Simple pool control?

[mikefamig]

I have the opposite idea.
If I contract anything out I regret it later. I live in a small rural town area and any professional contractor I have hired has made a complete mess of things. I mostly do it all myself now. When I can't anymore due to advancing age I will move back to a larger city.
 
I built my own home and mostly did everything ourselves with tendon and joint problems to show for it. I wouldn't do it again. Every subcontractor I had in cost me much time and money right down to two PEX to copper joints I had them do withthis garbage non-leaded solder. I figured a journeyman plumber at 63 years old had been doing this his whole life would be better than I was having only done thousands of joints with leaded solder. Yup, had to tear the drywall off to repair the joints and run a touch of lead into them.
 
Shingles blew off four times now. Finally got  shingle that could actually analyse the problem instead of making up bullshit about something he didn't understand. Oh yeah, he was the only one I called out of 17 that did show up, that time.
 
Had my roof frames with trusses and sheeting put on. Had to redo the alignment of the trusses in spots, as the contractor, normally a 4-5 house a year builder couldn't read the engineering specs from the truss company.
 
Bricklayer was a jerk an despite many promises kept upping the price and then after dragging his feet the whole summer said "see you next year"
 
The list goes on and on, but I learned a lot. Contractors are NOT your friends, especially in a small town where they are used to farm life and the first dip of the thermometer go on unemployment but have to get all their income  out of you during the few summer months. Written guarantees are just crap. Take them to court, the company can't be found anymore.
 
In short, I do it all myself, For trades that I didn't know much about, I had to learn so I may as well have done the learning first before I even hire somebody. Never give deposits. The pro builders don't. Declare yourself a company and brag how many homes/pools you will build in the next few years.

SAY AMEN!
 
I absolutely hate having to hire anyone to work in my home. It's been just about impossible to hire someone who is both competent and also working in my best interest. It's amazing to me how far these guys will go to squeeze one more buck out of a job and how little they care about you being happy with the job. they know that they will likely never see you again anyway and just don't care about customer satisfaction.
 
I try to do all my own work but some jobs are just too big so I am forced to hire help. Unfortunately it is those big jobs that you only do once in a decade or even longer so the contractor just doesn't expect to work for you again and couldn't care less if you are happy. I'm talking about a new roof, new kitchen cabinets, paving a driveway and those jobs that the guy figures you won't be shopping again for at least ten years. Your grocer wants you to come back but your roofer couldn't care less.
 
If I've insulted any contractors reading this then maybe it's because you don't behave this way but I've owned my own home for twenty years and this has been my experience pretty much without fail. My in-ground pool is getting new steps and liner as I write this and the job is already six weeks past it's promised finish date. At this point all the company has done for me is fail to show up for several promised dates and dig a hole and remove the old steps. They promised to work here every day this week and in fact only worked on Monday and are not here yet today Friday and it is 8am. I'm not going to name the pool company here YET but it is a large company with several commercial accounts and not a fly-by-night.
 
In the case of the pool we got estimates from three companies and that is just a waste of time too because these guys just make promises and then when you turn your back they do whatever they want.
 
So I got to vent a little and LarryILix I wanted to say that you are not alone.
 
Mike.

 

[LarrylLix]

Nice to hear but not nice to hear.
It was a nightmare mostly. I found the builders could call YOUR contractors away at a minutes notice and they would offer all the excuses in the world, or none..
 
My wife had a miscarriage was the best one I heard and when she had a second one he was toast.
 
A popular building supply house owner here told me that he overheard the three electricains in town talking at the counter one day and it wwent something like this.
 
Electricain 1 "What are you up to these days?"
Electrician 2 "I am doing a quote for the X house up on the hill."
Electrician 1 "I did a quote for them last Friday for $6500"
Electrician 2 "Well I am not going to underquote you, so there is no point I me going out there."
Electrician 3 "I guess I won't go either, 'cause it will be about the same amount."
 
An the truth of it is the poor customer has no idea why they just don't show up.
 
I figured most of it is small rural town environment and we find rural people ignorant, lazy, and really inconsiderate or others generally. Very friendly to talk to but when you have to get business done you are just interfering with their relax and welfare spending time.  Time to go. Arnold, my pig needs feeding sometime this year.

 

[citrixmeister]

I can't help but reply to this topic because I have finished this project in the last month. I now control my 3 pool pumps with HAI 35A00-3 UPB non-dimmer switches, and automate them with my OmniPro.   My first attempt used Omron G7L-BUBJ DPST general purpose relays purchased from Mouser, controlled by the UPB switches, wired in by my electrician. It didn't take me long to realize that although the relays closed properly, they didn't open when the circuit was opened, and the pumps would continue to run for an unspecified period of time before the relay would release and the pump would shut off.   Discussion with the technical advisor at Mouser stated that the manufacturer said that could be a problem depending on the circuit in the switch.   Further research led me to a recommendation from Web Mountain Technologies for a (now) Schneider Electric 199AX-9, which I also purchased from Mouser. This is a much heftier relay, with a higher capacity of 40 amps at 300 V, far in excess of what I'm likely to need in future. This relay works properly with the UPB switch, and at $50 for the relay it's much less expensive than the solution offered by Leviton, if I remember correctly that was about $350 per UPB switch/relay.