Pool Guy Emptied My Pool - should I let him go ? - how much this will cost me ?

[Ticketmaster]

Do like I do when putting dirt on a lot. There must be more than one water truck operator in town. Get each of them to come over, look at your pool and give you a price for filling it up -- BUT don't pay him until it is full! Let the water truck take the risk of underestimation. You can calculate EXACTLY what it will cost from the meter.

[Braveheart24]

I have a 15 X 6 metre poo at an average depth of 1.5 metres and it took 14 trucks to fill it up. You're probably looking at 25-30 trucks.

OK - without talking specific liter amounts - how much did you pay per truck - thank you for this valuable info that will enable me to ballpark the cost to fix this problem - cheers

Cost per truck depends on volume of water, strangely!

Some pools require a check valve in the system. It is not unknown for these to fail. Before filling pool check for leaks everywhere.

[PoolDoctor]

A 8x24x2 (2m avg depth) pool has 384,000 liters. If its an overflow pool, add 5% for the surge tank. A good guess is 400,000 liters, or 400 m3. Tap water in Thailand is about 17 baht per m3, so filling by hose would be about 7,000 baht. Extremely slow. On the other hand, ordering trucks (small size) in Pattaya is 200 baht per 2,000 liters or .10 baht per liter. This translates to 100 baht per m3, a huge difference. Baht 40,000 to fill this pool using water trucks in Pattaya. BKK is even more expensive. Then, you will need salt of course, alkaline, and cyuranic acid (which stabilizes the chlorine being produced by the chlorinator). Your first reaction might be <deleted>?? Fire him. Then again, its not easy to find capable and diligent pool people in Thailand anymore (actually never was). Motorcycle taxis easily get 500-600 per day doing mostly what they do anyhow (scream around on motorbikes) and asking a Thai to clean a pool 3x per week with chemicals knowledge mastery is like asking the U.S. to hold off on war for a couple of years. You might try asking him to pay it off slowly; if he's a good guy, he'll agree to it.

[dighambara]

If pool is 50m x 20m x 2m then that is 2,000,000 litres of water plus the pipes, overflow system etc.

Who in hell has an olympic size swimming pool in their back yard. Me thinks you exagerate a little.

YES, this is exaggeration, especially as every hotel allows the public in - for a fee. We swam at a local aquatic school for 20 Baht apiece, so such a pool is a complete waste of resources.

[Phronesis]

You're in Thailand. Incompetence all over the service sector is the rule not the exception.

Bingo!

[Billmont]

My sister in laws pool would somtimes drop a couple of inches over night usually after cleaning and I thought the multivalve was leaking after its position was changed and sometimes leaks and then settles down. Some pool 'experts' fixed the problem but later the same loss of water would occur. The end of the drain pipe was difficult to access and buried in a large pool so difficult to see if water was leaking. I fitted a stop valve about 30cm from the multivalve on the drain line and now this valve has to be opened and closed before and after each cleaning and the loss of water has been solved. Her father does the cleaning and quite reliable but is non technical.

[Sydebolle]

Truck it in and tell Somsak that you expect him to show up with X Baht by then and then. Trucks will arrive - Somsak not!
Keep the key to the pump house and the valve location and get the pool service to do only the pool cleaning; backwashing etc. is assigned to the boss, i.e. you.

[onni4me]

I pay 10 baht a cubic meter so in your case it would be about 4000 baht plus the salt. Don't know where it's said that you are not allowed to use the water lines? I do fill my pond during the dry season and never had any problems with that.

And since we Farangs are always right we need not check if the guy actually was right talking about the valve...it would be however sad to fill the pool and see the water leak away...

These things happen. You can dream of him paying something, the lemmings will fly some day...

[h90]

I don't have a pool, so I don't know. But wouldn't it be possible to simply dig a well to fill it?

I am in Bangkok and there you wouldn't need to dig very deep.

Or is the water not clean enough?

[rotary]

Get another pool guy or better yet take care of it yourself. Cheaper and easier in the long run. Suck up the cost yourself and just move on with a lesson learned.

[watcharacters]

Filling a pool with a garden hose?! Crazy call a water truck at between 500 to 1200 baht a truck the job is done. Back wash valves do go bad and can cause the pool to drain. If you like the guy and the valve is bad keep him if he spaced out and did not reset the valves correctly blow it off as being human and fire him if it happens again

.

Good answer.

[cup-O-coffee]

You're in Thailand. Incompetence all over the service sector is the rule not the exception. Frankly, there is no surprise for me. I would be pissed as hell if it happened to me, and I would fire the guy. I never reward incompetence. But as to asking him for compensation, forget it. Bite the bullet and move on. You can probably afford to refill the pool; he probably can't. His error, though inexcusable, was unintentional.

My thoughts exactly - this is what I am leaning towards doing - thanks for the confirmation - I do not reward or imply complacency with acts of incompetence.

SIamjimi, I stopped reading at this post. It sounds like you are getting a grip on the situation. Ticketmaster is correct, in my opinion. Not much you can do to exact reparations from a native. Make nice. Smile. Let him go with the excuse that you are going to do it on your own. Let him leave without any bad feelings towards you. Believe me. He'll move on down the road and meet his destiny, but you don't want his negative views on life to bring up a pictire of you when they do visit his pea-sized brain.

Change every lock on your doors and windows.

Think of something to laugh about and move on. The bill won't come to that much when you think of the alternative of giving the idiot what he deserves. Just be happy he doesn't go to the labor department and file a case against you. Take my word for it.

[watcharacters]

You're in Thailand. Incompetence all over the service sector is the rule not the exception.

Bingo!

.

+1

[Falcon]

Down here in HH it costs around 500 baht for a truck of 2,000 Ltrs. We have never used any bigger trucks so can't say how much they charge but that just gives you a figure to base your calculations on.

[Halion]

Do not know your valve configuration, however, most pools adopt the 3 or 4 position multiport valves.

.

In the middle east where large pools are fairly common the practise of installing a check valve on the drain line is quite common . Also it is possible to fit a sensor to the drain line which will give an audible or visual alarm when the drain line is operative. The instalation costs of such are neglidgible compared with the cost of a total refill

[Adeeos]

If it was really his fault, and he will admit to it,, Let him pay it off by giving you FREE, REGULAR weekly service at his normal rate,,, AND let him organize the cheapest deals for water trucks/salt,,, (he probably will get better deals than you) ....then No one loses, "face",, you're just paying ahead,,,,,

Edited September 14, 2013 by Adeeos

[h90]

Let him pay it off by giving you FREE, REGULAR weekly service at his normal rate,,, then No one loses, you're just paying ahead,,,,,

Than he'll come one time and be never seen again.....Which might not the worst....

[Adeeos]

Let him pay it off by giving you FREE, REGULAR weekly service at his normal rate,,, then No one loses, you're just paying ahead,,,,,

Than he'll come one time and be never seen again.....Which might not the worst....

Possibly,, but if he agrees, draw up a very simple contract as to what he's to do, and for how long,,, maybe he's a good guy?... you'll find out this way,,,,

[farang000999]

Once the water goes below the skimmer you should be really slowing down and straining the system as it will be sucking it huge amounts of air. I have never heard of waste valves failing. Sounds like bull shit. Even if the waste valve were to fail, it would be leaking. It would not just magically get moved to OPEN. Maybe you have a very large broken pipe? Have you tested to see if the waste valve is in fact broken?

[farang000999]

Motorcycle taxis easily get 500-600 per day doing mostly what they do anyhow

Do they really? Seems high.

[SOTIRIOS]

................you have the cash cow......and he has dirt.........

.........so he was planning ahead............for himself.............

.....this is always the risk........no logic.....no genius.....no truth.....no justice............their need supercede ours....

..........any time....all the time..at any cost........TO YOU......

.....that is how so many foreigners have ended up alone....homeless......or dead........

[SOTIRIOS]

................you have the cash cow......and he has dirt.........

.........so he was planning ahead............for himself.............

.....this is always the risk........no logic.....no genius.....no truth.....no justice............their need supercede ours....

..........any time....all the time..at any cost........TO YOU......

.....that is how so many foreigners have ended up alone....homeless......or dead........

[h90]

Motorcycle taxis easily get 500-600 per day doing mostly what they do anyhow

Do they really? Seems high.

I would say between 100 and 500 Baht. strongly depending on where they stay and how many hours they work.

1000 maybe at a tourist rip off place. But the motorbike taxis I saw so far always gave me a fair price....But wife tells I look like farang kee nok with my old TShirts.....

[allstar]

One thing is for sure if you keep the guy he will never so it again. Pros and cons my friend. Of course he "may" have made a mistake but then again he might not. If you can prove he has make him work the money off. Just a idea...

[nedkellylives]

Bring in water trucks to fill it, expense is nothing compared to doing it from mains water. I just put a bunch of salt in our pool & i think the bags where about 150 baht each, I cant remember the exact cost per bag but that is a ball park figure.

OK - this is the sort of advice I was hoping for - thank you - I have been wondering what cost for water trucks to avoid days of my water pump running continuously - and the amount of time to fill this pool it will take ages

I am still not confident about the cost - i don't want to engage these water guys not knowing the cost per liter and measuring their delivery amount (??) - they must have water meters on their trucks for deliveries - right ?

They carry a certain amount of cubic meters which if you are worried about being cheated you can check with a tape measure

No meters

[siamjimi]

Either you have massive/multiple pumps or the draining took longer than overnight.

I have an 85 cu.m. pool and a 1.5HP pump drains it at roughly 1cu.m. per 5 mins. So my system would take 33 hours to drain your pool!

well he visited at about 0800am the previous day and i found this at 0630am with the pump whirring away dry - so that's about 22 hours - I do have a rather large pump - not sure its pump rate - I would have to go read the pump to be specific

[siamjimi]

Do like I do when putting dirt on a lot. There must be more than one water truck operator in town. Get each of them to come over, look at your pool and give you a price for filling it up -- BUT don't pay him until it is full! Let the water truck take the risk of underestimation. You can calculate EXACTLY what it will cost from the meter.

now this is great idea - thank you

[siamjimi]

A 8x24x2 (2m avg depth) pool has 384,000 liters. If its an overflow pool, add 5% for the surge tank. A good guess is 400,000 liters, or 400 m3. Tap water in Thailand is about 17 baht per m3, so filling by hose would be about 7,000 baht. Extremely slow. On the other hand, ordering trucks (small size) in Pattaya is 200 baht per 2,000 liters or .10 baht per liter. This translates to 100 baht per m3, a huge difference. Baht 40,000 to fill this pool using water trucks in Pattaya. BKK is even more expensive. Then, you will need salt of course, alkaline, and cyuranic acid (which stabilizes the chlorine being produced by the chlorinator). Your first reaction might be <deleted>?? Fire him. Then again, its not easy to find capable and diligent pool people in Thailand anymore (actually never was). Motorcycle taxis easily get 500-600 per day doing mostly what they do anyhow (scream around on motorbikes) and asking a Thai to clean a pool 3x per week with chemicals knowledge mastery is like asking the U.S. to hold off on war for a couple of years. You might try asking him to pay it off slowly; if he's a good guy, he'll agree to it.

very good simple mathematics for me mate - I have updated news he has offered to pay for the salt and other ingredients to help fix this

estimated on your info the water will come to around the same price as the salt and other goodies - so he is evidently willing to meet me halfway

[siamjimi]

The large water trucks hold 13,000 litres.

Here in Pattaya low grade water is about 600 a truck, water you could shower in is about 1000 per truck.

Simple maths from there to work out approx cost.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Thanks for that Tomster - good info

[Slip]

A 8x24x2 (2m avg depth) pool has 384,000 liters. If its an overflow pool, add 5% for the surge tank. A good guess is 400,000 liters, or 400 m3. Tap water in Thailand is about 17 baht per m3, so filling by hose would be about 7,000 baht. Extremely slow. On the other hand, ordering trucks (small size) in Pattaya is 200 baht per 2,000 liters or .10 baht per liter. This translates to 100 baht per m3, a huge difference. Baht 40,000 to fill this pool using water trucks in Pattaya. BKK is even more expensive. Then, you will need salt of course, alkaline, and cyuranic acid (which stabilizes the chlorine being produced by the chlorinator). Your first reaction might be <deleted>?? Fire him. Then again, its not easy to find capable and diligent pool people in Thailand anymore (actually never was). Motorcycle taxis easily get 500-600 per day doing mostly what they do anyhow (scream around on motorbikes) and asking a Thai to clean a pool 3x per week with chemicals knowledge mastery is like asking the U.S. to hold off on war for a couple of years. You might try asking him to pay it off slowly; if he's a good guy, he'll agree to it.

very good simple mathematics for me mate - I have updated news he has offered to pay for the salt and other ingredients to help fix this

estimated on your info the water will come to around the same price as the salt and other goodies - so he is evidently willing to meet me halfway

Do you now regret your earlier harsh words? This sounds like the kind of man you should keep around.