Pool Excavation Services WA 2026 - Get Quotes

What the Pool Dig Involves

Pool excavation is the stage that turns a marked out rectangle on a lawn into a hole of a defined shape and depth. The pool builder or the shell manufacturer specifies the dimensions, including the allowance around the shell for backfill and the falls in the base, and the excavation contractor delivers to those dimensions, not to their own judgement. Everything about the hole, from the depth of the deep end to the step shelf, comes from that specification. A dig that is out by a hundred millimetres in the wrong direction is a problem for everyone who follows. Hand the drawing to the excavation contractor.

Describing it to them is not the same thing. Tolerances are usually stated on it and they are tighter than most owners assume. The sequence on site is short and intense. The area is set out and marked, the machine comes in and works from one end towards the access, trucks shuttle spoil out as it is dug, the base and walls are trimmed to the profile, and the hole is checked against the specification before the crew leaves. On a straightforward block the whole thing is one to two days. On a difficult one it can run a week.

Rain on either of those days changes the plan entirely. There should be a plan for the forecast turning while the hole is open. Every contractor should have a contingency ready for that. The hole is bigger than the pool and owners are frequently surprised by that.

Space is needed around the shell for the builder to work and for backfill to be placed and compacted, so the excavation is wider and longer than the finished waterline. A concrete pool needs room for formwork or for the shotcrete crew, and a fibreglass shell needs room to be lowered and levelled. That overdig is normal and it is part of why the spoil volume is what it is. Get the pool builder's overdig allowance before you compare quotes. A larger overdig means more spoil and more backfill, both of which cost money. What the contractor leaves behind matters to the next trade.

A clean, correctly shaped hole with trimmed walls and a base at the right level lets the pool builder start immediately, and a rough hole full of loose material means somebody spends a day fixing it. In sand, walls that are cut too steep will slump, so battering them correctly is part of doing the job properly. The swimming pool construction page covers the build that follows. A hole left rough also takes longer for the pool crew to work in safely. Wall battering is either included or the pool builder is expecting a vertical face, and the two produce different prices.

A slumped wall on the morning of the shell delivery costs everybody a day. The dig is also the point at which the whole project becomes real on the property. Machines cross the lawn, the side path takes a beating, a fence panel may come out, and the back garden stops being a garden for a while. Owners who have photographed everything beforehand and agreed what gets reinstated have a much easier conversation at the end.

The excavation and earthmoving page covers the broader earthworks a pool project generates. Photograph the lawn, the paving and the side path before anything arrives. Those photographs settle every reinstatement conversation at the end of the job. Timing within the pool program is worth understanding.

The dig happens early, often within days of the permit being issued, and the shell or the shotcrete follows quickly because an open hole in sand does not want to sit around. Rain, a rock variation or a dewatering problem at this stage pushes everything behind it. Getting the excavation right is what keeps the rest of the program on schedule. The pool builder should be able to say how many days they expect between the dig and the shell.

Access, Machines and Corridors

Access is the first thing any pool excavation contractor looks at and it decides more of the price than the pool size does. The question is what can physically get from the street to the pool position and back out again carrying spoil, and on modern Western Australian lots the answer is frequently not much. A three metre clear corridor takes a mid size excavator and a tipper comfortably, and a metre and a half takes a considerably smaller machine working considerably more slowly. Measure the narrowest point before you speak to anyone. The narrowest point is rarely the gate, and it is often the meter box or an air conditioner. Measure at the tightest point, not the widest.

Machine size trades against access in a way that drives the whole figure. A thirteen tonne Caterpillar, Komatsu or Volvo excavator will dig a standard pool in well under a day and cannot fit down most side paths, a five to eight tonne Kubota, Takeuchi or Yanmar is the usual compromise, and a three tonne or smaller machine will do the job in three or four times the hours. Since the work is priced on hours, the narrow block pays several times over. This is the single largest variable in domestic pool excavation.

Where the corridor is marginal, have the contractor quote two machine sizes. The obstacles in a corridor are usually removable and that is worth knowing. Gate posts, a section of fence, an air conditioning condenser, a rainwater tank, a clothesline, retaining blocks and overhanging eaves can all be temporarily taken out or worked around, and doing so may allow a machine one size larger. The saving in machine hours frequently exceeds the cost of removing and reinstating the obstacle. Find out what would have to move to bring a bigger machine in.

A day of removing and reinstating obstacles can save three days of machine hours. Get both options priced so the arithmetic is visible instead of assumed. Where there is no usable side access, the options narrow but they exist. A fence panel or a section of boundary wall can be opened with the neighbour's agreement and reinstated afterwards, spoil can be conveyed or barrowed to a truck in the street, and on some sites a crane lifts the machine over the house. Each of those has a cost and each needs organising in advance. The fence and gate installation page covers reinstating a boundary opened for access.

Conveyors in particular are slow and they are still faster than barrows. Get the crane day rate before assuming it is out of reach. Neighbour agreement is worth getting in writing even where relations are good. Using a neighbour's driveway, opening a shared fence or working over a boundary all depend on their cooperation, and a verbal yes in February can become a different answer in March. A short written note covering what is happening, when, and what will be reinstated protects everybody.

It also means the arrangement survives if the property changes hands mid project. Keep a copy with the job file. A text message is not a record. Neighbours appreciate being asked properly instead of told on the morning. Protecting the access route is part of the work, not an afterthought. Boards over paving, plates across a crossover, protection for the verge and care around an existing driveway all prevent damage that costs more to repair than the protection cost.

Perth crossovers in particular are easily cracked by tracked machines. The paving and driveway installation page covers repairs where something does get damaged. Cracking a crossover during a pool dig is a common and avoidable expense. Overhead obstructions catch people out on the day.

Powerlines crossing a back garden, low branches, a patio roof and the eaves of the house all restrict where a machine can raise its boom, and a service line running to the house may need the network operator involved before anything works underneath it, with approach distances set out by Energy Safety. The tree removal page covers vegetation that has to come out to make room. Walk the route looking up as well as along it. A service line running to the house is the one most often overlooked. The clearance needs confirming before the machine is booked.

Limestone, Rock and the Perth Dig

A pool hole is around one and a half to two metres deep and that is precisely the depth at which Tamala limestone appears across much of the Perth coastal plain. Through the Spearwood dune system, which runs the length of the metropolitan coast from Yanchep down past Mandurah, depth to caprock varies enormously between neighbouring properties. One house digs clean sand to the deep end and the next hits rock at eight hundred millimetres. This is the defining risk in Perth pool excavation. Two houses on the same street can produce completely different digs.

Nothing on the surface predicts where the caprock sits. Test holes are the only way to find out in advance. When the bucket reaches rock, the job changes tools and changes rate. A hydraulic hammer from Epiroc, Rammer or Indeco goes on in place of the bucket, progress drops from cubic metres an hour to a fraction of that, and the work is billed by the hour instead of as part of the dig.

The rock breaking page sets out the hammer rates, the machine pairings and what a fair provisional clause looks like. A pool dig that meets caprock can add days as well as dollars. Hammer hours should be recorded and agreed each day, because reconciling them at the end never goes well. The broken material is a second cost on top of the hammer time. Limestone rubble is heavy, it bulks up considerably once broken, and it is not suitable as backfill around the shell, so it goes out in trucks and clean sand comes back in for the backfill. That double handling is why a rock affected pool dig can run several times a clean one.

How the broken rock is handled matters as much as how it is broken. Backfill sand sits in either the excavation quote or the pool contract, and you want to know which. Test holes before signing anything are the answer and almost nobody does them. Two or three holes in the pool footprint, dug to depth, establish whether rock is present and how hard it is, for a few hundred dollars. Against a pool project measured in tens of thousands, and against a rock exclusion in the contract, that is trivial.

It also lets you negotiate on evidence instead of hope. The testing also tells the pool builder what to expect, which helps their program. It is the cheapest information you will buy in the whole project. Some suburbs are more predictable than others and local knowledge is genuinely valuable. Contractors who dig pools in Sorrento, Trigg, Cottesloe or Fremantle every week know what the ground does there, and a contractor who has never worked your street is guessing along with you. Neighbours who have put pools in recently are the other reliable source.

Two conversations over the fence can be worth more than an hour of speculation. The suburbs a contractor works in most often tell you what ground they know. Contractors who work one half of the city rarely price the other half well. The eastern suburbs generally dig more easily and it shows in the quotes.

The deep Bassendean sands through the eastern corridor run well below pool depth in most places, so a dig there is usually a clean excavation with no hammer at all. Coffee rock appears occasionally and is far less common than coastal caprock. Owners moving between the two halves of the city are frequently surprised by the difference in pricing. It is worth knowing which half of the city your block sits in before budgeting.

Groundwater and Dewatering

Groundwater sits close to the surface across parts of the Swan Coastal Plain and a pool hole is deep enough to find it. In low lying suburbs, near wetlands and along the river flats, the water table can be within a metre or two of the surface and it rises through winter, which means a hole dug in July can be filling with water while the machine is still in it. The excavation contractor deals with it by pumping. It is a real cost and it belongs in the quote. A hole that fills overnight is a sign the pump needs to run continuously. Check whether the pump is manned or left running unattended.

Where the discharge enters a council drain, that point needs agreeing first. Dewatering is straightforward in principle and it has conditions attached. Pumps run continuously while the hole is open and until the shell is in and secured, the discharged water has to go somewhere acceptable, and pumping sand laden water into a street gutter or a neighbour's garden creates its own problems. Contractors who work wet sites have a method for this. Establish where the water is going before the pump starts.

Sand laden discharge into a soakwell will silt it up quickly. The wet ground also affects how the hole behaves. Saturated sand slumps far more readily than dry sand, so walls need battering back further, the base can become unstable, and the machine itself can bog. A hole that stands up in February may not in August. This is one of the strongest arguments for timing a pool dig for the drier months where the program allows. A contractor who has worked a wet site in your suburb before is worth more than one who has not.

Wet season digging also puts more load on the access route, which shows up in the reinstatement. On soft ground, boards and plates stop being optional. Shell flotation is the risk that follows, and it is a real phenomenon, not a theoretical one. An empty or partially drained pool shell sitting in ground with a high water table can be pushed upwards by hydrostatic pressure, and the consequences range from a lifted shell to a cracked one.

Pool builders manage it through hydrostatic relief valves, correct backfilling and keeping the pool full. It is worth knowing about because it affects how you treat the pool later. It is also why pool builders insist on keeping a pool full instead of draining it. Seasonal water levels are worth establishing instead of assuming. In parts of Perth the winter water table sits a metre or more above the summer level, so a site that was dry in March can be wet in August, and a neighbour's experience from a different season may not transfer. Local contractors know which pockets are wet.

On a marginal site, timing the dig for late summer can remove the problem entirely. A neighbour with a pool will tell you what month theirs was dug and what the ground did. Tide and rainfall through the preceding months both move the level. A dry March does not guarantee a dry August on the same block. Where the site is genuinely wet, it is the design that needs adjusting and not the method.

Raising the pool, reducing the depth or accepting a partially above ground arrangement are all legitimate responses to a high water table, and they are decisions for the pool designer, not the excavation contractor. Raising them early is far better than discovering the issue mid dig. The pool installation page covers the design side of the project. Raising the pool also changes the surround levels and the barrier design.

Spoil Volume and Cartage

A pool produces far more material than owners expect. A typical domestic pool hole removes somewhere in the range of forty to eighty cubic metres of ground, and that material bulks up meaningfully once it is loose, so the number of truckloads leaving the property commonly runs between eight and fifteen. Each of those loads is charged. Cartage is frequently the second largest line in the excavation after the machine hours. The quote should carry an expected load count as well as the rate. Fifteen loads against eight is a meaningful difference in the final figure.

Clean sand is worth something and it should be credited, not quietly absorbed. Fill sand has a genuine market around Perth, and a contractor taking saleable material off your property is receiving value for it, so a quote that both charges you cartage and sells the sand should show the credit. Where it does not, ask. It is a fair question and an honest contractor answers it directly. A contractor who volunteers the credit before being asked is worth engaging.

Sand prices move seasonally, which affects what the credit is worth. Keeping some sand on site is often the better decision. Backfill around the shell, levelling for the pool surround, building up a garden bed or raising a lawn area all consume sand, and stockpiling what you need avoids paying to cart it out and buy it back in. It needs somewhere to sit for the duration of the build, which on a small block may be the constraint. The landscaping page covers the surrounding work that often uses it. Stockpiled sand does need somewhere to sit for several weeks.

Whether the stockpile can sit on the verge or has to stay on the property is a council question. Limestone rubble is a different material with a different destination. It is unsuitable as backfill against a shell, it is heavier than sand per load, and it goes to a recycler or a tip instead of to a sand supplier. Where a crusher can be brought in, crushed limestone makes useful base material for paving or a driveway.

On most suburban pool jobs there is nowhere to do that and it leaves in trucks. Crushing is sometimes an option, so check before assuming the rubble has to leave. Truck access shapes the cartage cost as much as the volume does. Where a truck can reverse into the driveway, loading is quick and the cycle time is short, and where spoil has to be barrowed or conveyed to a truck parked in the street, the same volume takes far longer. On a narrow block this is where the access surcharge comes from.

It is also why the number of loads matters less than how long each one takes to fill. On a tight block it is cycle time, not volume, that drives the cartage figure. Work out whether the trucks can turn in the driveway or will have to reverse in from the street. Verge and street use brings the council into it.

Trucks parked on a verge, a Cleanaway or similar bin sitting on the road reserve, and material tracked onto the carriageway are all matters local governments take an interest in, and some require a permit for extended street occupation. Cleaning the street at the end of each day is basic practice. The skip bin hire page covers the smaller disposal needs that come later in a pool project. Sweeping the street at the end of each day is basic practice, not a courtesy.

Where the Pool Builder's Scope Ends

Pool contracts in Western Australia commonly exclude rock and it is the exclusion that causes the most disputes. The contract price assumes ordinary digging conditions, and if the machine strikes limestone the additional excavation is charged as a variation at a rate that may or may not be stated in the contract. That structure is legitimate and it is also why so many pool projects run over. Find the exclusion clause before you sign, not after. Find the clause, read it, and ask what the rate would be. A contract silent on the rate leaves the number to be set when you have no options.

Get a copy of the contract well before the day you are due to sign it. Other exclusions frequently sit alongside it. Restricted access, groundwater and dewatering, retaining walls required because of the levels, removal of existing structures and services relocation are all commonly excluded or treated as provisional. Each of those is a real possibility on a Perth block.

Reading the exclusions list is more informative than reading the inclusions list. Each exclusion is a cost you may end up carrying. Variation rates belong in writing before anybody signs. A contract that excludes rock and states the hourly rate for hammer work is a document you can plan against, and one that excludes rock and says nothing about the rate leaves the number to be set when you have no alternative. The same applies to dewatering and to restricted access. Negotiating those rates at contract stage is straightforward and negotiating them mid dig is not.

Rates agreed before signing are rates you have negotiated. Rates agreed after are rates you have accepted. A pool builder who declines to put rates in writing has told you something useful. Everything agreed before signature is negotiable and everything after it is not. Some owners engage the excavation contractor directly instead of going through the pool builder.

Where the pool builder permits it, this gives you a competitive price for the dig, control over who does it and a direct relationship if something goes wrong, at the cost of coordinating the timing yourself. Not every pool builder will allow it and it is worth asking before you sign. The dig has to land exactly when their program needs it. Raise it early, since some builders structure their contracts around doing it themselves.

Whoever does it, the specification comes from the pool builder. Dimensions, depths, the profile of the base, the overdig allowance and the tolerances are all theirs to set, and the excavation contractor works to that drawing. Getting the drawing to the excavation contractor before they quote is essential. A dig quoted without it is a dig quoted against an assumption. Send the drawing with the enquiry instead of waiting to be asked for it. It also gives the contractor the overdig figure without a second phone call.

The handover between the two trades is worth agreeing explicitly. Who checks the hole against the specification, who fixes it if it is out, what happens if the pool builder is delayed and the hole sits open, and who is responsible if a wall slumps in the meantime are all questions with answers that should exist before anyone digs. On a well run job they are obvious and on a badly run one they are an argument. Put the same question to both parties and see whether the answers match. Getting both parties to answer it in the same week is the simplest test.

Services, Boundaries and Approvals

Underground services need locating before the machine arrives, exactly as they do for any excavation. The free national referral service on 1100 returns plans from the registered asset owners, and those plans should be on site and read first, with potholing to confirm anything close to the dig. Private services such as an old bore line, a retic main or a cable to a shed appear on no plan at all. The trenching page covers service location in more detail. Check whether potholing sits inside the excavation quote. A cut retic main mid dig is an annoyance and a cut power cable is not.

The plans need to be on site, not sitting in somebody's email. Sewer is the service that most often constrains where a pool can go. Building over or too close to a sewer line generally requires the water authority's agreement and may not be permitted at all, and the position of the junction and the line across the property needs establishing early, because discovering it during the dig is expensive. This is a design constraint, not an excavation one.

Confirming it before the pool is positioned avoids redesigning the whole project. The water authority's position on building near a sewer is not negotiable. Boundary setbacks and easements shape the pool position as well. Local government requirements set how close a pool and its surrounds can sit to a boundary, easements across the property may restrict building entirely, and retaining near a boundary brings the neighbour into the conversation. Council contacts are published through wa.gov.au.

These are questions for the design stage and they affect what the excavation contractor is asked to dig. Easements in particular are easy to overlook on an older title. A title search will show any easement registered on the property. A building permit is required for a pool and the barrier is part of it. Western Australian local governments issue the permit, inspect the barrier and continue to inspect pool barriers on a recurring cycle for the life of the pool, which is a stronger regime than many owners expect. The barrier is built to the Australian Standard published by Standards Australia, and its design affects the garden layout, so it belongs in the planning and not at the end.

The pool fencing installation page covers the barrier itself. Barriers are inspected on a recurring cycle, not only at completion. A climbable object left near the barrier is the most common compliance failure. Levels and retaining are frequently the hidden part of a pool project on a sloping block. Where the pool sits into a slope, retaining is needed to hold the ground above or beside it, and that retaining is engineered, approved and built, not improvised from the spoil.

On a Perth Hills block it can cost as much as the pool. The pool and garden terracing retaining walls page and the limestone retaining walls page cover that work. Engineering for pool retaining is a design cost as well as a construction one. Stormwater is affected by everything a pool project adds. A pool surround, coping, paving and a pump enclosure all add impervious area to a block that disposes of its stormwater on site, and a soakwell system sized for the original house may no longer be adequate. Councils generally require the disposal to be shown where an approval is needed.

The soakwell installation page and the drainage page cover bringing the system up to what the property now needs. The existing soakwell system needs assessing against the new impervious area. Adding a soakwell while the machine is already on site costs a fraction of retrofitting one. Electrical and plumbing follow the dig and both are licensed work.

A pool needs power to the pump and the lights, bonding of the surrounding metalwork, and plumbing between the pool and the plant, all of which is trenched and installed by licensed trades to their own standards. Running those trenches while the machine is still on site is considerably cheaper than a second visit. The electrical services page and the plumbing services page cover both. Running the pool plumbing and electrical trenches in the same visit saves a mobilisation. The pool builder can tell you which trades follow immediately after the dig. Bundling the trenching into the same booking is the obvious saving.

Costs in Detail

A standard pool dig in clean sand with reasonable access runs $3,500 to $9,000 across the Perth metropolitan area, covering the machine, the operator and the cartage of spoil. The range reflects pool size, depth, the machine that fits the access and the number of truckloads. Larger pools and lap pools sit above it. This figure assumes no rock, no groundwater and no unusual access. Lap pools in particular sit above the standard range because of the volume.

Deeper diving pools also generate considerably more spoil than a standard depth. Where limestone is struck, the same dig runs $6,500 to $22,000 depending on how much rock there is and how hard it is. The variables are the hours of hammer time, charged at $180 to $320 an hour, and the extra cartage the broken material generates. A shallow caprock layer that the machine breaks through in two hours is a modest variation, and solid rock through the full depth of the deep end is a different project.

Test holes are what tell the two apart. The assumed depth to rock belongs on the quote as a number. An assumed depth stated in writing is what makes a later variation fair. Get the rock rate and the assumed depth onto the same page of the quote. Restricted access surcharges run $1,200 to $6,500 and they reflect the machine downgrade and the extra hours, not an arbitrary penalty. A block where spoil has to be conveyed or barrowed to the street sits at the top of that range.

Removing a fence panel and reinstating it runs $450 to $1,600 and frequently saves more than it costs by allowing a larger machine. Get both figures so the comparison is visible. The surcharge is usually quoted as a lump sum instead of an hourly addition. A machine downgrade of two sizes can double the hours on the same hole. Dewatering runs $450 to $1,400 a day where groundwater is encountered, covering the pump, the fuel and the management of the discharge.

On a genuinely wet site it may run for the duration of the excavation and the shell installation. It is usually excluded from a pool contract, so it lands on the owner. Asking about the seasonal water table before choosing a dig date is the cheapest way to manage it. Dewatering is priced either daily or as a lump sum, and the difference matters on a long job. A lump sum for dewatering is easier to compare between quotes. There should be a stated position on what happens if the pump is needed beyond the days allowed for.

Spoil cartage runs $180 to $420 a truckload depending on distance, material and the receiving facility. With eight to fifteen loads on a typical pool, this adds up quickly and the expected load count matters as much as the rate. Where clean sand is being sold, ask for the credit. Where sand is being retained on site for backfill and landscaping, the load count drops accordingly.

A load count is easy to estimate from the pool volume and worth asking for. Sand retained on site reduces the count directly. Test holes before signing run $350 to $900 and are the best value spend in the entire project. Regional Western Australia prices differently around travel, with contractors in Bunbury, Busselton, Albany, Geraldton and the Goldfields working at sensible rates within their own districts while a metropolitan crew travelling out adds mobilisation. In smaller towns the availability of a suitable machine can matter more than the rate.

Booking well ahead is the practical answer there. Two or three holes are enough on a standard domestic footprint. Have the holes photographed and the depths recorded. Two holes in the deep end tell you the most, since that is where the depth is.

What to Look Out For

Read the exclusions in the pool contract before you sign it. Rock is excluded from most Western Australian pool contracts, and restricted access, groundwater and retaining are frequently excluded too, which means the owner carries those costs. The exclusions list tells you more about your likely final price than the inclusions list does. Get the variation rates in writing at the same time. Variation rates should be attached to the contract, not referenced somewhere else.

Attached rates are part of the contract and referenced rates frequently are not. Get test holes done before committing on a coastal block. A few hundred dollars establishes whether limestone sits in the pool footprint and how hard it is, which is the difference between a modest variation and a five figure one. It also puts you in a position to negotiate the rock rate with evidence. Almost nobody does this and everybody who has hit rock wishes they had. It is also the only way to compare two quotes that assume different ground.

Whatever is being assumed needs writing onto the quote, because a verbal understanding is worth nothing later. A contractor who will not state an assumption is leaving the number open. Measure the narrowest point of the access before anyone quotes. The corridor width decides the machine, the machine decides the hours, and the hours decide the price, so an access measurement given from memory produces a quote that will change.

Take a tape to the gate posts, the meter box, the eaves and the air conditioner. Then ask what could be removed to allow a bigger machine. Photograph the tape at each measurement so there is no ambiguity later. Measure the height of any overhead obstruction along the route as well. Establish where the spoil is going and how many loads are expected. Cartage is a large component and a quote showing a rate per load without a load estimate is only half a number.

Where clean sand is saleable, ask whether a credit applies. Where sand can be retained for backfill and landscaping, ask for that to be priced as an option. Retaining sand on site reduces both the cartage out and the fill coming back. Stockpiling the sand where the landscaping will need it saves handling it twice. Settle where the stockpile will sit and how long it can stay there.

Be careful about a hole left open for longer than it needs to be. Sand walls slump, rain fills the excavation, the sides destabilise and an open pool hole on a residential property is a serious hazard for children and pets. Temporary fencing around it is not optional. There needs to be an arrangement covering a pool builder delayed after the dig.

Temporary fencing hire is a weekly cost and it is worth every dollar. Somebody has to supply and maintain the temporary fencing while the hole is open, and it should be named. One last thing, agree the reinstatement before the machines arrive. Lawn, paving, the crossover, the side path, the fence and the verge are all in the firing line, and the difference between a contractor who protects them and one who does not is visible for years afterwards.

Photograph everything beforehand and get the reinstatement scope in writing. It is the cheapest insurance in a pool project. A written reinstatement scope is worth more than any verbal assurance. Include the verge and the crossover in the photographs. A dated set of photographs is the only reinstatement evidence you will have.

How to Get Comparable Quotes

Have the pool details and the site details together before you make contact. The pool dimensions and depths from the builder's drawing, the pool position on the block, the narrowest access width and what creates it, the surface the machine will cross, your suburb, whether you know of rock or groundwater nearby, and whether any test holes have been done. Photographs of the access route and the pool area are essential, not merely helpful. A short video walking the access route is more useful than photographs alone. Put the same written questions to every contractor. The machine proposed and why, the estimated hours and days, what ground condition has been assumed, the provisional rock rate, whether dewatering is included or excluded, the expected number of spoil loads and the rate, whether clean sand is credited, access protection and reinstatement, temporary fencing, and insurance.

Written answers turn three prices into a comparison. Each one should spell out what sits outside the price as clearly as what sits inside it. An exclusion named plainly is easier to price around than one discovered later. Establish who you are contracting with.

A dig arranged through the pool builder sits inside their contract with their margin and their program, and a dig arranged directly gives you a competitive price and the job of coordinating the timing. Both are workable and they are not the same purchase. Check with the pool builder whether they permit an owner arranged excavation before you go looking for quotes. Either way the timing has to suit the pool builder's program and not yours. The pool builder either coordinates the dig or leaves it to you, and that needs settling up front.

Get the builder's drawing to the excavation contractor. Dimensions, depths, the base profile and the overdig allowance all come from the pool builder, and a contractor quoting without that drawing is quoting against an assumption. It also means every contractor is pricing the same hole. Send it with the enquiry instead of waiting to be asked. A contractor quoting without the drawing is quoting a different hole from everyone else. Time the dig for the drier months where your program allows it.

A winter excavation on the coastal plain can mean groundwater, unstable walls, a bogged machine and a hole that fills with rain, while the same dig in late summer is straightforward. Pool builders are also busiest through spring as everyone tries to have a pool by Christmas. Booking outside that rush tends to produce better prices and better attention. Autumn digs also avoid the wettest ground and the busiest part of the season. A contractor who works your suburb will have a view on the best months for a dig there.