I wouldn't say they sub everything out to Houston "builders". I worked for Mobley about 20 years ago and his own employees dug the pool, installed all the piping and equipment, as well as some other work. He used subcontractors, some local and some from the Houston area. Major subcontracting was for the steel placement, gunite, plaster, tile and coping work, simply because we don't have subcontractors locally for those items and it's faster to hire it out vs his guys doing all aspects of construction. His crews would also do some of the steel and concrete, but larger projects were subcontracted out.

My concern with you hiring it done yourself, or hiring a Houston pool builder to build here would be getting a properly designed pool. We did countless repairs for jobs where a Houston crew came up and built a pool to the specs that they did in Houston and it didn't hold up to our shifting soils.

Also, if you are trying to contract yourself, you may get shuffled to the bottom of the list as their preferred builders demand more of their time. Plus, local builders should have done the tasks of weeding out the inferior sub contractors and will have more pull to get subs to the job on time and getting completed in a timely manner, not to mention getting them back for any warranty work.

Just my two cents...

Carnwellag2 said:

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I would rethink- putting a pool in is not worth it from an investment perspective, not worth it from a headache perspective, and pretty much the worst home decision you could make.

If you really want a pool in your backyard- you should move and buy a house with an existing pool- You still get the headaches, but you aren't throwing money away.

You can thank me later.

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OP: "(Please, spare me your advice. I've done my research, understand the real estate implications, understand the maintenance)"

You know, some people actually enjoy their pools.