Quote Originally Posted by Wclark160 View Post
It seems as though some of the most knowledgeable people in the industry are here.
. . . an incorrect conclusion!

I'm in the pool business (~30 years of commercial service work), as are a few others who are on the Support Team, or who post regularly, but most posters are just pool owners. If there's an active pool builder who is currently regularly posting on the forum . . . I'm not aware of it.

1. People in the pool building business tend not to be big forum users.
2. Among the ones who are, they tend not to be on THIS forum, which is perceived (somewhat correctly) as unfriendly to much of the pool industry, AND
3. Even where they do post (poolspaforum.com), they tend to be much less active, this time of year, when the pool building season is beginning to take off.

More points to consider:

=> Pool builders are not eager to spend time teaching DIY'rs how to build pools. They are more likely to be offended that you even ask.

=> You elected to exclude all location data from your registration . . . and your post. But, you are asking a number of questions that have only LOCAL answers.

=> The best site addressing your question, at least so far as providing a successful example, is http://www.howibuiltmyownpool.com/ . Ben Choi, the site owner, was a forum participant here a number of years ago, and successfully built his own pool, and then the site. He's since moved away from that house and no longer is active on his site.

Good luck!