We just finished building a pool and had a guy who has worked with several neighbors come out to rework the sprinklers.

We've had sprinklers re-routed before and it has taken a couple of hours and cost a few hundred dollars.

We figured that this was going to be a bit more involved, but we weren't worried about it b/c we've never had a problem and this contractor seemed really reputable.

Long story short....guys come out on Monday and don't leave until the end of the day on Wednesday; although, there would be 4-5 guys working on digging and then for 70% of the day, it looked like there was a single guy back there.

Guy comes to drop the bill today and it's $5,100 and only $900 of that is actual parts.

I honestly have ZERO comparison and I'm about to refuse to pay that amount, but I'm looking for some other experiences and if it turns out that this sounds normal, then I'll pay it....just doesn't sound right and other people I've talked to seem to believe this is a crazy amount.

Any help/guidance that you could provide would be great.

Sounds a lot less like re routing & more like a new system.

For reference, the backyard system my clients re-did after the pool was completed was around the same price. PVC is high and labor is high right now. You can guess why but that's the nature of things now.

Regarding the 5 guys vs one guy, 3-4 guys are probably diggers while the other 1 or 2 are actual sprinkler fitters and know how to set up sprinkler systems.

We had a pool put in 2 years ago and had to have our irrigation redone. We had to have 7 of our 8 zones reworked and total bill for that was $1750. I just looked at the invoice and they also laid 5 pallets of sod and 5 yards of crushed granite. Total bill (including the sprinklers) with all materials and labor was $3725. That was 2 years ago so I'm sure I couldn't get close to that price, for that amount of work and labor today.

Whitetail said:

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5 guys for 3 days... How many hours a day?

Assuming 10 hrs for 5 guys for 3 days is 150 man hours.

$5100 - $900 (parts) is $4200 for labor.

$4200/150 hours is $28/hour. Doesn't seem too crazy to me considering they come with equipment. Did they do quality work?

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The point is that it was about a days worth of work (this is from 3 other estimates I got) and they drug it out; there wasn't a consistent crew there. I'd have no problem if I watched 3 days of all-in work…but that's not what it was. The crew was coming and going (clearly to other jobs), and they were easily working at about 33% speed. This was just north of 25 hours to rework the backyard…zero alterations on the front/side yards other than plugging them back into the source.

This contractor got the deal b/c he was recommended by a neighbor…I had 2 other quotes saying a day and one was $1,800 while the other was about $2,100 and the main difference there was that the more expensive option was going to replace the panel/clock.

I made the mistake of working in good faith with this guy and he clearly went the other way. Unfortunately, for him, he has no signed contract, an incomplete job (they weren't even done after 3 days) and it doesn't help his case that he invoiced me for a new panel for almost 3 times what I was able to go onto Lowe's website and find the same brand/model for.

To the question from earlier about why we never discussed the price…he was evasive every time. Like I said, I made the mistake of not being cynical enough that a guy who relies on referral business would try to screw over several of his clients' neighbor.

Either way, I offered him $2,500 (which is still a massive payment for anything short of a new install) and he refused saying that he would lose $500-$600 on the deal at that price. He said he will file a lien and I'll happily fight him on this b/c there aren't any comps which justify his price.

I hate this whole thing b/c I want to make sure the guy gets paid for the job, but he is wanting $5,100 for an incomplete job in the backyard (only) of a 1/4 acre lot with no sod or real landscaping after the pool project.

Corps_Ag12 said:

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Sounds a lot less like re routing & more like a new system.

For reference, the backyard system my clients re-did after the pool was completed was around the same price. PVC is high and labor is high right now. You can guess why but that's the nature of things now.

Regarding the 5 guys vs one guy, 3-4 guys are probably diggers while the other 1 or 2 are actual sprinkler fitters and know how to set up sprinkler systems.

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To give you a relative idea of size…the job required only 200' of PVC and that made up about 20% of the total parts cost (the bulk was the new panel and the wiring). He was charging $150/Hr. for labor.

I was actually close to paying it and just saying "well that sucks" until the project manager on my pool was talking to me and I mentioned this invoice for the irrigation guy and he was absolutely floored by the price. Turns out that everyone else I talked to with a similar project in the recent past was shocked too…including a family friend who does landscaping/irrigation now. (Yes, this would've been good information to have from my folks BEFORE I got this project underway).

I agree that the 3 days of work should be the biggest argument. I think $150/hr for 5 guys ain't too bad.

All the work I mentioned was a day and a half worth of work. I'm on a third of an acre and my lot is about 150 ft deep. They had to redo both sides of the yard, one side due to the heavy equipment and the other side from the new gas line. I know there were 3 valve boxes that had to be replaced and easily 200' of pipe. I can't relate to the overall price as much given the markup these days with Covid, but the irrigation and landscaping was knocked out in a day and a half.

These guys found all the old pipe rerouted around the pool and rewired everything in less than 2 days, not to mention grading everything, laying sod, and doing the landscaping. The crew was 5-6 guys from what I remember.

I'm sure they marked up the panel some but I bought my own and installed it in 30 minutes. A 16 zone rachio is $250 at best buy.

My invoice doesn't breakdown materials and all the work but I have several photos of the before and after, and would be happy sharing a copy of my survey to give perspective of the extent of work and repair job.

Sorry to be "that guy" and you probably know better now. But no way is a contractor of any kind going to do work on my place without an estimate/contract in writing.

Last weekend as an example we had an old electrical panel blow up. I called the electrician who is wiring our new home build at 5:00 pm on Friday. We discussed what needed to be done and a couple pictures later, I had an estimate of $1,000.00. Told him let's do it. He showed up Saturday morning around 10:00 am with a helper and 4.5 hours later her was done with a new panel installed. Total bill was $850 (with an apology for having to charge overtime on Saturday). I gladly wrote him a check for good work.

jtp01 said:

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Sorry to be "that guy" and you probably know better now. But no way is a contractor of any kind going to do work on my place without an estimate/contract in writing.

Last weekend as an example we had an old electrical panel blow up. I called the electrician who is wiring our new home build at 5:00 pm on Friday. We discussed what needed to be done and a couple pictures later, I had an estimate of $1,000.00. Told him let's do it. He showed up Saturday morning around 10:00 am with a helper and 4.5 hours later her was done with a new panel installed. Total bill was $850 (with an apology for having to charge overtime on Saturday). I gladly wrote him a check for good work.

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Oh, not being "that guy" at all…I absolutely learned my lesson as I've never had anything like this happen before and have generally followed my gut on things like this; especially with someone who was reputable with neighbors.

You're 100% right about that and it was my mistake in retrospect. He was evasive about timing intentionally and I'm fully convinced his plan was to take as long as possible at this job while making double time from sending parts of the crew off to other jobs. I have exterior footage that caught his dudes parking the truck out front and then getting picked-up/dropped-off throughout the day by other vehicles.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't sign a contract with me and by any reasonable legal bar, he'd be losing in mediation…b/w proof he had guys leaving the site for hours at a time to clearly go work other projects, proof of large markups on retail price for parts (…just kind of goes to show the general dishonesty), etc. It also doesn't help his case that a Google search of his company on his invoice turns up nothing as well as the "license number" he has on all of his letterhead cross references to absolutely nothing.

I want to make sure his guys get paid, for sure, but I want this SOB to take a massive L for this.

tweekac said:

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I agree that the 3 days of work should be the biggest argument. I think $150/hr for 5 guys ain't too bad.

All the work I mentioned was a day and a half worth of work. I'm on a third of an acre and my lot is about 150 ft deep. They had to redo both sides of the yard, one side due to the heavy equipment and the other side from the new gas line. I know there were 3 valve boxes that had to be replaced and easily 200' of pipe. I can't relate to the overall price as much given the markup these days with Covid, but the irrigation and landscaping was knocked out in a day and a half.

These guys found all the old pipe rerouted around the pool and rewired everything in less than 2 days, not to mention grading everything, laying sod, and doing the landscaping. The crew was 5-6 guys from what I remember.

I'm sure they marked up the panel some but I bought my own and installed it in 30 minutes. A 16 zone rachio is $250 at best buy.

My invoice doesn't breakdown materials and all the work but I have several photos of the before and after, and would be happy sharing a copy of my survey to give perspective of the extent of work and repair job.

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It sounds like your job was a very close comp to mine and there was probably more work done…that's the story that keeps coming back and the price you have is in-line with what everyone else quoted out.

I'm really jealous about the sod deal…I did ask this guy on day 1 what he thought it'd take to get some of the landscaping handled. He told me it'd take 2 days to weed and mulch some pretty simple flower beds that needed a little love. I weed those things in a few hours on my own…that should've been a red flag about how he operates and/or his level of incompetence.

"I don't understand why the shop is charging me $1,500 to make major repairs to my car! Every time I've taken it to them previously for the oil changes they've only charged me like $50."

OPs username checks out.

Picard said:

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"I don't understand why the shop is charging me $1,500 to make major repairs to my car! Every time I've taken it to them previously for the oil changes they've only charged me like $50."

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"I don't understand why my jokes never hit when I decide to tell them 5 seconds into a discussion and fail to hear the next 5 minutes entirely waiting to spring my wit on the ungrateful."

Considering I could've installed an entirely new system for less than I was invoiced for a reroute, the better analogy would've been:

"I don't understand why anyone ever replaces their brake pads; I've found it's cheaper to just buy a new car."

The Beef01 said:

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Picard said:

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"I don't understand why the shop is charging me $1,500 to make major repairs to my car! Every time I've taken it to them previously for the oil changes they've only charged me like $50."

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"I don't understand why my jokes never hit when I decide to tell them 5 seconds into a discussion and fail to hear the next 5 minutes entirely waiting to spring my wit on the ungrateful."

Considering I could've installed an entirely new system for less than I was invoiced for a reroute, the better analogy would've been:

"I don't understand why anyone ever replaces their brake pads; I've found it's cheaper to just buy a new car."

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Your analogy doesn't work imo. Sorry I'm in the industry. Not saying you aren't getting hosed. But pricing on installs and situations varies.

A new install on a house with a blank pallet (no sod and just dirt) is a different story than an install cost on a grown in house. Or a rebuild or alteration. That said, I have seen some extreme gouging. The problem with trying to price alot of situations like this is the customer lots of times expects a very detailed outlined cost proposal in these situations. Sometimes when pricing it is exploratory and unexpected. But to have 3 guys there. Lol. I do all this on my own and guarantee I do better work than these guys. I only take these jobs on the side but have seen first hand the insanity and most of time extremely poor work and estimates from bigger companies. PM if you would like to talk or have any further questions. And supplies right now are up nearly 30% from a year ago and headed to 50 by years end.

When we did our pool, they basically cut through so many lines. I wondered how they'd fix them, turns out they didn't. Just trenched and installed new lines and left the old segments in the ground.

When I had my sprinklers fixed after a pool about a year ago, it was roughly $500 for a while crew of guys to work in my yard for 8 solid hours. This included all parts.

I just assume most, if not all, were illegal.

We had to redo most of our backyard and some of the front yard after a recent home addition. Had to redo pipes and electrical. I have 9 zones total and 4 had to be completely redone , 3 had some minor rework, 2 were pretty much untouched. It was a little north of $3k, took 2 days.

FWIW, My Contractor gave me a range/estimate before he did the work. I asked for a solid number, but since it was hard to tell what all was damaged/not damaged he gave me about a $500 range. When it came time to pay he was $300 over the high side of his range.

Our pool just finished and I took on fixing the irrigation myself. When we built our house I had pics of all the irrigation being installed so I knew exactly what and where needed to be fixed for the most parts. I got lucky the front zones were independently wired and all the lines remained intact.

I rerouted the main line around the pool, created three new zones, and ran all the wire. The parts cost me probably around $800 alone. SCH40 PVC is freaking expensive and the 18/10 wire is pricy as well. Of course I was paying retail prices. Looking back on it, I could definitely see a reputable company charging me $3k.

Your invoice seems a bit high, but in my area these guys are in pretty high demand due to the amount of pools and new construction.