Reverse Pools

More of a Guideline than a Quote – Some Background: With the new pool regulations introduced a few years back in Victoria, a "boom industry" has evolved in Melbourne around the "removal" of unwanted pools. You can demolish, fill in or remove an existing pool. To this end we asked for a quote from Reverse Pools. They came out and examined our empty pool and suggested a partial… Read more

demolition and some landscaping (i.e. levelling) to blend the new space into the existing contours of the property. Supposedly it would take about 5 days. All sounded great, pricey but OK.

Reverse Pools did not offer to just fill in the pool (the cheapest option offered on their web site) and when we enquired about it they suggested we find someone else who may do that. They stated that they would not just fill in the pool because they could not guarantee their work if they did so. After this they seemed reluctant to even quote for the previously suggested partial demolition and levelling option.

The "Quote" from Reverse Pools arrived and was more than estimated upon our initial discussion. The lead item was Empty the pool - Our Pool was already empty, he'd walked in it. The Third item was to remove the non-existent pool fence. The other items included demolishing the pool walls and a concrete path which had enclosed part of the pool. In my opinion the worst of all was the item stating that they would consolidate the rubble generated from demolition work into the deep end of the pool, despite the regulations clearly and often stating that any waste material should be removed to an approved dumping site. This was not even a Quote it gave only an approximation of cost (Guideline) and suggested that the landscaping options needed to be further discussed and of course would incur unknown further costs. I was left with the impression they reluctantly forwarded a generic "Quote-Guidance Estimate".

Of note to me was that Reverse Pools didn't even examine the surrounding landscape they would be blending into, the pool is situated on a very steep block.

This so called "Quote" needed to be accepted within 5 days from receipt, 2 of which was a weekend. So effectively commit to $ 20,000+ dollars in 3 days and expect to pay more as they filled in the Landscaping "Design".

This did not seem fair or correct, particularly since they would be dealing with predominantly elderly customers who just needed to comply.