Thanks for the tip about Coolaroo, Readyforapool. I hadn't thought about putting a shade fabric overhead, as the depth of the pergola really won't be such that you can really "sit under" it all too well - the projection may only be about four feet once we figure out how to engineer it. But that got me thinking about how I cling to our little 2' projection of our porch roof when the sun is at some angles, and I do use the shade there so I now think a shade cloth is a great idea. I've been trying to think of something really durable for the outdoor curtains, have thought about making my own, using extra long cloth shower curtains, etc, but thinking that shade fabric might be just the ticket. I'm going to look at some greenhouse sources, too, it looks like the same type of cloth used to shade greenhouses so will shop around a little if I'm just getting the yardage and making my own.
bmoreswim, I went back to your thread and read up on the drainage issue. It's funny how you read something one time but don't really assimilate it until it applies to you and you go back to re-read! Right now, I am leaning toward risking it with the round drains since I think we will need drainage on three sides of the pool - the two sides adjacent to the retaining wall and the side closest to the house - and the channel drains will be very prominent with so many. It sounds like if the round drains do not work, you can bet I'll be directing him to your thread of how to retrofit the channel drain! Previously we didn't have any deck drainage but the whole deck was poured with a very slight slope towards my driveway to channel runoff down the drive (we are up on a slight hill, the house is maybe 3' higher elevation than the street), a plan which worked well once water actually reached drive except for the tendency for the water to not go obediently down the driveway and instead follow the terrain right into my neighbor's side yard. My neighbor had to add a French drain to the side yard because the water was infiltrating his in-slab ductwork. The times we had the pool actually flood was when we had something like 7-14 inches of rain in a matter of less than 24 hours, sometimes even in one evening. Gully washers!
We'll be adding a rain barrel or several to capture our waste water from backwashing the filter, too (another thing that flooded the neighbor's yard). Evidently, the previous owner had the backwash hose directed into the sewer with the manhole lid tilted (ha ha, I had a different CLEAN word there but it got bleeped out) at an unsafe position. It seemed dangerous, was sometimes kinda smelly - and potentially a mosquito bonanza - so we pulled it out and closed the manhole cover up. Later I found out that in my area you are supposed to backwash into the sewer because we are near a creek and they don't want the water to go in the creek. I'd asked my dad, and when he had a pool in the 90s the rule was to run it out to the street so that is what we had been doing, after directing it to our own yard to try to get some use from the water as landscape irrigation - then the runoff from that went into the street. Last year wasn't so bad but we've had some terrible droughts off and on, so, we want to direct the water into rain barrels and use for irrigation. We added rain barrels to our gutters last year and are really excited about them. My next step is going to be adding a small pump to the rain barrels to power my drip irrigation of my ornamental landscaping. I'm not quite ready to use the pool water for my edibles, though.
Brushpup, the pour-a-lid is a contraption that disguises various components in the deck. For our poured concrete deck, we will have the same concrete as our deck has poured in the lid, and it replaces the regular plastic lids you might see in the deck for a skimmer/drain cover. You can use them with pavers and whatnot, too, to keep the deck pattern continuous. The trade off is they will be somewhat heavier than a traditional skimmer lid, as it is filled with a few inches of concrete, but I like how they look and were an upgrade I'd asked for. Let me see if I can link ... http://stetsondevelopment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2
bmoreswim, I went back to your thread and read up on the drainage issue. It's funny how you read something one time but don't really assimilate it until it applies to you and you go back to re-read! Right now, I am leaning toward risking it with the round drains since I think we will need drainage on three sides of the pool - the two sides adjacent to the retaining wall and the side closest to the house - and the channel drains will be very prominent with so many. It sounds like if the round drains do not work, you can bet I'll be directing him to your thread of how to retrofit the channel drain! Previously we didn't have any deck drainage but the whole deck was poured with a very slight slope towards my driveway to channel runoff down the drive (we are up on a slight hill, the house is maybe 3' higher elevation than the street), a plan which worked well once water actually reached drive except for the tendency for the water to not go obediently down the driveway and instead follow the terrain right into my neighbor's side yard. My neighbor had to add a French drain to the side yard because the water was infiltrating his in-slab ductwork. The times we had the pool actually flood was when we had something like 7-14 inches of rain in a matter of less than 24 hours, sometimes even in one evening. Gully washers!
We'll be adding a rain barrel or several to capture our waste water from backwashing the filter, too (another thing that flooded the neighbor's yard). Evidently, the previous owner had the backwash hose directed into the sewer with the manhole lid tilted (ha ha, I had a different CLEAN word there but it got bleeped out) at an unsafe position. It seemed dangerous, was sometimes kinda smelly - and potentially a mosquito bonanza - so we pulled it out and closed the manhole cover up. Later I found out that in my area you are supposed to backwash into the sewer because we are near a creek and they don't want the water to go in the creek. I'd asked my dad, and when he had a pool in the 90s the rule was to run it out to the street so that is what we had been doing, after directing it to our own yard to try to get some use from the water as landscape irrigation - then the runoff from that went into the street. Last year wasn't so bad but we've had some terrible droughts off and on, so, we want to direct the water into rain barrels and use for irrigation. We added rain barrels to our gutters last year and are really excited about them. My next step is going to be adding a small pump to the rain barrels to power my drip irrigation of my ornamental landscaping. I'm not quite ready to use the pool water for my edibles, though.
Brushpup, the pour-a-lid is a contraption that disguises various components in the deck. For our poured concrete deck, we will have the same concrete as our deck has poured in the lid, and it replaces the regular plastic lids you might see in the deck for a skimmer/drain cover. You can use them with pavers and whatnot, too, to keep the deck pattern continuous. The trade off is they will be somewhat heavier than a traditional skimmer lid, as it is filled with a few inches of concrete, but I like how they look and were an upgrade I'd asked for. Let me see if I can link ... http://stetsondevelopment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2
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