25 year old Florida pool gets facelift

[SGPlayer]

Hi everyone.
I have a project underway that some of you may be interested in.
We had this pool built shortly after buying our house. That was over 25 years ago.
A concrete in ground pool with hot tub, aprox 18,000 gal.
Since then the pool has worked as needed to a point. It still held water and looked OK at a glance, but was getting worn.
The pump motor had failed multiple times over the years. I always pulled it off & installed a remaned motor. Quick and easy fix.
Well after installing our solar system, we monitored our electric usage more closely using an online app. That pump motor was sucking as much power as the dryer.
This prompted me to look into a more efficient pool pump. Incoming was a Pentair variable speed pump and new cartridge filter to replace the old Hayward single speed pump and leaking filter.

All was well till the skimmer started to suck air. Then it sucked dirt, and a mixture of mud and all kinds of earthy delights.
We tried to live without it for a while, but the pool vacuum was thru the skimmer port also.

We sacrificed our Polaris cleaner thing to convert it's port to a suction port so that we could at least vacuum the pool. This worked for a while. We skimmed the top manually with a pool skimmer to remove the floaters.

Finally it came time to shoot the old horse. The 25 year old marcite was worn down to the concrete shell in a couple of spots. The pool/spa heater hadn't worked in several years. The skimmer was non working and disconnected. Tile had fallen off the pool & spa. The deck was cracked.
I needed help.

Called several pool builders and got a few estimates and referrals. This alone was a couple month process.
Finally settled on one company based on previous jobs they did that we had seen.

I knew going into this that it wouldn't be cheap. The deck materials offered to us were less that ideal. Pavers and something called knock down.
I hated every paver job we viewed. They all looked like a bad walkway. Weeds growing between the pavers, unevenness and lots of collecting dirt.

Then we saw it... Not exactly perfect, but it gave us an idea of what we wanted.
I loved the old Kool Deck, but it didn't seem like an available option anymore. The paver decks left me cold. Then we saw a couple of travertine decks. Hmmmm...
One was floating, the other one was set. Bingo! We decided on a travertine deck with set stones.
I looked online for ideas and found one that I really liked. Not really close to my pool shape, but the deck was a great example of what we were looking for.



The travertine went right up to the pools edge. No border around the pool and it was set, not floating. I downloaded this pic and gave it to the pool guy and we were up and running.
The pool was drained and the fun began.


The glass block was removed from the hot tub and the area was filled in with concrete.


The old tile was removed and then they started the deck.
I'm sure glad I was home because the first thing they did was start a border around the pool. Exactly what I didn't want. I called the builder & stopped the work.
The stone guy was trying to explain how what he was doing was so much better than what I wanted. Wasn't interested.
That wasted a day... One of many.
Once I finally got the stone guys on track the demolition & reconstruction resumed.


To be continued...

 

[SGPlayer]

The next thing was getting the deck finished up before the pool work.
All the travertine was installed & grouted, the old pool tile was replaced with travertine tile, except the waterline tile which was replaced with new tile. I was sort of looking for a wrap around look on the deck. The travertine stones were cut to match the pool shape after being set, leaving about 3/4" overhang.


Things were starting to look better. Then the pool destruction began. It looked like a war zone after all the air hammer and pressure washing.
After this step and a good cleaning, the pool shell was coated with a bonding agent in preparation for the pebble tec finish.

 

[TheBraLady]

This is so interesting! Thank you for sharing!!

 

[allinspector]

Looking good! I love to see older pools restored and kept operational.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

The travertine is gorgeous! Looking forward to seeing more pics

 

[smforte]

I dream of doing this......will hav to live through your post so keep it coming...

 

[linzjane88]

It's my fantasy to both live in Florida AND have an in ground pool. Love the pictures!

 

[pooldv]

Welcome to TFP!

Looking good! It is going to be a great summer!

 

[kimkats]

Thank goodness you were home and could stop him from the border! That one thing you did NOT want! "But it is better this way." NOPE! LOL

Love what I see so far!

Kim

 

[steveg_nh]

This is going to be great! Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to following it.

 

[Kpag]

Looking good so far. What color travertine is that? How thick is it? We are looking at travetines now.

 

[borjis]

Did the glass block on the spa leak?

I thought that was kinda cool looking.

 

[SGPlayer]

Thanks everyone, The glass block was not leaking. The pool guy was surprised it lasted this long without cracking.
But it was outdated in our opinion. So we let it go.
It was cool looking especially at night with the pool lights on.
We (ok, I) originally wanted to loose the spa and turn it into entrance steps. Glad I was voted down on that one.
The travertine stone is 1 inch thick. The front & back of the hot tub as well as wrap over on the edge of the deck is travertine tile.

I forgot to mention before, the deck ended up getting chopped up for a new skimmer to replace the one that had been non functional for years.
Getting some new pics ready... Back soon.

 

[SGPlayer]

Here is what the bond coat looked like after it was applied.

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Then it was time to wait on the pebble tec people.
They showed up a couple of days later. A whole bunch of people, trucks and activity.
In a half a day the pool was coated. The following day it was pressure washed. The lights were hooked up & installed and the refill started.

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Now I was starting to get excited. Even though we are on county water, the water has a greenish tint when straight out of the faucet.
A little chemical magic and things really started to look up.

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[SGPlayer]

Needless to say we couldn't wait to jump in.
The water is now crystal clear. Everything works. We've used the hot tub twice already.

The automation system was a little challenging for them to get hooked up, (took a couple of days) but they got it working.
Everything can be controlled by smart phone, laptop or a little water resistant pushbutton thing we have.
Pump, heater, lights, spa, vacuum, all are remote and programmable.

Oh yes, the lights... WOW! Our old lights were just a white light with colored plastic caps. We had red & blue.
Nice till the plastic cracked over time. Then we had white lights.
These new ones are the bees knees. Color changing, programmable, and wild.
Pentair Intellibrite. 14 different programs. We have the hot tub & pool on separate switches so we can mix & match the light show programs. Very cool feature indeed.

Now I'll need all the help I can get keeping things clean & working.

 

[offthefront]

SGPlayer ...... absolutely stunning !!! we are going thru the same thing ..... North East Florida with a pool that was built in mid 90's ... patches of bare concrete ... ect .... was planning on the pavers but like you say ...most look very similar ... how did the cost of the Travertine compare to Pavers? We've been seeing 6.50-8.50 for pavers ...... thanks ....mike

 

[SGPlayer]

SGPlayer ...... absolutely stunning !!! we are going thru the same thing ..... North East Florida with a pool that was built in mid 90's ... patches of bare concrete ... ect .... was planning on the pavers but like you say ...most look very similar ... how did the cost of the Travertine compare to Pavers? We've been seeing 6.50-8.50 for pavers ...... thanks ....mike

Thanks Mike, the travertine was over twice the price of pavers. But after seeing several paver decks, our minds were made up.
We spent about 17k on travertine. But we did the front porch, back lanai and had two 5ft pads installed outside each pool door. All in travertine.
Once we started, things just kept snowballing...
Dave

- - - Updated - - -

Looking good so far. What color travertine is that? How thick is it? We are looking at travetines now.

Thanks, the color is kind of a golden color with light and dark mixed in. Its officially called Roman Blend Select on my paperwork.

 

[pooldv]

Pool looks great! Pretty much all tap water is green everywhere when people fill their pools. Not sure about drinking green water.

 

[steveg_nh]

Beautiful!

 

[viking68]

Great looking job!! Good you were there to keep the contractor's guys on track.

Next fall, looking at the same ordeal - 1986 pool with the original plaster! You can "hear" the voids behind the tiles when you tap on them!

Call me old school (maybe because I grew up in the 60's) but I'm still a big fan of cool-deck - if you can find anyone that does it right anymore. It's just what a Florida Pool Look means to me.

Just cleaned ours (screened and lots of trees outside/potted plants inside) and, other than a couple dime sized divots from "gutter drips", it looks darn near new.

We've got a 10' x 40' back porch under main house roof open to pool, then 4'+ to the pool - really like the large open space.

Again, just a great looking job and I hope ours turns out half as good.