Wow! I too live in MA -- about 30 minutes west of Boston (MetroWest). My husband and I are seriously thinking about putting in a pool and we've met with the usual suspects -- Surfside, Andrews, South Shore, Ferrari and Environmental. I'm wondering who you're using and how happy you are with the work they're doing.
Getting closer now ... yesterday they were out and finshed the trenching and buried conduit for the new lights (plus two extra conduits I threw in for some later landscape lighting / outdoor speakers), and did most of the final deck grading.
Talked to the project manager, and they may actually flip-flop and do the scratch-coat and then get ready to plaster/pebble next. Typically they do that after all the decking is done, but since we're getting a little later in the season they may swap the order of the last steps and get the water in sooner so we don't push off our closing too much later.
We've been debating whether to add Shimmering Sea and/or Luminous Beads to our Blue Surf PebbleSheen finish, but I think at this point we're probably going to go with the shells. Probably need to decide on Monday. And then I need to make sure I've got all the chemicals I need to do the initial balance. I've been maintaining the pool for the last year-and-a-half, but never had to do an initial balance myself. Any guidance as to how much of each of the chemicals to have on-hand? Or is there a wide variation in the water you can get? (we're having it trucked in)
Anyway, here are the pics:
Deck mostly graded:
Conduit in the trench before back-filling (new pool lights, future landscape lighting, speakers):
Here's where the junction box will go for the new lights (3 for the new light niches, 1 for the feed back to the panel):
And a video of the light trenching and the deck grading:
Water trucked in is really no different...........there will be NO CYA so you know you need it. You can get it at walmart or lowes.
Chlorine/bleach-Pool store if there is one close that sells liquid chlorine. You might have to put a deposit down on their jugs. I get mine from Ace Hardware. Walmart's Greater Value at 8.25% is a good buy for some.
I am going to share some links to have you look over and see what is what......
Thanks - I've been maintaining my chemistry as per the web site here since we moved in (beginning of last season), so I'm basically familiar with the chemicals / process. So I guess it's more of a question about what's different for that initial balance than the ongoing tweaking. I've always started with something that's pretty close to normal, and then just maintained it / maked minor adjustments. I guess what I'm mainly trying to figure out is if I will need a large amount of any particular chemical. I have the normal places I go (Lowes / HD / Walmart / Costco) for the various chemicals, but it seems like half the time I go for something they are out of stock of that particular chemical - and up here in New England I think there are less people with pools, and it's also close to end of season - so I'm trying to avoid a last minute panic to find something I need...
So no CYA is good to know. I assume FC is close to zero too, but a little bleach will fix that. How about pH, TA, calcium? Any guesses as to what I can expect to see with my new water? And I believe the calcium interacts in some way with the new plaster, so not sure about how to take that into account.
And my PB suggested since we're going to close ~30 days after water that I just wait on adding salt until the spring. Does that make sense?
Unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to get a sample - I'll be happy if I can get the water delivery arranged for the right day...
You mentioned MA for pH - does that mean you think I'll only need to lower it? In the past I've always had the pH drift up, but never down (which is typical I believe with SWG pools). I've got 3 gallons of MA - hopefully that will be enough to get things started....
Here is a link that will help you I bet. PLEASE note that your PB is who has the finial say in what you do for start up as HE is holding the warranty card!
I wanted to share it so you have some idea of what will happen. Note where it talks about PH going up for quite a while due to the plaster curing.
3 Gallons of MA is no where near enough. My pool was plastered a little over 1 month ago. I fought constant PH rise almost the entire time. It's been a little over a week that my PH has leveled off and no longer requires daily MA.
Your pool is close in size to mine. I easily used 1/2 gallon a day to maintain a normal PH level.
I'd say your going to need close to 15 gallons of MA.
Other chemical consumption is same as normal.
Pick up some extra R-0013 CYA reagent. I purchased the large 8oz bottles from tftestkits.net. Your going to need a bunch of it to get your CYA in check.
Thanks Spool. I just got a new CYA reagent a couple months back, so I was hoping that would get me through. Maybe not though... Did you go through more than one bottle?
Also, in plugging in some of the chemical amounts into PoolMath - I'm gonna need a lot. For CYA, to get me to 80 I might need up to 15 x 4lb jugs. Same for MA it looks like - I see now in the "plaster startup" page they recommend 3.5 gallons per 10K gallons of fill. Is there any better place to buy those kinds of things in bulk as opposed to WalMart / Lowes / HomeDepot?
Cleaned out Lowes last night of their CYA and MA (well, not all of the MA, but a fair amount....). Posted this in another thread, but in case anyone here knows ... our PB gave me startup instructions, and it's pretty much the same as the NPC startup card, but they explicitly say in there not to brush pebbletec or pebblesheen finishes. This seems to contradict what I've seen here on the forum and elsewhere online. Any reason why I wouldn't want to brush the pebblesheen finish? (other than that it's a pain in the *** to do).
Anyway, last week we also got a big honkin' new gas meter. We're adding a firepit in the back yard with a modest 90K BTU load, but when the plumber was out to quote the work he noted that we had a meter that could only supply 250K BTUs. With our pool heater (400K), NG generator (~300K), plus all the inside appliances we were up over 1M BTUs of potential load, so *WAY* over the meter capacity. Started the process with the gas company back in May, and they just finally got out to do the work. Turned out that the 1/2" gas line from the street could only supply 750K BTUs, we we had to pay $1500 for a line upgrade as well (and got a nice torn up lawn to show for it). So now we have a full 1.5M BTUs of capacity coming into the house. Plenty for now, plus we're looking at adding an outdoor kitchen - hopefully in the spring once the wallet recovers from the pool/deck/landscaping work.
Yesterday was scratch-coating on the interior. No work today it looks like, but they should be in Wed/Thu/Fri to hopefully bang out the deck installation, and then Pebble Tue next week. Getting close to the end game...
Here's the new gas meter - big old 2-inch pipes coming off the monster meter:
Well, we do recycle our cans and bottles, so I like to think we're doing our part .
Luckily we don't use that much gas at all typically - we rarely heat the pool and the generator obviously only kicks on when we lose power. But with that said, we're definitely at the high-end of the usage spectrum. Let's just say whenever I get those monthly "see how your energy consumption compares to your neighbors" mailings from the Utility Company here I've stopped even opening them........
Concrete for the diving board and pool anchors behind the raised wall poured, and decking has begun to be laid out. Starting to look like a pool deck again!
It looks great. We weren't told you can't vacuum for 30 days. Interesting. Kadison did a nice job but we do have some streaking on the deep end. I was told there can be variation in the color sometimes and it could be calcium coming through while everything is settling in. We are brushing daily and hoping it changes. I totally trust the pool company to make good on anything so not worried. Just want them to take another look and stay on top of it. Hard to open just to close, but my kids have been in almost daily since opening. I've made it in twice Hope the pebble goes well next week!
I don't remember the exact thickness (I want to say 6" or 8"?) - the diving board mfg had a recommended pad size, but because the length of the pad (i.e. the dimension going away from the pool) would have extended out beyond our decking they made it thicker than the recommended size - basically I think it's just a matter of getting enough weight to counter the stress from the board.
That guy is actually the company owner - he's not typically "working" on the job site, but comes out from time to time to check on things, etc. He was actually up on a ladder picking apples (it's that time of year up here), and the ladder gave out and he twisted his ankle when he landed. ouch.
The accent strip is looking nice - we weren't sure how it would end up. But it seems to bring out a similar contrast to the waterline tile / coping, so it seems like it was a good choice....
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