electrician costs for new vinyl pool?

[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.