Pretty much finished Radiant Metric install in MN

[nfusion770]

I wanted to wait until we were completely done to post but it will be another year before the plants grow in (and perhaps 2 before I get around to finishing the railings :lol: ) so 99% complete will have to do. This is what I have spent the better part of my summer doing and lucky for me it has been the hottest summer I can remember. We were first able to swim the weekend after July 4th but the deck was just finished about a week ago.

I figured someone needed to post a Radiant Metric pool since I was unable to find much about them in my research. As you can see we insulated the floor as well and despite having a 400,000 BTU gas heater have not had to heat it once nor have we yet broken the seal on the solar cover. We have maintained temps between 82 and 84 thus far granted we have had a very hot summer so we will see if that lasts. The one major thing we screwed up (other than a little bit of the plumbing which I will fix this fall) is the floor insulation. I thought it would be a good idea to cover most of the floor with insulation and then fill in the edges with sand rather than trim in small corners. In hindsight, I should have either trimmed the corners at least to the cove or used more sand and graded it down to the insulation. Not sure if that makes sense but the result is a lot of gaps and ridges around the edges of the floor. Oh well, its not hurting anything, I chalk it up to first timer mistake, and it is something that I will address someday when a new liner is in order.

Anyway, without further ado..

 

[nfusion770]

Excavation and installation

 

[nfusion770]

Gorilla pad and equipment pad.

 

[nfusion770]

99% finished deck and pool

 

[mpacheco72]

Wow that looks really sharp. I'm jealous of the size of your yard and the trees.

 

[arvven]

Love it, the Radiant addition makes sooo much sense..wow. Congrats!

 

[nfusion770]

Wow that looks really sharp. I'm jealous of the size of your yard and the trees.

Thanks. We had my sons 7th birthday party on Saturday and we had more than enough room for 20+ people. We also have a huge sandbox and big play set but not a single person ventured further into the yard than the pool- ha ha.

We will see how well those trees serve us in the future, but so far so good.

My proudest moment might be that I have been able to drop my alkalinity from about 320 to 100 over the course of 2 weeks and keep my ph up with aeration. This TFP stuff is really sinking in :-D .

 

[nfusion770]

Love it, the Radiant addition makes sooo much sense..wow. Congrats!

Thank you. It turned out exactly as we wanted it. Lots of help from family and several weekends from a carpenter friend.

 

[noresull]

That looks awesome!! I'm hoping to get rid of the Intex in a few years and install a larger above ground with a deep end. What part of MN are you in?

 

[nfusion770]

That looks awesome!! I'm hoping to get rid of the Intex in a few years and install a larger above ground with a deep end. What part of MN are you in?

Thank you. We are in Elk River.

 

[supertune]

Very NICE!

Chuck

 

[cramar]

Awesome job, looks great!!

 

[dattia]

OMG... that pool is HUGE! I'm so jealous.

Everything looks fabulous!

 

[linen]

That is a huge pool Looks very nice

If I might ask, how much does the radiant cost? What was your reasoning on the radiant verse a more traditional agp? Did you install it?

 

[nfusion770]

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone.

That is a huge pool Looks very nice

If I might ask, how much does the radiant cost? What was your reasoning on the radiant verse a more traditional agp? Did you install it?

The 33' Radiant Metric is $7100 at the two authorized online retailers. We did some preliminary investigation of pools last year and one of the first ones we saw in a showroom was the Radiant Metric. The pool itself was a few thousand more in store and since I was going to building the deck (with my carpenter friend) I decided to put that cash toward excavation/ deck foundation work. The insulation idea made sense and installation seemed pretty simple so it was always the one we were pretty much fixated on. This is our first pool (grew up on a lake) and, while I don't have a lot of experience with pools, we liked the clean look, the insulation and the easy install compared to the other models we saw.

We installed it ourselves. I hired out the excavation and 22 deck footers as I also had to have a 20x30 garage pad poured and it was marginally more expensive to have them take care of all the foundation work. They leveled the space within half an inch and then I created a paver/ paver base collar around the perimeter (as seen in one of the photos) and installed the pool. I had a lot of help. I hired a friend who is a carpenter (who works cheap for me ) to do the deck framing, my brother in law is an electrical contractor (I dug a trench and paid the bills and he did all the electrical), and 2 of my brothers helped out- one a jack of all trades/ amateur plumber and the other used to own and irrigation/ landscaping company (rerouting sprinklers etc). That and I did a bunch of research, called Radiant a few times (very helpful) and asked a few pointed questions on TFP to fill in the gaps.

It turned out almost exactly as we had planned- what more could we ask for, right?

 

[Yukon Jack]

Looks like you have done a great job on the project - enjoy it!

 

[linen]

Thanks for the added detail nfusion

Do you know if a metric can have a deep end?

 

[nfusion770]

Down to 78 degrees today due to a pretty cold overnight low. Considering breaking out the solar blanket.

Thanks for the added detail nfusion

Do you know if a metric can have a deep end?

I never planned one but the radiant guys asked me about it so I assume it's a possibility. Not sure this is the case with all round pools but the deep end would have to be the middle the way I understand it.

 

[linen]

Down to 78 degrees today due to a pretty cold overnight low. Considering breaking out the solar blanket.

It will help a lot if you use it at night.

 

[nfusion770]

Down to 78 degrees today due to a pretty cold overnight low. Considering breaking out the solar blanket.

It will help a lot if you use it at night.

We put it on for the first time last night. Pool was 84 yesterday and it is still at 82 this morning (air temp dropped to 67 overnight). We will use it every night from now on unless we get another stretch of 90s/100s like we had for the last 6 weeks. This spot in our yard faces SW and gets tons of sun so the solar cover should keep our gas use to a minimum.