I was going to build my own but decided against it. It would be my first time ever building a pool and I was busy enough at my real job to have a second one of overseeing the building of a pool.

I chose instead a coordinator. His job was to design, plan and organize the subs. He knew the order of how to build pools and he knew the subs, he was in business for 20 years. I was skeptical at first, but the more I checked his references the better he looked. He was also less expensive than the official pool companies.

I figured it would take me longer to finish, possibly all summer of learning the steps and that particuler step (excavation, steel, plumbing, etc.) at least enough to understand what to expect and when they were done. Ulitmately when to pay them for their work.

The horror stories I heard about pool companies made me wary of them too. Length of the build time (some were 6 months to years) and sub par work scared me to death. Mine took 5 weeks (dig day to water day).

I usually paid the subs when he said, I trusted him to tell me when they were done. (Except for the guniters - see next paragraph). I paid him in phases, something like $2K for a design and then $1K at agreed upon completion phases (excavation, gunite, plaster, etc). I figured that if for some reason the relationship soured I wouldn't have lost that much money and could either find someone else or attempt to finish it myself. I also made him pick a completion date and let him choose the penalty for not meeting that date. BTW he chose to pay me $500 penalty a week for every week past the completion date. He met his completion date so no problem.

Above all, DO NOT PAY THE SUBS UNTIL YOUR SURE THAT SUB HAS COMPLETED HIS JOB SATISFACTORILY, once they get the money you are instantly low/no priority. Example: The guniters left about a 1K to 1.5K lbs. of excess gunite on the backside of the wall the runs the length of my pool. I paid them and gave them a bonus, as they were there until 11pm working on my job. Little did I know the surprise they left me later. I complained but ended up breaking it up and dumping it myself, just to be done with it.

Another thing I learned was most subs allow you to pay several days after they complete the job, so no worries of waiting until closer to that date to pay them, gives time to review the quality of their work.

Overall I think I got a good deal, he was flexible, attentive (he was there everyday something important happened) and true to his contracted word.

I also supplied an ice chest full of cold sodas and water for the workers, I don't know if it made them work faster/better but I know it didn't hurt.