Yet another Texas pool build!

Good for you to be on top of all that. It sounds like you're doing as much as you can to protect yourself. Bravo! (although sad that it has to come down to this.)

The owner contacted me and explained it better to me. He basically said that they were holding payments for other jobs the same subs were working on. Mine were paid in full. I feel kinda bad for pointing out this as a lie but I still feel like I have been lied to and they are acting shady. I am still waiting to see if they get a lien release from the paver guy. We shall see.

I'm sorry this is continuing to drag on! Praying this gets wrapped up soon and that the plumbing inspection goes well without any additional headache or heartache for you.

I am hoping so too!

Why, oh why do people lie? They WILL get caught in it AND it makes them look even worse than before and that is hard to do with this company!

Kim

Well it seems like they have a good explanation for this one and I might have misunderstood. When I asked for clarification they never emailed me back. Then I sent a rant email to the owner explaining why I thought they lied he explained it better about the liens. I am still waiting for a couple more we shall see. I feel better knowing that most of the high cost subs have been paid.

I found out that the pool start up guy added way too much salt to my pool. I tested and am getting about 4600 and the salt cell is reporting 4.6 which is about the same as my test. The ideal range for my SWG is 3000-3400 or something like that. I know I need to drain and fill eventually but my question is can I get away with leaving it like this until spring? Right now my utility is doing water averaging so I don't want to have to add 8k gallons on my bill if I don't have to. The SWG isn't working now anyway because the water temp is too low. Will having the salt this high damage anything until spring? I am guessing rain won't dilute it I have to pump water out.
 
Oh and I have to say I was out with the pool for awhile today and I absolutely love the pool...

I really like the end product and can't wait for swim season. I just hope that they don't have to tear up too much for the inspection process.
 
Umm, are the beads broadcast or are the mixed in? I'm thinking mixed in but thought I'd check. How many bags did you get or do you know the bag/sf ratio?

They are added in with the pebble when they mix the plaster. Then after they put the plaster In the shell they do a rinse and expose the pebble and glass at the same time. I think they said it is a 1 bag of glass for every three or four bags of pebble. Sorry I don't know how many bags total I think it is more of a percentage thing.
 
Hey man,

That all sucks.

As far as the plumbing inspection, even if you didn't have a hose bib attachment the city would require an inspection. They don't care about the plumbing of your pool. They only care about the part that connects to the house. They want to see if there's any risk of backflow with the entry point of the autofill (ie. It is above the coping). The worst that can happen I think is that you have to add in a backflow preventer. They should not need to tear up your yard or anything.
 
Hey man,

That all sucks.

As far as the plumbing inspection, even if you didn't have a hose bib attachment the city would require an inspection. They don't care about the plumbing of your pool. They only care about the part that connects to the house. They want to see if there's any risk of backflow with the entry point of the autofill (ie. It is above the coping). The worst that can happen I think is that you have to add in a backflow preventer. They should not need to tear up your yard or anything.

I agree. They didn't even pull the permit. I don't have an autofill because the city is really funny about it. I do have a manual fill (there is a valve at the equipment pad that turns on the water that comes out at the pool. They tied into my irrigation line and split it. One part goes to the hose bib and the other goes into the pool. The outlet for the pool is behind a big builder probably a foot above the water line. They originally didn't want to hook to irrigation line and wanted to hook to a hose bib on the house. The hose bib on the house is way up on my deck and it would have caused a trip hazard and a lot of exposed pipe which would have been a freeze issue. After lots of calls to the city they realized they can tie to my irrigation line as long as the hose bib was some how identified as non-potable water (the handle has to be pink I think) and the outlet to the pool has to be at least 2" above the water line. I could not get a autofill unless I installed an RPZ which is a nightmare because they require yearly city inspections.

My irrigation system is already on a backflow preventer so hopefully it covers it.

I just spoke to someone at the pool company today and the plumber is pulling the permit right now and then they are calling for the inspection.
 
I agree. They didn't even pull the permit. I don't have an autofill because the city is really funny about it. I do have a manual fill (there is a valve at the equipment pad that turns on the water that comes out at the pool. They tied into my irrigation line and split it. One part goes to the hose bib and the other goes into the pool. The outlet for the pool is behind a big builder probably a foot above the water line. They originally didn't want to hook to irrigation line and wanted to hook to a hose bib on the house. The hose bib on the house is way up on my deck and it would have caused a trip hazard and a lot of exposed pipe which would have been a freeze issue. After lots of calls to the city they realized they can tie to my irrigation line as long as the hose bib was some how identified as non-potable water (the handle has to be pink I think) and the outlet to the pool has to be at least 2" above the water line. I could not get a autofill unless I installed an RPZ which is a nightmare because they require yearly city inspections.

My irrigation system is already on a backflow preventer so hopefully it covers it.

I just spoke to someone at the pool company today and the plumber is pulling the permit right now and then they are calling for the inspection.

I do remember reading about all that on your thread. Note that my inspector told me that I couldn't hook up an autofill line to the irrigation system. It's so stupid. It's right there and it already has a backflow preventer. In any case I preplumbed mine so that I can hook it up to irrigation line after final inspection.

When I asked if I needed plumbing inspection, he said you'll need one no matter what because they want to see how you're going to be filling the pool. With mine, my plumber wasn't licensed (even though he's been doing it for 30 years and is known to be the best in Austin), so I had to pull my plumbing permit as the homeowner - getting a permit took me almost 3 hours! It seems that a lot of pool plumbers are not licensed plumbers. They only need to be if they're doing gas, in which case they call their buddy.
 

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I do remember reading about all that on your thread. Note that my inspector told me that I couldn't hook up an autofill line to the irrigation system. It's so stupid. It's right there and it already has a backflow preventer. In any case I preplumbed mine so that I can hook it up to irrigation line after final inspection.

When I asked if I needed plumbing inspection, he said you'll need one no matter what because they want to see how you're going to be filling the pool. With mine, my plumber wasn't licensed (even though he's been doing it for 30 years and is known to be the best in Austin), so I had to pull my plumbing permit as the homeowner - getting a permit took me almost 3 hours! It seems that a lot of pool plumbers are not licensed plumbers. They only need to be if they're doing gas, in which case they call their buddy.

I agree it is pretty crazy about the autofill on the irrigation line. The problem is the RPZ. The crazier part is my neighbor had one and the first year it froze and sprung a leak. He cut the PVC around it and patched it and took the RPZ out completely. The city the following year contacted him and told him he needed to have an inspection on it and he told them truth and said he removed it. They asked for proof so he sent them a picture of the pipe patched without the RPZ and they took him off the list! They didn't care he removed it at all. The darn things cost $600 and then you have to pay a licensed master plumber to put it in (same requirement for a gas line).

Anyway I have the same thing as you (don't tell anyone shhhh....). I have extra pipe where my valve is to turn on the fill. Then I have a pipe to put an electronic sensor so I can put in one of the electronic auto fills later. We'll see how much I actually need to fill the pool. It might not be an issue. I was mainly worried about vacations and such but my pool is holding its level pretty well during winter and another guy here on TFP in Austin just sticks a hose in his pool when he leaves and puts the hose on a timer. That might work for less money.
 
Another update...

Well the plumbing inspection happened and it passed right away. So all that pain about the irrigation line and the fill were pretty much a non issue.

The electric inspection failed due to our hand rail not being bonded. Thankfully I was there Friday because the inspector showed up, unannounced to me, and started looking around. I asked how stuff was and he was asking about the bond wire. I explained that my yard had already been torn up a couple months ago so the previous inspector could see it. He thankfully accepted that because he was going to require it again. But he said he was failing me for the hand rail. Turns out any metal within 5' of the pool has to be bonded. My main concern was how we were going to run the bond wire so it didn't look like a hack. Well thankfully one of the caps for the hand rail was sitting over the grout line that ran between the coping and the deck pavers. They chipped that grout out and ran a wire under the cap to the gap and between the wall to the ground. When they grout it back in you won't see the wire thankfully. They also had to dig up the yard again to tie that ground wire into the one running around the pool. That is done and we passed electric. All we have left now is building final which had to be delayed because I am out of the country. Hopefully next week...

Guess where I am at...
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I was thinking about you just the other day..........."where has ummmmm been? I have not seen him on the board for a while." Nice to see you again no matter where you are.

Thankfully the wire could be run with out being hacked :( Too bad they did not do that right the first time. Oh wait it IS your pool so..........LOL

Kim
 
Hey Umm! I'm happy to hear it was an easy (ish) fix! Good thing you were there!

my guess...Paris or Versailles?

Nope... It's a famous gate...

- - - Updated - - -

I was thinking about you just the other day..........."where has ummmmm been? I have not seen him on the board for a while." Nice to see you again no matter where you are.

Thankfully the wire could be run with out being hacked :( Too bad they did not do that right the first time. Oh wait it IS your pool so..........LOL

Kim

Isn't that the truth! It is to the point where I don't even reach anymore. I just tell them how to fix it.
 

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