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Pool delivery day, hour by hour: what happens when the shell arrives
Delivery day is the shortest part of a pool job and the one everyone remembers. The pool comes from The Pool Distributor, who organise the delivery and the plumbing. Our job is to have everything ready for it to land, and to be on site when it does, because the pool has to fit what we've built.
Here's how a typical delivery day runs, with our Herne Bay job as the example, where the shell went over the top of the house.
The day at a glance
7:30: on site, checking access, the base, the string lines and the water.
Mid-morning onwards: the truck arrives, after the traffic has eased.
Within about an hour of parking: the pool is in place.
Straight after: plumbing, then water, then backfill.
The days and weeks after: paving, decking and landscaping.
7:30: making sure it can land
We're on site first thing, around 7:30. The morning is about making sure nothing stops the lift. The access route has to be clear. We check the last details on the base and the string lines that mark where the pool sits. We check the street access for the truck. And if water has collected in the hole overnight, we pump it out.
At Herne Bay, the base was a hole dug where a reinforced-concrete fireplace had stood. Every load of spoil had already gone out by barrow, through a gap of less than 850 mm between the garage and the front door. By delivery day, the hole had to be ready and dry.
Mid-morning: the truck arrives
The pool usually arrives mid-morning or later, after traffic hours, when people are at work and the streets are easier to use. It comes on specialised transport with a Hiab or a crane, chosen for the size of the pool and how hard the lift is.
At Herne Bay the lift was the hard part. With less than 850 mm of access and a 2.2 m ceiling, the fibreglass Plunge 3 couldn't come through the side of the house, so it came over the top, lifted by a large Hiab truck with a winch.
Other jobs land differently. At One Tree Hill, powerlines over a busy street ruled out a large crane, so a small Hiab lifted a stainless shell into the front yard. At Mission Bay there was no lift at all: the crew carried the shell in by hand off a flatbed.
The first hour: the lift
Once the truck is parked in position, the lift itself is quick. The supporting legs are secured, the crew is briefed, and the traffic and the safety zone are managed while the pool is in the air. From parking the truck, the pool is usually in place within about an hour.
That hour is the reason for everything that happened before 7:30 and in the weeks before that. If the base, the levels or the access aren't right, there's no fixing it with a pool hanging off a Hiab.
Straight after: plumbing, water, backfill
The order after the lift matters. Plumbing goes in first, straight away if possible. Then the pool is filled with water. Then the backfill goes in around the shell.
The days and weeks after
With the pool in and filled, the rest of the yard is built around it over the following days and weeks. At Herne Bay that meant Jagas precast pool pavers and copings with an arris profile, a new timber retaining wall 1.4 m high along the back of the house, and Urban Turf's Bayside 25 mm synthetic turf.
Pool barrier. At Herne Bay, aluminium Delta panels, installed by Profit NZ and consented separately. Which applies to your site is settled before we quote.
10 weeks on site
What actually decides it
Access for the truck. Where it can park, where the supporting legs go, and whether the street has room for it.
The lift. The size of the pool, how far it has to travel and what's in the way: a house, powerlines, trees. That decides Hiab or crane, and which one.
Timing. Mid-morning, after traffic hours, is usually the easiest window for the truck and the street.
The base. Ready and dry before the truck turns up, with the string lines set. The lift is too quick to fix anything once it starts.
Who does what. The Pool Distributor delivers the pool and handles the plumbing. We build the ground and everything around it, and we're there on the day.
Where we fit
We don't supply or deliver the pool. We get the site ready for it, we're on site when it lands, and we build everything around it once it's in. If you're planning a pool, the site visit is where we work out how it'll get in, before anyone orders a shell.