IG DIY project, help from others who did this?

I have been studying this for a long time, and at the verge of ordering a DIY inground kit for a 20x40 with a 1200 sq ft deck. Will need at 75-100 yds stone (northern climate, need lots of stone under deck and yard slopes down about 2'). How hard is this and how difficult of a project? Here are my estimates, wife thinks I am crazy. Hire out excavator, electrician, finish concrete & vermiculite, gas line. $35 K DIY, $50K by full builder. Tasks below by me. Some but not a lot of help available. 1 day set up & level panels; 1 day string lines, level walls & finish grade floor by hand; 1 day pour collar, 1 day install skimmers, lights, plumbing, & test; 1 day install liner; 1 day backfill pool wall overdig 30 yds stone & fill pool from water trucks; 1 day building 2 foot high block retaining wall one side of pool patio; 2 days moving 50 yds stone ( w/ bobcat) to deck area & vibrating stone; 1 day bonding rebar, setting up diving board, pool ladder, preparing for concrete pour; 1 day final equipment set up on pad & connections; 2 days installing aluminum pool fence, need 34 piers drilled 48" deep with rented bobcat post hole digger. Total about 14 days of work full time.

What are the hardest tasks? Are my estimates accurate?

Hi Dave,

Let me prefrace this with I didnt actually build my pool myself . I hired a !#$!@! company to build it for me . I was naive about the whole process and what I actually bought was a crew that came in, excavated , installed the sidewalls , plumbing and liner and left.

THings I had to do on my own or subcontracted to have done

permits
concrete
electrical wiring
landscaping
fencing - I had a fence company do this, by the end I needed to , I HAD IT

Basically everything that was needed to turn it from a vinyl covered hole into something we call a pool

My recommendation is unless you do this type of work for a living and are completely comfortable with all the tasks, HIRE a reputable company with references

just a side note : the company was taken to court by other buyers and I supplied all of my documentation to the lawyers for the buyers who won. company is no longer around

Dave,
We did the same DIY project last summer. We purchased a Hydra IG vinyl liner pool kit from www.nationalpoolwholesalers.com along with all of the other equipment. (25x44) Took us all summer doing it ourselves. Part of that problem was that we hit rock at 4 feet and chipping, chiseling, etc the deep end to get the right shape took a LONG time. I was also terrified that the liner would not fit due to having to hang string lines etc to get the angles and depth and so on. 16 year old son did all of that figuring which was scary also. The excavator let us borrow his laser to use also which was a lifesaver. Frankly, I never did figure out how to use that thing and I have a college education.:D

Now that it is over and we are enjoying our pool tremendously, I am glad we did the DIY part. We got way more pool and decking than we could have afforded if we had hired a pool company to do it. We hired an excavator and an electrician. Other than that we had one extra adult and a couple of odd teenagers every once in awhile.(besides our own). The deep end had to have concrete applied over all of the jagged rock edges kind of like icing a cake so we would have a smooth surface to put the sand concete mixture over. If we had not run into rock we would have been finished MUCH sooner but I think it would certainly have taken us longer than 14 days though. We were also lucky that there is a shop very close to our home that rebuilds old equipment and he loaned us for free (since we are neighbors I guess) a bobcat and 2 frontend loaders. Had to give the bobcat back since he sold it and the new owner was coming to get it.

Also looking back, we were lucky that we found an excavator out here in the country that had actually dug a hole for another DIY'er building an IG vinyl liner pool exactly 2 weeks earlier. We visited the other DIY'er also for tips.

I am in the process of doing it now. I just passed my pre-gunite inspection from the county. It has went well so far. It is some work and you must be organized, but so far I would recommend it if you are a DIY type person.

Dave I would think that a 3 weeks to a month is a better time frame. every thing takes twice as long as you think especially when you do not do these things for a living. I am not trying to deter you. I did mine and enjoyed the process a lot. Took me 5 weeks although I was slowed by 2 weeks of wet weather. I hired a lot of labors at varrious parts of the build b/c there is no way you can do alll the physical parts of the job no matter how much energy you have. chris

Chris,

Do you have pictures of your pool ready to post? I tried to send you a private message but it said your mailbox is full.

Thanks!!

still working on it chris

Hey Dave here are some pics of the inpool stairs as they progressed