New Fiberglass Pool - Iowa

Newdude said:

Hey Kev and belated Welcome !! My old man spent a few years working at Rock Island and enjoying your general area. I like you already.

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That’s right across the river! Lived here my whole life. 2.5 hours west of Chicago, right in the Mississippi.

Day 2 done.

Pool was dropped in the hole by 8:30 am. It took about 45 minutes for us to maneuver between the houses and trees. I held one side of the pool, his brother the other. It was pretty incredible to see him maneuver it. He had to lay it on the ground and drag with the back-ho to get it under the tree, then lift and place. The slope of the yard was really noticeable at this point when the pool was leveled. They dug the trench from the pool to the pad with the excavator and then spent the rest of the day connecting the pipes, backfilling and filling with water.

The electrician came by to install the equipment (I thought) but he was looking through everything and said it will be a day job. He said he is going to pull a guy from another job to get over and hook everything up tomorrow which was incredibly nice. I would have gotten a hold of him last week if I knew the complexity of the hookup, I was under the impression it was a 30 minute job....

Landscape and concrete guy came buy to check it out, this is their first time doing a bond beam and paver coping. Around here there are 4 pool companies that do all the pools and it comes with a standard 4 foot cement decking, so no one ever does this part. Pool builder showed the concrete guy what to do, he has the engineering photos. Landscape guy saw that there is a little more slope than he anticipated so is figuring out how/where he will have to build a retaining wall. Everything is moving, just learning things every day.

Also learned that my time lapse interval of 5 min was way too long. 2 days of work done in a minute....I've updated to 30 seconds.

Well, that's a wrap. Took him 3 days, really impressive. The electricians are completing the hookups today and the plumber in the next few days. Landscapers should be able to start going next week.

When you go through Leisure, there are 5 different installers apparently and I could have gotten any of them. Fortunately I got Jake Wilson. Jake is his own business, Nationwide Fiberglass and Installs. To insure you get him, you need to reach out to him directly and then he will refer you into the Leisure system. Feel free to send me a message and I'll get you his cell.

City inspectors have given me some headaches, fiberglass isn't common around here so the idea of filling before the bonding or final inspection threw them. They adapted and let me go through but not without a few stressful moments. Inspector no showed for the first inspection because Electrical hadn't been passed. We were at a crossroads, because I can't have more than 24 inches of water in the pool without a barrier inspection. My electrician, pool builder, and buddy who builds homes told me to fill the "f*er" because there is nothing for the electrical inspector to review because he hasn't done any work yet and I only have the installer for the week, so we did. The electrician called the electrical inspector at that point, who told the other inspector to move forward. The second day, the building inspector called me in the morning and said his supervisor said he could do the barrier inspection before the electrical but when he arrived he got all worked up because my deck fence didn't qualify as a barrier (Needed to be 40 inches higher than a foothold, mine was 36. It's 5 foot high, but the deck platform is 2 feet off the ground). He said he was going to call the fire department to pump the pool, so I had to get his supervisor on the phone and she understood and talked him down. You can see in the picture that I have now added 5 inches to satisfy that requirement until I come up with a permanent solution. I was told that I got the worst inspector and that the others wouldn't have been so resistant, so hopefully your city has someone more open minded. But in the end, level heads prevailed and it still got done.

If I do this a second time, boy would I be a pro, but hopefully that never happens!

gingrbredman said:

Man, those are some stressful moments for sure!


Seriously?!? We had our share of permitting and inspector issues during our FB build, but wow, going to call the FD to pump the pool is a new one!

Despite all the headaches, you have to be happy with where you are at now. Looking good!

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Yeah, caught me off guard! I heard he was a d***, but when I was going through our showdown in my head, I never considered that.
Oh hands down, it honestly wasn’t that bad. Just 2 days of apprehension which I’ll take any day. Nothing good comes easy, right!?

Newdude said:

I’d be shocked if the FD would do it in this day and age. It’s all a liability and lawyers rule the world. Our local FDs no longer rescue kittens in trees, fill pools or spray off the ponds when they are frozen to make better skating the next day. They would love to being local people in their communities. They simply aren’t allowed to.

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Yeah I can see that.
He just said, if a kid gets in there, they sue you and then they sue the city since we knew about it and didn’t do anything. After he said that, I thought this guy might have a leg to stand on if he called the fire department. Good thing it didn’t get there.

avenger_chicago said:

Pool looks great! Love the color and configuration. I’m a grey guy myself.

Mark

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Thanks, we were between their graphite and silver grey. I wanted the lighter that held the bright blue in the sun but you can only do so much looking at peoples photos! You just don’t know what color you are going to get until it arrives. We were relieved that it was what we were hoping for. You have a grey pool too?

After a brief pause in the action, they are back and running. Bond beam was installed last week. Landscapers arrive today and will complete the bond beam. My electrician has everything wired up, except he’s missing a 20 amp breaker and can’t find it anywhere....supply chain is stretched to the limit.

I haven’t been able to run my filter/ pump/salt chlorinator without the breaker so have just had a chlorine floater in the meantime. Came back from Memorial Day weekend in saint Louis and my pool was green. Had to shock it and have my little robot vacuum running all the time, acting as my filter. I’ve got a lot more chlorine in now so it shouldn’t go green again I hope.
Learn something everyday!
Kevin

avenger_chicago said:

You’re right. You can’t know for sure. We have a grey pool (with some black speckles) from Latham. You can see my build thread and pics here:

New Construction (fiberglass) - Chicago, city proper

Good morning, currently under construction in Chicago. I wish I had found this site before signing a contract, but looking forward to getting advice from this point forward. We decided on an inground fiberglasss pool due to maintenance concerns, climate, and finally budget. We got three bids...

www.troublefreepool.com

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Hey avenger, noticed my reply didn’t go through. That is a sweet setup. Chicago is my favorite city, can’t imagine a pool install in those tight corridors. I like the finished wood covering up the equipment, I’m hoping to do something like that. Also want to do wood like that to cover up the vinyl siding on the back of my garage. Mix some Wrigley ivy in there