Video transcription: A great question we’re often asked is, if I’m going to build a house, how do I go about planning the pool? If it is such that you’ve got a block that when the house is built, you’re going to lose your access, it’s really important to consider putting the pool in first. At Compass, we call that a sleeper pool. So you can certainly come to us and talk to use about installing a sleeper pool.

The other consideration is, if you’re going to have access, we can certainly put the pool in after the house is built. But the consideration might be, if it’s going to be anywhere near the house for example, you want to make sure you consult with your builder and ensure that the footings for that house are constructed in such a way that it lets you come up and excavate near the house. So there are those sorts of considerations that must be taken into account.

If you’re at that point and you think, yes, I really need to talk to someone about whether I build the pool first or do it after, certainly bring your plans into Compass and we’ll talk to you about it. Give one of the team a call today on 1300 667 445.

What to think about with regards to pool installation access

Video transcription: I talk to a lot of people have anxiety about access to their house. The first thing to let you know is just about everything is possible. Ideally, we’d turn up at a block, it would be flat, we would have no house in that spot and we could drive straight in with all the equipment. Realistically when a pool is built, we literally want to turn up with the biggest digging machine and excavator and as many tipper trucks, usually three, as we can, to keep running that fill out of that property.

Most properties that we consider have great access are properties that you can pretty much drive a car to where you want to put the pool. That is pretty much as good as it gets in most cities today. Outside of the city, on rural properties and so forth, that is an added bonus because it is often very easy to get to the site you want to put the swimming pool.

If you do have constrained access, don’t be overly concerned about it. Just know that the more equipment and the more time it takes for us to get in and get the fill out of that site and then actually bring sand in, which is also used as part of the installation process, the costs associated with that are generally greater, but completely justifiable.

As you could imagine, when we’re taking a one piece shell, a swimming pool, and lifting it to the site, most often we’re using cranes. The general crane lift is not overly complicated. That’s probably not fair to the crane guys. They’re really good at what they do and it is a real discipline for them to lift the pool. But generally in most cases lifting a pool into the site is non problematic.

Sometimes, on very rare occasions, we might use exceptionally large cranes because we just can’t get anywhere near the block. In that case, the cranes can get fairly expensive. But there is a way to install just about every pool. On the odd occasion we’ve even used helicopters to lift pools into place. That is quite a sight, seeing helicopters buzzing over your roof with a swimming pool hanging off it. It’s pretty exciting actually.

It’s really difficult for us also, and obviously it’s difficult for you, to tell what’s under the ground. A lot of people know through experience if they’ve built on their site or they’re lived in the area for a while, they’ll know whether or not we’ll have to contend with rock. If we can get a decent sized machine into the site and access is reasonable, rock is not a great issue. The smaller the machinery, the longer it takes to excavate, the greater the cost associated with excavation. These are just pretty standard things.

In other cases, certainly around the area where we work a lot, we have high water tables. That may mean we actually employ an ancillary company to come in and insert spear points around the pool area. That is a like a big pump and vacuum system which sucks the area dry for a day or two before we excavate the pool.

We dig every day, it’s our job. As much as we want to put the swimming pool in, part of that process is coming out and excavating. I don’t think there is much we haven’t seen under the ground and there is always a way for us to deal with it. Give one of the team a call today on 1300 667 445.