electrician costs for new vinyl pool?

[JohnT]

thanks for all the replys.
The electrician who gave the bid says he does pools all the time so i would have thought his time would have been less than the 16 hrs proposed.(especially with two people) The main trench is already been dug to the pad and that run is straight and right to the main box about 45' away. The bonding to light coping ladder and stair rail is the only other real issues. convience receptical will be at the pad. I do not object to material cost so much ($700) but $1800 for labor sound crazy. this AM another guy gave a bid for 2500. I am very much thinking of getting the code book and doing it my self. (The whole thing will be inspected any way an I am in no hurry)I have run many circuits before. I did not think prices would be that out of wack. Thanks chris

You can quite easily do it yourself. The big problem is bonding the rebar or mesh in the pool deck. I don't honestly think there is an easy or effective way to do this. If you choose to do it, talk to your inspector to find out what he looks for. Many cities have a handout describing their local rules and inspection points.

[prh129]

Yes - definitely check with your inspector. My town requires that a licensed electrician pull a separate permit and install the electrical outlet and bonding wire.

It also wouldn't hurt to ask the electricians if you could do some of the prep work to reduce the labor involved. I did some of the prep work myself but didn't consult with my electrician beforehand (I initially thought I could do the job myself) so what he usually does was different from what I did (I had the outlet box mounted low - about 1 ft off the ground - and he usually has them mounted higher - about 3 feet. He had to dig up the ground and cut the conduit and pull new wire etc). If I had talked with him beforehand, I could have done it the way he wanted and saved labor time.

Peter

[cleancloths]

You did not say (or I did not see) where you are located, as rates vary highly by region. I am in Northern NJ and I just pulled out the paperwork from when I did my pool in 1997 and I paid $1,735 then, which was the best price I could find. I had some estimates as high as $4,000.

Now our scope may have been slightly higher than yours. We put in a 60amp sub-panel which was run about 120' underground to our main house pannel. We have 220 running to the pool pump. polaris booster pump and heatpump, plus 110v to an electric outlet, pool lighes and an outside spot light. The entire pool was bonded as well and there are timers for each of the pumps. Price included all work and materials.

Be forewarned that electrical codes and inspectors vary all over the map. The guy I used specialized in pool work, but did most of his work in a town other than mine. When he had to connect the two timers together rather than running a conduit out the bottom of one with a "U" shaped pipe and then into the other he decided to go straight down and put the "U" underground to make the piping look nicer. The inspector failed him as he said all conduit must go at least 18" underground. Did not matter that this did not need to be in the ground, he made him either raise it out of the ground or go deeper. Point is, when you get the pricing make sure you have wording in it that specifies it must meet code and the contractor (not you) is responsible for any extra cost that the inspector may insist on.

[us7sail]

As the home owner here in chatham county NC you are allowed to do all aspects of the construction yourself. Of course must have permit and be inspected. that beeing said I think I am going to go it my self with the aid of a friend that does electrical. As far as bonding the pool, we will just use concrete with fibers instead of rebar/mesh wire. From want I understand strength is the same. Any body have pictues of their pad so I can see a profesional set up? Thanks chris
P.S. By the way collar arround the base of walls and pad is being poured tommorow PM. Can't wait to chalk another thing off the list. Will post pictues of install as soon as I get a break. Hard working and then comming home and working.

[b2001]

I had an AG pool put in 4 years ago. I had a 110v circuit run with an outlet to my pool and another outlet for my pool lights. I also had another 220v circuit run to my spa. I'm guessing maybe 75 feet through the attic to the side of the house and another 30 feet underground to the pool outlets and 50 feet under a deck to the spa.

I had no idea on costs - assumed maybe a little over $1000, and got a cost estimate of $2000 from the pool builder's recommended electricians who specialized in pools. I was shocked so I went shopping around and got additional estimates in the range of from $2300 to $2600.

I finally negotiated a price of $1500 with the original electricians and I dug the trench myself so that they would not have to hire someone. This was also a two man crew and it took them much less than 16 hours.

I did run across someone who knew someone retired who was licensed and did electrician jobs here and there, but understandably he was booked and couldn't make my schedule - I probably could have gotten close to what I was thinking with him.

I second the suggestion on being familiar on what the inspectors in your area will look for - the contractors work in many areas, and at least in my case didn't know a couple of things ...

[MaxxFusion]

I did mine myself for about $200 including the Timer. I had to put a GFI outlet on the house and then run my twist lock recepticle off of it. I dug the trench by hand (I would never do that again. Rent the machine) which had to be 18" deep. Then I ran my plastic conduit. The city required me to use individual wire rather than romex. They required the gound wire to be insulated not bare.

I have my pool pump running off of its own breaker on my panel which luckily i had an extra one of.

Frank

[falken]

My quote was $800 to wire the light and run the electric for 2 pumps and an outlet.

Luckilly for me he finished while I was away and just left the invoice, before I paid it the electrical inspector came out and said the circuit breaker he used for the pool was the wrong brand (upon closer inspection by me, he had to actually take a knife and cut away plastic to even make the thing fit). I then inspected everything more in depth myself and found grounding wires not hooked up and a few other problems.

He never returned any of my calls, so I fixed the problems myself. I never did pay him so it really only cost $50 for a new breaker and my time to fix his mistakes.

So... to sum it up, I was quoted $800 in KY for someone who wasn't very good at what he did.