By Annie Brock
The saying, “it took planes, trains, and automobiles” to get to a destination can be modified to “it took trucks, cranes, and barges” to describe recent installations completed by Thursday Pools.
Jonathan Hendrick from Hendrick Pool and Lawn Service in McCordsville, Indiana, recently used a barge to deliver five fibreglass pools to backyards located along a large reservoir. The pools were all installed in a neighbourhood located in the township of Fishers, Indiana, and all the houses are on the water’s edge of the Geist Reservoir.
“In examining the approach to these backyards, it made much more sense to bring them in from the water, rather than trying to crane them over these large homes that are set back far from the road,” says Hendrick.
This led him to contact Deaton’s Waterfront Services, a local barge company, to find another way to get these pools to their respective backyards.
Using a barge and an excavator
In some neighbourhoods, it can be challenging to arrange the delivery of a pool, especially if it includes closing a road and attaining permits to do so. Bringing a pool through a front yard which is further from the backyard, and getting it around or, in many cases, over the house to where the pool is being installed, can not only be time-consuming but can also require additional work.
“By using a barge to deliver the pools, we had to use the excavator only to hoist the pools from the barge and into the backyard. In fact, we barged the excavator to the jobsite first,” says Hendrick. “It was fun to watch the pools travel by boat to these homes. There were definitely lots of spectators.”
By not having to use a crane, it was more cost-efficient and avoided any potential damage to the clients’ property by shipping the pool directly from the water.
Although these deliveries were particularly unique, there have been other pools which were pulled down from a river to be delivered to backyards.
“Fibreglass pools are completely water-tight and built like a sailboat, so we also did consider just pulling the pools behind a speedboat,”
says Hendrick.
