What to Look for Before Signing a Tampa Bay Pool Construction Contract

It’s natural to feel excited when building a new pool. But before your metaphorical pen hits the metaphorical paper, it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into. Your pool construction contract is more than a mere formality; it contains vital information regarding the blueprint for both the pool and how the pool builders plan to build it.

Tampa Bay homeowners should familiarize themselves with documents like these. They’ll help you align your expectations appropriately and improve the chances you’ll have a smooth and stress-free build. Here’s what to look for in your upcoming pool construction contract and why a rock-solid contract is the foundation to any quality project.

The Project Description

Your contract should outline the project in excruciating detail — the more, the better. It should have the exact dimensions, shape, and depth of the pool as a bare minimum.

You’ll also want it to include every last feature so that nothing is missed. Each element should be described in just as much detail as the pool itself. That means if you’re planning on installing a waterfall in your new pool, there should be clear dimensions for this element, too.

Ideally, your contractor will include mock-ups, whether in the form of sketches, blueprints, photos, or some combination of these. If they aren’t building the item from scratch, like with a pool pump, the contractors should list the brand name and model number.

This section should leave nothing up to chance. If your contractors can’t bother to be specific enough, then there’s too much room for disagreements or unexpected costs in the future. “Good enough” is never good enough with large-scale projects, so you want the description to contain as many details as possible.

Every pool construction project should include a process for handling any changes, especially if they deal with budget adjustments.

How to handle changes could also be in a separate section, but you at least want something outlining how you’ll be protected from surprise bills.

The Timeline

The proposed timeline is also crucial to help homeowners plan for the future. There should be a specific start and end date.

However, unlike payment or design expectations, timelines are more commonly designed with some amount of flexibility in mind. That’s because unexpected delays are somewhat expected; everything from bad weather to material delays can lead to things being shifted further down the line.

Yet that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t at least be something that outlines the milestones to hold the contractor accountable. Detailed schedules might have proposed start and stop times with a ballpark timeline for each step in the project, like saying excavation can take between one and three days.

While the idea of a timeline without flexibility might seem appealing, this is another potential red flag. Professionals know they can’t always guarantee they can deliver outcomes down to the second. They design their contracts to be more forgiving so they can give their clients more realistic expectations.

The Breakdown of Obligations

This is a part of the contract that might seem unimportant on first pass, but homeowners should pay attention to it because it involves them more than they realize. The breakdown should explicitly state who’s responsible for what between the homeowner and the contractor.

For example, you might automatically assume that the contractors will clean up after themselves at the end of the day. But unless that’s somewhere in the fine print, that responsibility will most likely land in your lap.

These seem like minor details at first, but not establishing who’s doing what early on is likely to cause some major headaches down the road.

The breakdown of obligations is another aspect of a solid pool construction contract that no professional contractor will skimp on. And if they’re worth their salt, the contract should also state that the contractors are responsible for handling any permits and inspections. They’re the experts, so it only makes sense to delegate this work to them, as they already know the ins and outs of Tampa Bay codes and regulations.

The Right Pool Construction Contract With the Right Pool Builders

If you’re considering building a new pool, especially one with custom features, hire a professional pool builder who knows what a healthy and beneficial contract looks like. Contact the Tampa Bay Pools team today to learn more about our pool building services and schedule an appointment.