The trick is not to be in a big hurry. If I had it to do over again, I would read up a lot and study how pools are made, visit pool excavation contractors, pool builder contractors, and concrete deck contractors to find out all the ins and outs of good and bad pools and the most repeatable crews. Then I would contract out the work myself and do what work I was comfortable doing.

One thing I’ve learned lately is that building a pool isn’t that hard, but there are a few tricks that good crews know to make the pool operation better. I am currently doing most of the electrical for our pool. Not easy because I have to run power 120 ft across my attack, then another 110 feet to the pool equipment. But the electrician is advising me all the way and he figures I’m saving about $4000.

If you are not in a hurry, I think you could do a lot of it yourself. There are a lot of tutorials on the internet these days.

Finally, if you are thinking of doing much of it yourself, I would consider doing gunite.