New Pool Build - Austin, TX

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Those are prefabbed slabs used for A/C units, etc. I have one under my A/C and it hasn't moved or cracked for over 5 years use with lots of vibration. You are probably fine, they are reinforced.

[Your mileage may vary, 4 out of 5 dentists agree, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear, standard terms and conditions apply,....]
 
They appear to have left the grass in place (bad idea) and then shoveled some loose dirt and rocks not even to the dimensions of the pre-fab slab (another bad idea) then dropped the pre-fab slab in place.
The grass will decompose and cause whole thing to subside a little.
The loose fill will settle.
The rain will erode around slab.
This means all your equipment will drop an inch ir so.
Meanwhile your pipes will stay exactly where they are.
I think you see where I am going with this.

Seems the sub responsible for setting it was looking to get in and out as quick as he could.
 
A couple more weeks have gone by and we've had some progress. It feels as though one "big" thing happens every week. Just like building our house, the closer you get to completion the longer it seems to take. In any case, things have been going reasonably well. We had a slight hiccup at one point with the circular area of our decking - our plan is to put a pergola/pavilion there in a few months, so we paid the PB for footers. We were very specific and wanted to ensure the circular area would support a 12'x12' pavilion. When the forms went down it appeared that we had a 12'x9' area - our designer had measured it from the coping of the pool (argh!) In any case, a few calls with our construction manager later we had everything sorted out. Thankfully our to-be prefab pavilion only needs 109" (~9') between posts, so it will "fit." We were impressed with the responsiveness of the construction manager, who was willing to rip out the forms they had done and re-do it if we made the request. He basically said, "we'll do whatever you need us to do to get the pool you want." Considering all of the horror stories I've read in here, it's nice to see that (thus far) our PB - Anthony & Sylvan - has been treating us right.

Some photos of the progress:

Deck forms, part 1:



Forming, part 2:


Close-up of forms in the "circular area". One of the conduits is for power, the other is for water. When we build the pavilion we want to put in one of those hydro-mist fans and it'll be easier if water is already stubbed out there:


Deck has been poured:


Pour view 2:


View from 2nd floor:


Another top-down view:
 
We requested (and got) permission from our HoA to use the access road. When they came to dig, the backhoe and dump truck pulled right into our yard and started at about 730am. As one dump truck would will with dirt another would pull right up into the yard. The jackhammer lay forgotten in a corner of our yard, completely unused. The dig crew was done by about 3pm and we had a nice big pool-sized hole. Every crew / truck that has come since has used the access road - it's been tremendously convenient. Makes me wish I had argued the cost down a bit more - that access road has saved the crews a TON of manual labor.

At the end of the day you just have to realize that you're willing to pay $xxx for a pool, that's what you're getting and you need to be content with it. We are so far!

There's a little Anthony & Sylvan sign in our front yard. I don't think any crews have gone up or down our side yards, so our neighbors keep asking us, "are you having a pool put in?" You can't tell anything from the front.
 
Just click on the username and it will bring up a drop down list with Private message as one of the options. This type of information exchange is best conducted through pm. Zea3

Hey Smartpants,

I live in Austin and am just starting to interview pool builders. So far, I like Anthony and Sylvan. Could you share with me the various bids you got (I can't figure out how to private message on here)? I've also thought about doing the build your own route. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy
 

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More progress to report. KoolCote was applied this week to the decking. More exciting than that was the plaster that occurred yesterday! It's actually looking like a useable pool at this point!

As I type this, there is a team working on acid washing (I think) the plaster that was installed yesterday. I believe I'll be starting to fill the pool with water today - woot!

Pictures to enjoy:





We really like how the spa area turned out:



Much as we would have loved to go with one of those deep blues it just didn't make enough financial sense to do so. So...white pebble-tec!




 
It's been a couple of weeks. We are still waiting on one item from PB - we requested water be stubbed out to our decking area for a pergola / misting fan at some point in the future (once our savings starts to grow again!) That being said, we've been swimming for a couple of weeks now. We were told that we can't use the spa for 4 weeks while the plaster cures and we can't start the salt system until 6 weeks. Neither of those is stopping us from swimming though!

I'll try to remember to get some better pictures.

 

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