Recent content by travis.j.berry

(Semi-)Final Report All in all I'm glad we did it (obviously), and there's still plenty to do: - Fire Bowls have a long lead time and are due July 18th - Fence needs to be installed (we still have young ones, clearly) - Lots of landscaping But wow, this has made summer in Arizona so much...

5/30/18 to 5/31/18 - Fill and Startup Very exciting! Took about 11 hours to fill with two hoses. The BIL came over to help with startup and getting chems balanced. The kids did great but it was clear the waiting was brutal for them! - - - Updated - - - 6/1/18 - First...

5/29/18 to 5/30/18 - Interior Finish and Acid Wash We went back and forth a lot about interior finish brand and color. We wanted a light "aquamarine" color, and not something too blue. We had initially chosen Wet Edge Kaleidoscope, until we were quoted a price... Once sticker shock wore off...

5/25/18 - Final Inspection I took the day off of work to make sure I was here for Final. I wanted to be ready to answer any questions, to make sure the inspector was enforcing the codes appropriately, and defend whatever I might need to defend........ Inspector pulls up in his truck, leaves...

5/21/18 to 5/23/18 - Cleanup, Accent Tile, Headset Wow what a difference cleanup makes. I wasnt expecting them to backfill my entire trunkline trench, but they knocked it out. Headset is, well, headset. Not very exciting. For accent tile, we just lined each "edge" with a double row. The...

Tile is NWAO653 from Noble Tile

5/19/18 - Coping, Deck, & Stone 2 With all the missing materials in hand, and the sheers and key valves set, we're ready to finish the hardscaping. Moment of truth... .. the columns start to come together!

5/14/18 - Columns and Key Valves and Sheers, Oh My! Yeah, the columns again. Electrician came to modify his conduit run , and plumber came to set the gas key valves and sheers (no good pics). The RBB wall caps, columns, and stone were are all set to be finished out next weekend... we'll see...

5/11/18 - Coping and Deck 1 All these contractors are just so darn busy this year and in general, scheduling has been tough. After finally getting scheduling worked out with my coping/deck/stone contractor, we're starting on the pretty stuff... The coping and deck were mostly complete after 2...

5/5/18 - Watering and Waterline The next few days was watering concrete, getting a head start on the summer tan, and Waterline Tile...

5/3/18 - Shotcrete Day It feels like it's all make or break right here, and I was incredibly anxious about the columns. Again, gas and electric need to finish together close in "some kind of channel" that I assume the shotcrete guys will know how to do... along with the forming around the...

4/25/18 - Pre-gunnite and Gas Inspection The inspector walked me through what he was looking at and was a generally nice guy. He looked at the electrical for proper bonding, measured water and gas pipe depths, took a lap or two around, measured my RBB wall clearance, and was done. Nothing was...

Yes, I'll be hiding the manifold with one of those fake ricks used for above ground back-flow preventers, and the valves will go in a couple of standard sprinkler valve boxes. Definitely want to have easy access to them once the area is backfilled.

4/24/18 - Electric 1, Notching Steel, and Modifying Plumbing for Sheers Initial electric installation was great, and the electrician was a helluva a great guy, very helpful. If anyone in the Phoenix metro area needs an electrician, I'd recommend Chris from Milligan Electric to anyone in a...

4/21/18 - Gas Even deeper we go for the gas line... further destroying my once perfect forms! At this point I'm worried, but I'm assured by my BIL that it will all come together in the end... This was the beginning of the most stressful part of the entire build... making sure everything...