cause frustrating delays.
Nobody likes surprises during a major home improvement project, but it’s important to remember that proper planning can help to avoid these unforeseeable headaches. Here’s a list of other considerations you may encounter when building a swimming pool:
- Geotechnical or soil stability surveys
- Accessibility for heavy machinery
- Unmarked or abandoned utility lines
- Weather delays
- High ground water
- Sinkholes
- Buried obstructions
- Wetlands and conservation area transition zones
- Impervious lot coverage restrictions
- Lot grading and drainage requirements
- Soil removal regulations
- Invasive tree roots
- Underground septic and irrigation lines
- Post-construction landscape remediation
A swimming pool we built recently required us to lay down heavy duty steel plates in order to protect underground septic lines, otherwise our machines would not have been able to access the client’s backyard. This added several thousand dollars to the project. Alternatively, the machines could have been driven around the other side of the house in order to avoid the septic lines, but going in this direction would have required a variance to municipal building code because this point of access would have been within a wetlands transition zone. Applying for a variance can be very costly and time consuming.
Before any swimming pool project begins at Rin Robyn Pools, we work with our clients under a Preconstruction Planning Agreement which allows us to evaluate everything from Access to Zoning. Our professional Project Managers and Design Team will help you evaluate all of these considerations prior to the start of your project, ultimately saving you time, money and a lot of frustration.
This article is not meant to discourage you in any way. Rather, it is a gentle reminder to not rush your project, plan carefully and always keep a little extra money aside for any surprises that may occur.