Case Studies
Disappearing fence
Client had an old carbon steel metal pool fence looking over the sea and complained that the black fence stood out against the ocean backdrop. The salt had ensured that what was left of the rusted metal didn’t comply enough to issue a certificate. We colour matched a new aluminum fence to the vista. The client was ecstatic because in their own words “the fence disappeared”
Compliance Certificate
Client received a random Council inspection and they found the pool fence did not comply. 997 out of every 1000 pools in NSW don’t comply. Complex arrangement involving landscaping and pavers. Sever terrain profile. We removed a large brick wall and some unwanted palm trees and installed a new cascading brick stair case as well as two tone metal fencing to match the visual backdrop and was able to arrange a compliance certificate.
Non Compliance certificate Legal action taken
Client was incorrectly advised to ignore the NCC and pass the cost to the potential buyer since they were frantically trying to sell to move interstate due to family illness. All NCC’s automatically go to Council who them suggested that they fix the fence before they sell. Due to time constraints, they ignored the Council who then took them to court. Court action pending forced the owners to withdraw from the sale. Previous owners had made several design mistakes in making the fence too big. We changed the design completely and cut the cost in half by just fencing the pool and not the whole yard and then arranged a C Certificate. Happy ending.
Cantilevered fence
Client had a ‘no talk’ relationship with a thorny neighbor. The pool fence didn’t comply and the client wanted us to block off the side of their house across to the ‘thorny neighbours ‘ leaning (but compliant) boundary fence which needed replacing due to its considerable lean. He also stopped us attaching anything to the fence less it resulted in escalation of the feud. So we designed and built a compliant pool fence cantilevered off the side of his house matching the wobbly profile of the odd shape between the straight brick wall of the house and the leaning boundary fence. Then we arranged a CC.
Buried Glass
Client was desperate to get a CC to lease the property but had inherited an old glass pool fence from the days when the glass was set in concrete. To compound the problem the Hydraulic In Ground soft closers had failed (not uncommon and no longer available). Thus the whole fence and gate closers had to be jack hammered out of the ground costing a considerable amount of time and money. For about 40% of previous quotes, we designed and built two gate carrier systems we installed on the existing glass that allowed us to install a new gate resulting in a successful lease.
Saving the Oranges
Client was a retired horticulturist who had collected, over the years, very rare specimens of orange trees which he had won several awards and which he was justly proud. The council had hit the whole street with compulsory Pool fence inspections and found that his whole fence didn’t comply. His priceless orange tree collection was simply in the wrong spot and the Council had advised him that “those old orange trees had to go” . Desperate for an alternate solution we were able to not only save his oranges but got the rest of the fence rectified and were able to supply him with a Compliance certificate which put the council in their place. I didn’t know oranges could be so sweet.
Pool hedge saver
A council inspector had done a random pool inspection (as they do) and identified a Murraya hedge that formed part of a privacy hedge screen around a pool and directed the home owner that it didn’t comply and would have to be removed and also issued a Non-Compliant Certificate (which could result in legal action). The owners were besides themselves considering the loss of privacy screen and the time it had taken to grow. Because we know and understand the standard, we were able to save the hedge as well as arrange a Compliance Certificate without Council involvement. It’s all in the fine detail.
Self Flushing Drain
Client’s neighbor’s driveway collected lots of jacaranda leaves. When it rained there was nowhere for the rain water to go but to be scooped up by the neighbor’s concrete driveway and deposited under their common boundary fence straight into my client’s pool along with lots of leaves. As part of making his pool fence compliant, we designed and installed a self-flushing catchment drain that collected the neighbors run off and leaves and delivered it to a catchment tank and then a drain.
Move the house !
Some pools are put in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were measuring a house for a new compliance certificate when we discovered the brick wall which was part of the kitchen was just in the wrong place in relation to the pool and, of course, couldn’t be moved. Trying to keep a straight face we (in humour) told the owner the house would have to be moved. Problem was solved by building a very long special fence panel that spanned the gap enough to make it compliant. We left the house where it was 😊
Parabolic curved panel
An existing pool was too close to the boundary fence to comply. The only option was to install a curved metal panel between the garden and the pool coping. Unfortunately, we discovered that the pool builder had made the curve in the pool Parabolic (ie constantly varying radius). WE designed and built a Parabolic curve measuring device (not easy) and were able to help the metal fabricator to follow our parabolic curved drawing to produce a parabolic curved pool fence panel.
What %$#^& pool
This house had sold several years ago and the new owners decided after a while to extend the house out the back with a new family room and bedroom. They engaged an architect who produced a design that he sent to Council for approval. The council came back to them and said “You cant build there, it’s a swimming pool” . The new owners said “ what $#%&^ swimming pool “ . Turns out the old owner had gone crazy and built a huge pool covering the whole back yard and found that potential buyers were put off by the fact that it was too big, so he filled it in, cut all the pipes, planted grass and hit the road. What the original owner didn’t realize was that in ground pools are actually on the title deeds which is why one needs a DA to remove pools.
Sliding pool pump
New owner had purchased a property with a Non Compliance Certificate with a pool fence that didn’t comply. There was boundary issues and incorrect height glass panels to name a few issues. The biggest issue they had was the pool pump had slide down a hill and had disconnected itself from the electrical supply. The water connections were next to potentially fail as the pump housing appeared to be hanging on the plastic pipework. This technically didn’t affect the compliance but it had to be corrected. We dismantled and removed the whole pump and rebuild the foundations and reinstalled the whole kit on a new deck that was level and stable.