Pool Installation Hell

I’ve had a pool much of my life. My parents got our pool when I was 12 years old. I loved the lazy summers: tanning with Hawaiian Tropic Oil, putting Sun In in my hair, playing Sharks & Dolphins, and floating around soaking up the sun.

When PHAT Daddy and I bought our second home, it came with a pool. I was beside myself with excitement. I loved every aspect - even the cleaning and maintenance was stress-reducing for me. I’d get out there every morning and brush the liner, skim the leaves and bugs and make sure it was sparkling clear.

Then we moved to our third home. No pool. Tons of trees. On top of a very rocky mountain. But once you have a pool, it’s very hard to go back to not having a pool. So we started down the long road of Pool Installation Hell.

It was April 2004 when we signed the contract for our pool. Construction was supposed to begin in mid-May 2004. In late April, I started looking into what permits were needed. I should have started this step the day we signed the contract because we got slapped with one delay after another. Bureaucracy at its finest.

First we needed a zoning permit. The zoning officer is in his office for 2 hours on Wednesday nights and 2 hours on Saturday mornings. We go in on Wednesday, only to find out that we need the tax assessor to clear that our property taxes are paid up before we can get the permit. So we can call for that and then pick up our zoning permit on Saturday? Nope. They don’t issue permits on Saturdays. (Apparently the assistant is not in and the zoning officer is unable to fill out a form or use a typewriter on his own. He can only *sign* the permits.) We had to go back the following Wednesday.

Next we needed a County Health Department approval. That was actually pretty smooth, except that it took another week to process. Finally, I bring the permits to the code enforcement office. PHAT Daddy had called and asked what was required to get the pool permit, so I thought we were all set. Wrong. At the office, they presented me with another set of “requirements.”

In case you’re not following the timeline here, we were now into mid-May and the pool company can’t even put us on the docket yet because we don’t have a permit. I was almost 6 months pregnant, fat, hot and pissed. I literally broke down in tears yelling at this unsympathetic old fart at the code enforcement office.

In the interest of, well, interesting reading, I will summarize the remaining events. Here’s how it went: Obtained official permit in early June; pool company scheduled to start digging in late June but excavator is over weight limit for a bridge on the way to our house and driver is unable to find alternate route; I drive around and find alternate route myself and fax directions to pool company; excavator makes it the following week; steel walls and concrete lockdown constructed by end of July; attempted to get approval from code enforcement office for the concrete, but denied; pool company discusses with code enforcement; pool company has professional engineer survey the pool construction and write letter to code enforcement to show that installation is adequate; in early September approval is obtained and liner is fitted in pool and water delivered - just in time to close the pool up for the season.

That brings us to this summer and the deck construction. Again we go through the circus act of obtaining three permits. The pool is “on-ground” - a deep end is dug in-ground, but the pool is constructed above-ground - so we can’t climb over the edge and use it very easily without the deck around it. So here I am again, hot and annoyed, waiting for the deck to be finished, the electric to be hooked up for the filter, and the pool company to come back and complete the hook ups and the ladder and slide installation.

All signs are pointing to mid-July for a fully-functional pool. But then again, I thought all signs pointed to last mid-July. All I can do is wait and see… and make every contractor involved in this project feel my wrath if things don’t go according to schedule.