crabboy's build

Some progress to report:

After a carefully worded email to the owner of the company building my pool, earlier this week, the owner, my sales guy, my assigned PB (supervisor) and I had a pool side meeting on Thursday to discuss a few things, among them, the details of the slide install. The meeting ended with me needing more dirt (cost depending on the source) and the graders to prepare the ground for the slide on Saturday. I got a call Friday from the PB telling me had a dirt source for $30 a truck, but nobody to haul the dirt into the backyard. Not wanting to delay anymore I told him to bring it on and 6 trucks worth of dirt were delivered (total thus far is 15). I'd have to say that this is very nice dirt; just like screened dirt that you'd have to pay extra for, not a single rock in it. Dump truck guys had a good chuckle when then buried a half pallet full of pavers with the dirt.

Saturday came and I was told the guys were busy hauling dirt on another job and they'd be later in the day and may have to work Sunday. They ended up coming very late only to drop off the bobcat and go. Surprisingly they showed up today, Yes Sunday, and hauled all the dirt back and graded around the pool. It looks so much better now. I had them grad it bit into the wooded area and the bobcat had no trouble pushing down the trees, one around 6" think.

Tomorrow (Monday) I'm scheduled to have the concrete guys come and pour pillars and a concrete deck for the slide. Interesting to see how this goes.


Since all the access to the back was blocked by the dirt (seen below), the kid driving went over the hill and took it down the hill over a 50 degree bank without a problem. Dug his bucket into the ground to control his dissent, had the bobcat almost facing straight down and popped right out. Made it look easy for sure.
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Finished grade behind pool. See before picture in previous post.
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Nope. Just the forms thus far. I set the slide up on top of the forms yesterday with my wifes help (big, bulky and 200+ pounds and it just did not fit right. I emailed the slide company and got revised instructions and we will go from there. Concrete guys said they will be out in the am. It's been and going to be a hot week, 100+ here with humidity on top of that and the guys don't want to work in the heat. wimps :)
 
Hot is right...we had 102 today before heat index. Felt like 110 or so, plus our nasty humidity.

Crabboy, maybe we should send our gunite guys to you to help with concrete...these guys worked from 7am to 5pm today in this heat...not once complained.

Can't wait to see how you get that slide mounted...thing looks like its goint to be fast!
 
Oh, boy I can't wait either. The forms were poured on Friday and the PB's guys were out on Saturday to backfill around the concrete posts to prepare for the slide deck. They were out again today preparing the forms for the slide platform, but they did not finish.

Our forecast is showing triple digits again this week and no cool pool for me.

I finally took the effort to find the main pipe for the sprinklers cut during excavation. The slide cutoff direct access to where I think the pipe ended up by the pool, so I had to guestimate as to where the pipe would be. I dug through some heavily compacted soil, (that 10k pound bobcat does wonders) down 3 feet and found the main pipe. I was so lucky to have seen a 6" length of scrap sprinkler wire shielding in the dirt about 2' down to let me know which way to dig, otherwise I could have dug to China and not found it. Anyhoo, I glued on an elbow and capped it above ground, only to find that the bobcat, excavator, dumptrucks, take your pick, destroyed a valve in the front yard. The zone where they have been driving and dumping is permanently on when the main valve turns on. Also there is a cracked pipe under ground as well. Oh, joy.
 
Some progress to report:

Pool is being filled!!!


Concrete guys were out earlier this week and put the slide in. Of course, I was out of town and not around to micro-manage so it was done incorrectly. They will be out next week to fix the problems.

Pebbletec was out to yesterday applying the Pebble Sheen and out again this morning to sand it down and acid wash it. They left just before 10am and began the fill.

Since the hose in the pool was doing me no better than 7 gal/min, I ran a pipe from my sprinkler system and now it’s filling at about 28 ga/min. That’s a bit better. You can see the stream of water at the very right of the picture.

I had uploaded some better pictures to my webserver, but I lost them somehow. My wife sent me the one above, and the colors are a bit off, I’ll put some better ones up again tonight.

The PBs TODO list:
Pool startup
Finish slide
Finish grading
Cleanup.

My TODO list:
Fix sprinklers
Landscape
Lighting
Finish deck.
 

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I love the little island and your deck is great! I just love it!
 
Filled in about 12 hours. 21,000 gal.

Color is aqua-blue. Looks a bit different than the website color, but I like it. The pebble looks great with the pool light on. Nice and smooth, pebbles are much smaller than I thought.
 
thanks crabboy...we have been debating like crazy on the color, but I liked the aqua blue...the website isn't very helpful, and I have seen other pics that seemed so bright, but some of the other pictures...like yours, look awesome.

Is the sheen really smooth like you say? I am really worried about my kids getting torn up feet and not liking the pool.

Your pool and decking really look great!
 
Following this thread is like being there. Your pictorial diary is excellent! The pool is beautiful and it's obvious that you've put a huge amount of thought into the planning. I can just barely begin to imagine the emotional energy you and your family have expanded during the construction process. Muddy dog, red dirt everywhere, torn up yard, neighbors . . .

But it's coming together beautifully and it's gorgeous! And we're all coming to the opening!!!!

Anna
 
Thanks all for the kind words. It has been a long road, and although its not over, having the pool done makes it much less painful. :wink:

Tomorrow, I'll likely spray down whats left of my grass with Roundup. Then I'll have a 100% dirt pile yard. Probably wise to put the sod order in first.
 
Well since the pebble it's been about 2 weeks of nothing. I didn't bother the the builder too much the first week since I was too busy swimming. The second week I was getting pretty annoyed that he had not showed up yet to finish up. I took it upon myself to generate the punch list and I emailed it to him. I finally hear back from him after two days of messages and I'm informed that the slide plumbing will be done Saturday (today) and graders (PBs do all crew) will be here on Sunday to knock out the punch list. We'll see if A. They actually show up on Sunday and B. if they come will the necessary tools and supplies to finish. For some reason I am the weekend house, either they show up on Friday night, Saturday or Sunday. Either day, the guys are not thrilled to be working. I think it's because I'm just about 2 miles away from the office.

Good news is that he slide, although not complete, is operational. The 2hp pump sends a torrent of water down the slide; I had to remove the eyelets from the slide returns because the pressure was so hard that water was splashing right out of the slide causing a mud problem. I'd still like to find something to replace them with, ideally something to send the water downwards.

The boys had a blast on the slide, barely swimming just weeks ago, and now they are sliding down, and swimming out of the current on their own.

I'd post some pictures, but the wife has been hogging the desktop all night.

Just crossing my fingers that the PB shows tomorrow, well today now. I don't mind that they show in the weekends since I can micro-manage. (and get them to move my 1500lb rocks around) :)
 
your pool build looks awesome - great shape and love your deck. I really wanted the pavers, but just too darn hot for our AZ temp - they look absolutely fabulous. Happy to hear you were able to use the slide and really hope your builder is out today to get things going again for you!
 

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