Lets get a pool!!

Yes we have decided to get ourselves a pool. It seems like a no brainer – who wouldn’t want a pool? Planning, building and even maintaining a pool is not a whim. It’s a major addition to our house. A new pool dramatically alters the landscape of your outdoor living space – a lifestyle change. And that’s what we are after. A positive change.

I am doing my homework this time. I am making sure all the ground work is covered and that financially we can afford a pool. I know we can find something within our budget, but the range of “what you get for the money” is a wide one. I need to be sure that I consider all the expenses involved with getting a new pool before I start signing the dotted line.

We understand that building a pool is a major investment that always costs more than anticipated. But we are ready to take the plunge!

There’s of course the building/installation of the pool, the actual pool price, excavation, plumbing and electricity, council fee, fencing, insurance/liability, etc.

Then there’s the maintenance of the pool. Yah, you know the heaters, chlorine, bromine, pumps, pool vacuums, test kits, blab la bla – the chores are endless. Really it’s not just the cost that is an issue, yep..it’s the maintenance. Of course easy way out is to hire a monthly/quarterly pool maintenance service to do the dirty work for us.

We will be going away for 6 weeks in September travelling across Europe, Hong Kong and Tokyo. So we believe that the best time to start constructing the pool is in October/November when we get back. Knowing a fiberglass pool only takes 2-4 weeks to construct, we can have our pool all ready to go before summer. Aint that exciting?

So now we are in the market to sign up with a reputable, reliable pool builder.  So of course we are going to get a few quotes... silly not to. We have met 3 builders so far and are meeting a few more this week. 

Today we met with a “Marketing Manager  - Andrew the Jack Ass” from Blue Haven. I spoke to him on the phone two weeks ago explaining what we are after and he made an appointment to come over today for a site inspection.  His opening line was “OK, I’m going to give you a pool”.. seriously is this jack ass for real? As a marketer, I work with sales people all the time and honestly that is the dumbest sales pitch I’ve heard- “I’m going to give you a pool”..really??

So anyway I am sure most of you have heard of Blue Haven Pools. Apparently they are the biggest in the business, owning 32 other companies our friend Andrew the Jack Ass so willingly shared with us. 5 minutes down our meeting, he continued blabbering on and on about how experienced, reputable, dependable and long-standing the company is. Ok so I am happy for that dude who is so fortunate to be working for such an impressive organisation.  And that was one of the reasons I called them, because of how well known they are.

Little did I know about the pool industry and after speaking to a few builders and doing more research on them, I found out that Blue Haven licenses its brand name to pool contractors without even requiring them to construct pools to minimum standards. 

So Mr. Jack Ass continued blabbering on. He gave us a crazy insane price for the construction of the pool, council drawing and approval, dirt excavation, fencing and paving..all for $29,000. Yes, that’s right - $29,000. So perhaps this Jack Ass wasn’t joking about giving pools away. I was blown away and little excited mind you. But the excitement quickly turned into frustration when Jack Ass insisted that we sign the order right then. We explained that we needed some time to think this through, regardless of how much he was offering us, it was still a large sum of money and we needed to be sure before signing the dotted line. 

That wasn’t good enough for Mr. Jack Ass. He was rude, arrogant, forceful and unprofessional. He said that the $29,000 is not a quote, it’s a business deal. If we are not prepared to take the deal then well we can’t buy his pool. I could feel my temperature rising and so as my voice. I thought he must be mad, I tried calming myself down and repeated myself again and again telling him that we are not comfortable signing anything today and besides  we are still meeting other pool builders this week. John was great, he was calm and confident and that made me feel at ease.

Of course Jack Ass didn’t stop forcing us to sign, he looked annoyed as if we wasted his time and kept on repeating that he is the cheapest in town and does not understand why we can’t just sign the order. He was really getting on my nerves. 

In my hindsight he probably did me a huge favour. If this is an example of Blue Haven’s customer service, I will happily take my business elsewhere.