How To Remodel Your Pool

   Hahahahahaaaahahaaaa you really want to remodel your pool on your own!? You are loco man! You are crazy! You are f--king insane!!!! I will share with you quickly my story on pool remodeling and hopefully it helps!

October 2011: I buy my house, which was marketed as "turn key, you won't need to do anything!" Uhhh.... yeah, so... around $15,000 dollars later I am still working on things, anyway in October I quickly discover what my home inspector missed, the pool was not resurfaced, it was painted to cover up the decaying plaster by the scumbags that sold me the house. Let me tell you how decaying plaster works, once it seriously starts if you can't patch it up quickly, it's like peeling a banana, the banana is done. It won't be reused or resold, you can't put the peel back on the banana no matter how much you try. If you are considering doing this DYI, DON'T. The tools alone to remodel will probably be half as much as the remodel, the time alone is also probably going to be around a quarter of your yearly salary! You are going to have to bite the bullet here and pay someone.

November 2011 to March 2012: I try to research every other option besides remodeling. including underwater repair plaster, scuba guys that repair underwater, draining the pool and replastering, etc, etc, etc. Let me save you some time, if you have old plaster, and are planning on staying in the house for awhile, it's time to remodel or drain and cover it up. You can consider the other options if you plan on selling soon.

March to May 2012: Google... still looking for pool re modelers etc, in the interest of not having to do this shit every 5 years, I decide I will go with pebble tech surface, it's a difference of about $1500 for me, but you are insane to go back to plaster at this point in life. If you also have an older pool, here's some things I added:

• Another return line (my 1950's pool only had one)
• Dedicated suction line (I can toggle now between vacuum or skimmer, or both, usually have both on unless I got hit by a dust storm and the pool floor is brown)
• Self leveler/filler (so you don't have to have the damn hose in the pool once a week to refill)

This crap makes pool cleaning about 1,000,000 times easier. I used to spend an hour a week on the pool, now I spend 15 minutes or so. If you want to add a self cleaning floor as opposed to a creepy crawler, let me save you sometime again, it's too damn expensive, for a new pool it's a few hundred dollars, for an existing pool I was quoted over $10,000, the vacuum floor cleaner stays!

During this time I had about 5 contractors show up, the prices for the same exact services ranged from $6,000 to $12,000 dollars. Being the cheapskate that I am, I went with $6,000. Of course I also reviewed the company on Google before hiring them.

May to July 2012: Welcome to the pool business, once you sign that contract you are screwed. The company did a fantastic job for me, the pool looks great, it no longer has pool cancer, and self cleaning functions save so much time, but the customer service sucked! I won't bash them since they save me so much money, but here's a tip, if you want the job done by July 4th, ask for it to be done by Memorial Day. My situation was the opposite. When you are a new client they return your phone call in seconds, and will be at your place to take measurements the same day if need be. But once the deposit is in.... Mwhaahahaaa (evil laugh), you are at their mercy. Unscheduled visits  or no visits, and be prepared to sit with an empty pool for awhile. Anyway, once the job was done the pool was awesome, and still is.

   So in conclusion, unless you plan on starting your own pool remodeling business, pay someone to do it. Risk vs. Reward is not worth the DYI route.