New in-ground in swampy Louisiana. Build is ON!!!

Oh you would not believe this. 20% chance of rain. Thunderstorm. AGAIN. I now have 6 bedraggled muddy guys in my backyard. I feel so bad for them. They were trying to resquare everything and shore up the walls with plywood and a storm came out of nowhere. It doesn't help that my hole is also a giant faraday cage with lightning all around.
 
Oh no! I don't even know what to say. I'm glad your PB is responding but how do you deal with Mother Nature - wow. Here's hoping you can dry out over the weekend but I think there are more storms coming through. Good luck - Karen
 
I can't say enough good things about my PB. He was out there with his subs almost all day. They worked through a rainstorm and kept on trucking all day.

This is how it looked beneath the tarp this morning.

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Apparently not only do I have almost all river silt for soil, but there is an old drainage weeping pipe that runs through where they dug the pool, (right in the shallow end wall) it had been long filled up with dirt, but its gravel surround is allowing all the standing water in my yard to drain in and run to the deep end. They installed my main drain with a hydrostatic drain in the bottom in case I ever need to drain the water level. They did that before the mudpocalypse. They also told me they put holes in the bottom of the gunite to allow ground water to seep into the shell to stop it popping out of the ground while its curing. They finally got enough fall in dirt out of the way, so that they could get boards in to prevent more fall in protect the wall.

This is how it looked after they got those in.

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Those guys all busted their butts, bedraggled and covered in mud from head to toe. I was out there too, I'm painting a shed. In all honesty I probably wouldn't be out there with all that mud, but I feel a solidarity with the pool guys to keep on working in it. It really makes me appreciate what they are doing all the more. And with all this going on, they are still double checking themselves and catching things which aren't quite perfect - and making sure they get rectified. I'm so impressed. This is a nightmare of epic proportions for them and yet I'm hearing all the right things. I'm pretty sure its not because I'm out there working. I'm around the back of a shed out of sight, and besides, I'm sure they have no idea I'm TFP trained and I understand a great deal of how pools should be built. I heard him explain to a new guy today that they really prefer to run all the plumbing completely to the pad and pressure test before they shoot the gunite, but in this case because of the wall issue and just how wet the ground it they are going to have to shoot the gunite first and run the rest of the pipes later. I completely understand that. They also told me they intend to grade my backyard after they are done, not just around the pool to try and get rid of the low spot in the middle to help water flow to the coulee behind my fence, which I totally wasn't expecting. They also keep apologizing for my driveway being muddy and telling me they are going to clean it. Which I also don't really expect! I keep apologizing for the weather, (but I'm originally British, I don't think I can help it). I'm also doing whatever I can to try and make it suck a little less for them - I've been bringing them doughnuts, sandwiches and cookies and all kinds of soda and water in an ice chest.

Anyway gunite is now scheduled for 7am Saturday as the gunite company just couldn't give us an afternoon slot tomorrow, and they need a few more hours to finish redoing the rebar in the deep end. My PB is glad we've got a few extra hours to double check everything is perfect - his words. I'm am so, so glad I hired these guys. Although I'm almost not, only because they are all actually nice really personable guys, who have shown they are seriously hardworking people and I wouldn't wish this on anyone, especially people I actually like!

And when I get inside at the end of the day to relax I have the results of having 4 dogs, with a doggy door access to a portion of the mud pit. My poor poor floors....and they have sat on my couch and bedspread to clean themselves off after potty breaks. I also have to host a Pokeno get together for 12 women at my house this Sunday. I am *this* close to a nervous breakdown...Y'all pray for dry weather for us until we can get this pool to gunite!
 
Well it's done. It poured again but they got it done.
I got a couple of pics from right before they started shooting he gunite as the pools been under cover to protect it from rain and I hadn't had the chance to take any

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The plaster guy from the pool builder was here overseeing. Although there's a couple of places where there are gouges because it started pouring while shooting it but he assures me that's no problem for him. I also have 3 3" weep holes in the bottom for hydrostatic relief that get filled with plaster in the end so I'm guessing a little gouge at the bottom of the deep end wall ain't no big thing. I'm not about to cross the Mississippi mud hole to take the tarp off it to get a complete pic so here are 2 pics. One of the spa and tanning ledge while they were still shooting and then the steps once they were complete.

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You can see how much wash out we had behind the walls.
 
I have a question for anyone with an attached spa. How deep is your spa? Mine seems awfully deep.

The height of the bench to the waterline seems okay, but my bench is 26" high off the bottom of the spa. Looking at pictures it seems like most of the other spas I've seen on the internet the bench height is about the same as the distance from the top to the water, but its kind of hard to judge from a picture. We went and measured yesterday and it seemed like we would have a total of 44" of water to the bottom of the spillover.

We did have an issue at the beginning where the spa height was raised only 12" on the plan, but the contract called for 18" which is what we wanted and they changed the elevation of the form boards, but despite my offering a pen on at least 3 occasions for the PB to change the +12 on the plan, he kept saying he didn't need to/couldn't for some reason. Assuring me it wouldn't be dug too deep and it was okay. And now I'm thinking my spa is 6" too deep. Would this even be a problem? You can see a picture of it my above post. Let me know what you think.
 
If it's too deep for your feet to rest flat on the bottom while seated then it's deeper than it should be. Not the end of the world. Out of a pool gravity makes that more uncomfortable but in water the buoyancy makes it matter less. I think it's more relaxing to have my feet flat on the floor while seated though.
 

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They were back today, digging trenches and laying plumbing. I'll have some more pictures later after they leave. They are still here at 5.45pm. They got here about 9am. I can't fault their work ethic thats for sure. I also got my gas service line laid today. Its not hooked up yet, and there is still no sign of the plumber that is supposed to be coming to hook up our gas on demand hot water heater. But we have the trench for that line dug too.

My yard looks terrible though. I'm already ready to never smell mud and dirt again. Just when you think it can't look any worse, they dug plumbing trenches. They still have to dig electrical and water hook up trenches from the house. Plus run forms and pour concrete for the path and deck. I want to cry, my yard looks and smells so bad. I got a quote today on hydroseeding and its a lot more than I thought it would cost. Its easily about 5000sf and the quote was nearly $1000. Plus its getting late in the year to do it. I have no idea what we are going to do. I basically have no grass left in my backyard. Oh and about no money left to do anything about it. Sigh. Any ideas. LOL.
 
When you pool is done you can put down rye grass seed and cover with LOTS of hay/straw to hold the dirt. You could also put down "real" grass seed but it might be too late in the season for it to survive. The rye grass will grow and hold the dirt and at least be green for a little while.

Kim
 
I like the idea about hibernating. Is it too early to start....LOL

I promised some pictures, so here they are.

More trenches, this time for plumbing

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As if I didn't have enough killing grass on my conscience, the gas company showed up and ran my service line.

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In the mean time, my husband - who has now stated he is getting way too old for this s**t dug a trench for the eventual on demand hot water heater that got our gas service line ran for free. I would quite like the plumber who promised he would install it to show up at any time now. Any time at all....Oh and see that dog in the background. Well that is one of the rare moments she has decided to respect the idea of the fence and stay behind it. Normally, she just treats it like the funnest game of 'how fast can I get under it without Mom noticing...and run through the mud....sigh.

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Also further along is my studio building. Its almost done on the outside. Just waiting for the next time my husband is home to finish the porch soffiting and remaining trim that has to wait until that is done. I'll probably start running insulation on the inside this weekend as I can manage that without him. It will be good to have a place to work finally, although we put in a window that directly overlooks the pool, right over where my desk will be built, so I'm not so sure how effective my work ethic will be in the new space. You can also see the new fence/gate we built on the side, where they took our fence down to get their equipment in. We knew we wanted to go back with a gate so we had them tear it all down, but we had to hurry up and build it because of our escape artist doggy.

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Finally a little panorama view that makes my pool look tiny. As bad as I thought it was, they did fill in all the trenches and grade a little bit around the pool. They removed most of the trash from the fall in too, but left another trench for my autofill line. I'm also not sure about how they are going to run the electric yet, as I've still not seen sight nor sound of an electrician. Still its better, a mud pit but better. I do have stub outs behind the building for the equipment pad, but I didn't feel like walking out there with a camera so pics will have to wait till next time.

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There's no point worrying about the state of the back yard until they've run the deck and pathway. But we are looking into all sorts of remedies. Maybe planting grass plugs - we don't usually get any frost until January around here, so we could feasibly do plugs where we can, and maybe some rye to cover in the mean time. We have areas under a tree that we struggle to grow anything too, so I'm trying to convince husband that a mulch bed/path would be better - he is arguing that we'll have no grass for the dogs left. Yeah, no grass, which is why there's still 5000sf that needs to be planted. He must love to mow or something. I don't quite know what grass he thinks has ever grown there, so I'm probably just going to go ahead and do that myself while he's offshore. Mainly because I'm the one who has to mop 3 times a day to get rid of the muddy paw prints, which I consider gives me veto powers over his whining.
 
I'm going with the rye grass this fall with about 2 pallets of St. Augustine grass in the spring to recover my back yard. It's dishearting to see your back yard so tore up but it will recover. It just takes some time to fix it back. Well when we start getting some cool fronts in late Sept and Oct in Louisiana, you will have many sunny days for work to be done. Good luck with the rest of your build!
 
Ive planted rye grass here in N. Louisiana and it has stayed super green all winter. There is one variety that grows only to about 4" long. It seems the colder it gets the more it likes it. Sorta strange to see green grass and snow. The only downside is that rye grass will die off about May when the temps get over 90ish. One bonus for right now will be the fact that it will keep the mud down this winter and the house floors cleaner...
 
I've been thinking about the same thing. We just broke ground yesterday, and the rest of my yard is Tifway Bermuda, which is only available in sod. So I will probably seed with Rye when we are all done to tide us over until spring when we can put out new sod.

I definitely feel your pain biker! I take great pride in my green lawn, and watching an excavator and dump truck on it yesterday was a little tough to watch!
 
Than annual rye grass i can get here will die back if it is cut closer than one inch long. The perennial is the one that grows about 4" long and ive cut it real short and it grew back.
If you are going to resod, the annual would be the better choice due to this factor. I have not been able to plant both summer grass and rye grass and have them both come up with a green lawn year round. I tried two years in a row at diffrent seasons (late summer/early fall, later winter/early spring).
 
I had a meander around home depot earlier, they have huge bags of annual rye there for $40, supposed to cover up to 20,000 sf. Sounds perfect! Then we'd have until early spring to decide what to do/save up for sod, which might be the best plan of all. Once the path and deck are poured we can edge off for the bed areas. In the mean time I picked up some weed and feed. There is a reason our grass sucked to begin with, and its probably because we've never taken care of it. Well, I'm fed up of it being last on the honey-do list. So I'm doing our front yard and what is left of any grass in the back today.

Oh and my PB called, apparently they are coming to start on the coping tomorrow and starting waterline tile Friday. And I picked my stone for the spa surround. Its a travertine ledger stone in panels. It should look nice with the travertine coping. Yay. I'm about ready for the prettying up to to start.
 
Rye grass is a fine leafed grass, and will do very well even in less than ideal soil conditions. Just make sure you water very often after seeding and during sprouting stage.
I planted mine quite thick and loved the feel of it along with keeping water erosion at bay around my yard.
 

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