Why one quote comes in so much lower than the others
Across thirty-seven years the shortfall varies in size and almost never in character. A lowball quote typically comes in fifty to a hundred thousand dollars below what the work actually costs. Sometimes more. Occasionally less. What does not vary is that the gap does not stay a gap. It gets recovered later, in pieces, from the same homeowner.
The pattern, and why nobody warns you about it
I have been building pools since 1989, in a family that has been doing it for four generations, and I have watched the same sequence repeat more times than I can count.
A homeowner gets three numbers. One is far below the others. They take it, because of course they do. Then the excavation runs longer than the one day that was budgeted. Then only half the backfill was included. Then the electrical connections turn out to be someone else's problem. Then the heater cannot hold temperature in May, and the spa takes an hour to warm, and the jets feel like a garden hose. Each of these arrives as its own conversation, its own invoice, its own argument, in the middle of a summer that was supposed to be about swimming.
By the end they have spent roughly what the complete estimate said at the start. Sometimes more.
And here is the part that keeps the cycle alive: they do not tell anyone. At dinner it is still the good story about the builder who came in under everyone else. People do not enjoy explaining that they were worked. So the next homeowner hears a number that never actually existed, and arrives believing a complete pool can be had for it.
If you are reading this because a neighbor quoted you a figure that does not match what you are being told now, that is the most likely explanation. Not that someone is gouging you. That the number you heard was the signing number, not the finished number.
Read your own estimate against this list
You do not have to take my word for any of this, and you should not. Take whatever estimate you are holding and look for the following. This takes about ten minutes and it costs nothing.
| What to look for | What a short estimate does |
|---|---|
| Excavation | Budgeted as a single day. Very few pools on real lots are a one day dig. Ask how many days are carried and what happens on day two. |
| Backfill | Partially included, often about half. Backfill is not optional and the balance will be billed. |
| Electrical connections | Absent entirely, or shown as "by others." The pool does not run without them. |
| Bonding and inspection | Assumed rather than listed. Both are code, both cost money, both happen either way. |
| Electronic autofill | Omitted. Left out, it becomes a hose draped over the coping for the life of the pool. |
| Coping | An allowance too small for the actual perimeter, or a stone width that does not suit the design. Check the quantity, not just the word. |
| Plumbing | Line size not stated at all, or stated at one and a half inch. Also check whether the plumbing is rigid or flexible. Flexible pipe is faster to install and it is buried under your patio for the life of the pool. |
| Heater, filter and pump | Present on the page, sized down underneath. The line item exists, so nothing looks missing. |
| Spa and jets | An undersized spa and weak jet pumps. This is the one nobody catches on paper and everybody notices in the water. |
| Site conditions | Silence. Rock, groundwater and poor fill are not addressed, which does not mean they were ruled out. |
Undersized is worse than missing
A missing line is at least honest. You can see the gap. Undersized equipment is harder, because the estimate looks complete. There is a heater on it. There is a filter on it. There is a pump on it. Every box is ticked and the number is lower, and no reasonable person reading a quote would know why.
You find out later, in the way you actually live with a pool.
- An undersized heater means the pool is cold on the one warm weekend in May you had been looking forward to, and you run it flat out for two days trying to catch up. Over a few seasons the fuel you burn chasing temperature costs more than the right heater would have.
- An undersized filter means shorter runs between cleanings, more chemistry, more of your time, and water that never looks quite the way it did in the photographs.
- An undersized pump struggles against a system it was never matched to. It is loud, it is inefficient, and it wears out early.
- Undersized plumbing is the one you can never fix. Everything else on this list can be replaced in an afternoon. The pipe is under the shell and under the patio, and correcting it means taking the patio apart.
- Weak jet pumps and an undersized spa produce the disappointment people describe most often and least precisely. They say it just does not feel like anything. That is what they mean.
None of this is exotic knowledge. It is simply invisible at the moment you are choosing, which is exactly why it is where the money gets taken out.
The basics belong in the estimate, not hidden in it
Ledge rock, water conditions, and bad soil or fill can arise during construction. That is the honest position, and it is true for every builder working this ground, including me.
What separates a complete estimate from a short one is not a promise that none of it will happen. It is that all of it is named, in writing, before you sign, along with what it costs if it does.
If rock is encountered during excavation, it is priced at that point, and charged only for what is actually removed. Groundwater and poor fill are handled the same way: identified when they appear, priced against what the site actually requires, with the mechanism agreed in advance rather than negotiated from a position where you have a hole in your lawn and no alternative.
An estimate that says nothing at all about these conditions has not removed the risk. It has moved the risk to you, and it has postponed the conversation to the least favorable possible moment.
What a change order should mean
I am not going to tell you the number never moves. Any builder who tells you that is telling you the first thing you want to hear, which is the whole subject of this page.
What I will say is this. A change order should mean you changed your mind. You saw the shell in the ground and wanted the shelf wider. You decided on the spa after all. You added lighting once you saw the grade at night.
A change order should not mean the estimate was optimistic and the balance is now due. That is not a change in scope. That is the rest of the original scope, arriving late.
That distinction is a fair thing to ask any builder to put in writing, and the answer will tell you a great deal.
Take these five questions to every estimate you have
- How many days of excavation are carried, and what happens on the day after that?
- Is the backfill complete, and are the electrical connections and bonding in this number or someone else's?
- What size is the plumbing, and is it rigid? If the line size is not on the document, ask why not.
- What are the heater, filter, pump and jet pumps sized to? Not the brand. The sizing, and what it was matched against.
- If rock, water or poor fill turn up, what is the written mechanism? Silence is an answer.
Ask all five of every builder, including me. A builder who is comfortable with these questions will answer them without tension. A builder who becomes vague, or reassuring, or slightly annoyed, has told you what you need to know.
What this costs
New custom gunite construction starts at $200,000. Renovation and restoration work runs on a separate ladder that begins at $40,000.
A number materially below the new construction figure is not a cheaper pool. It is a shorter list. The pool that eventually gets built out of it tends to land in the same place, having taken a worse route to get there.
How we work
The scope is fully drawn before anything is signed, and the items on the list above are on the document rather than assumed. Design, permitting and construction run under one point of supervision, and a Gedney walks every phase of every shell from layout through commissioning. Supervision is never delegated.
Fourth generation pool builders, building personally since 1989, across Fairfield County, Connecticut and Westchester County, New York.
Bring me the estimate you already have
If you are holding a quote and something about it does not sit right, bring it to a site walk. I will read it with you and tell you what is on it, what is not, and what the gap is likely to cost you later. If it turns out to be a complete estimate at a fair number, I will tell you that too, and you should take it.
John Gedney
Owner, Gedney Pools, LLC
(203) 302-9920
john@gedneypools.com
Darien, CT
CT HIC #0704131 | CT SPB #SPB.0000169
Internal links: Custom gunite construction · Pool permits · Ledge rock excavation · Spa installation · Cost to build a gunite pool in CT · Pool restoration and renovation