30 May 2024 Big Day Today - Bigger Day Tomorrow! Plaster Time!!

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setsailsoon said:
Very helpful Alan thank you. Yes I noticed they did that for the house load list. I have a copy of that so I can create a similar spreadsheet showing VA loads the way you describe . The house has 400 amp feeder from the main Transformer near the street and two 200 amp panels inside the garage. I have a convenience Outlet located near the pool panel on the wall of the house but I could easily add one to the side of the box and power it through the sub panel if needed. Do you think the existing wall panel will be adequate or do I need to plan on adding one through the subpanel?

Thanks much for your help.
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The existing wall panel outlet should be fine.

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setsailsoon said:
Good points you make Dirk. The coping tile around the edge of the pool is supposed to be slip resistant. I may need to be very selective to make sure it really is. Yes this design is intended to have the pool full to the narrow drain insert around the three sides of the pool. A small amount of flow when the pool is circulating will be continuous so the coping tile should be wet all the time because I plan to run the pump 24/7 on low speed.

This kind of pool is designed so that the remainder of the deck is slightly higher than the pool itself. But any normal rain water from the deck will go into the channel drain around the edge of the pool and dump into the basin for the infinity edge. it's hard to see in the drawing but it is about 2 in wide outside the coping before the lighter colored paver tiles. Shows up as kind of a thick black line on the 3D rendering. I really like the look. Will be interesting to see if I like it after the pool is operating for a year or two.

Thanks much for your comments. At the very least I will need to be very careful with that coping tile selection. Definitely nothing slippery or shiny!

Chris
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OK, I better understand the coping now. One infinity edge, the the other three a sort of modified infinity edge. That's why it looks amazing, of course. Has the builder ever done this? Can he show you a pool like this? Can you talk to a pool owner with this type of edge? That might go a long way to feeling confident about it.

I understand now that the tile is supposed to be completely submerged. That might help with the calcium build up. But it will have to be constantly submerged. It will also have to be perfectly level to maintain that coverage with "A small amount of flow." If the edge is even slightly off, you'll need to run the pump higher, maybe much higher to maintain the edge. That would have been true of even a one-sided infinity edge, you'll in essence have a four-sided infinity edge. You might ask the builder about this expectation. Even flow over a 6' spa wall can be a problem in this regard, if not built perfectly level. Builders will hide a level defect by turning up the pump, causing more flow, which hides any dips. The owner then goes to turn down the flow some days or months later, to save some energy cost perhaps, only to learn that he can't because of the low spot the extra flow was hiding (we have threads about that here).

But there's more... I will add a #4. Coping generally hangs over the pool a few inches, with the water several inches below it. That arrangement is a pool's splash guard. It keeps a whole lot of water inside the pool during wave action. Without that raised lip, even gentle swimming will cause water to overflow the coping. Is that 2-inch "gutter" supposed to catch all that? Have you ever seen the wave action in a pool with even just two kids in it? This isn't a problem with an infinity edge, because of its catch basin. I imagine those are pretty wide for this reason. But two inches, and one that seems to look like it is level with the surface of the water, not below it? I don't see that retaining even a small wave.

Now this is all conjecture. I don't have an infinity edge, and have never even seen the type of edges you're planning. Again, if the builder has never built one, or I couldn't go and see one and/or "interview" someone that has one, I would be very nervous about how it was going to work under typical pool-use conditions. That edge might even be trouble for a non-swimming reflection pool of this size on a stormy day, but for typical pool activity, I'm not able to wrap my head around it... I think your deck will be completely soaked any time someone jumps into the pool. But unlike a true infinity edge, which reclaims and recirculates that type of spillage, three side of your pool will be spilling water that won't be reclaimed. Your pool will need to be constantly filling while even one person is active in it. Which will lower the level and then expose the tile to evaporation! If you had a even a small pool party with some rambunctious kids (or adults), I can't imagine how any amount of ongoing refilling would maintain the pool level where it's supposed to be.

I originally missed how your coping is supposed to work in my previous post. Am I still missing something?
 
Dirk said:
OK, I better understand the coping now. One infinity edge, the the other three a sort of modified infinity edge. That's why it looks amazing, of course. Has the builder ever done this? Can he show you a pool like this? Can you talk to a pool owner with this type of edge? That might go a long way to feeling confident about it.

I understand now that the tile is supposed to be completely submerged. That might help with the calcium build up. But it will have to be constantly submerged. It will also have to be perfectly level to maintain that coverage with "A small amount of flow." If the edge is even slightly off, you'll need to run the pump higher, maybe much higher to maintain the edge. That would have been true of even a one-sided infinity edge, you'll in essence have a four-sided infinity edge. You might ask the builder about this expectation. Even flow over a 6' spa wall can be a problem in this regard, if not built perfectly level. Builders will hide a level defect by turning up the pump, causing more flow, which hides any dips. The owner then goes to turn down the flow some days or months later, to save some energy cost perhaps, only to learn that he can't because of the low spot the extra flow was hiding (we have threads about that here).

But there's more... I will add a #4. Coping generally hangs over the pool a few inches, with the water several inches below it. That arrangement is a pool's splash guard. It keeps a whole lot of water inside the pool during wave action. Without that raised lip, even gentle swimming will cause water to overflow the coping. Is that 2-inch "gutter" supposed to catch all that? Have you ever seen the wave action in a pool with even just two kids in it? This isn't a problem with an infinity edge, because of its catch basin. I imagine those are pretty wide for this reason. But two inches, and one that seems to look like it is level with the surface of the water, not below it? I don't see that retaining even a small wave.

Now this is all conjecture. I don't have an infinity edge, and have never even seen the type of edges you're planning. Again, if the builder has never built one, or I couldn't go and see one and/or "interview" someone that has one, I would be very nervous about how it was going to work under typical pool-use conditions. That edge might even be trouble for a non-swimming reflection pool of this size on a stormy day, but for typical pool activity, I'm not able to wrap my head around it... I think your deck will be completely soaked any time someone jumps into the pool. But unlike a true infinity edge, which reclaims and recirculates that type of spillage, three side of your pool will be spilling water that won't be reclaimed. Your pool will need to be constantly filling while even one person is active in it. Which will lower the level and then expose the tile to evaporation! If you had a even a small pool party with some rambunctious kids (or adults), I can't imagine how any amount of ongoing refilling would maintain the pool level where it's supposed to be.

I originally missed how your coping is supposed to work in my previous post. Am I still missing something?
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Great questions Dirk. I built the house as an OB last year. And I'm building the pool. I had this concept from the first day I bought the pool. It is unusual but definitely not unique. Most people call it a zero edge and yes it is intended to be submerged. Many of your points are very valid and present a construction challenge. I think you may be missing there is a channel drain that is outside the sloped in coping. Water that slurps out drops into the channel and that is captured in a built in box on the infinity edge. It is piped from there directly down to the infinity basin. We have a LOT of pumping capacity, a little over 150 gpm with two 2.7 hp vs pumps. So when we have large groups we'll be running both pumps pretty fast... level control on the sump is pretty important aspect of control. Design becomes sort of comical. I never thought about how many gallons are in a person before! Turns out there's actually a lot of data about this. Each adult in about 16.5 gallons. If you assume a person enters in about 1 sec that's the equivalent to an instantaneous 960 gpm. While I was wrapping my head around that I cracked up when I started thinking about some of my lets say not thin friends. Fortunately their displacement results in a wave through the pool that increases the height over the channel drains and the infinity edge. If you look back at post 351 you'll see @JamesW did some of his wiz bang technical stuff that shows it doesn't take much increase in height over the edge to consume a lot of water. The calcs are all based on very well known fluid dynamics for weir design. So their pretty reliable... I used them 40 years ago when I was a design engineer at a chemical plant. I can't remember them hardly at all but James spits them out seemingly off the top of his head. Amazing!

I had a blast with the construction on the house and the design was kind of fun but nowhere near as much fun as the pool is. Your point about the tolerances for the levels required for this design is another reason I want to build this pool myself (build in my vernacular refers to construction manager not craftsman). This pool will not ever get built properly with an absentee builder. Precision tolerance concrete work is not easy to find anywhere. So I will be very careful to make sure the concrete finishing crew understands exactly what level means. They'll be using a Lazar level to erect the level markings and I'll check with my zip level (accurate to 1 mm/100') before any concrete leaves the truck. Then my plan is to "fine tune" with the tile work. I'd love to get ideas from our experts on controlling level. Closest thing I've ever done to this was some very large concrete barges that were built in a dry dock in China. Dimensional tolerance was tight but not this tight and they were built with slip forms. Each one was 60m x 20m x20m. I built 21 of them then floated them to a dock location in the South China Sea.

So bottom line is I've never built one of these before. But that applies to a lot of things I've built. Some day we'll have to start a thread maybe in that forum where weird conversations go on. There's definitely some risk on this project but if I can come close to that vision I have to see the view in that 3d rendering all the way through the house from the front door to the patio it will really make my day!

Thanks for your questions/comments and keep'em coming!

Chris
 
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OK, I think I got a picture of this, and yes, I understand that there is a channel drain running around the three sides. I can grasp the concept of the displacement, and how displaced water will need to be kept somewhere, and then pumped back into the pool rather quickly when people leave the water. I'm guessing that this is all standard stuff for an infinity edge. But that's not what I'm going on about.

Your channel on the other three sides, what I called a gutter, is 2" wide between the tile and the concrete deck, right? The toe-breaking hazard aside, what I'm wondering is how that relatively thin span of a channel, no matter how deep or how much water it can receive, is going to stop a wave going right over the top of it, bypassing it almost completely, and splashing the deck. That water will not be reclaimed by your pool plumbing and holding tanks, etc, it'll be splash-out, for which no amount of pumping will compensate. It'll have to be replaced by fill water, at a rate that the splash out is happening, which I'm guessing could be quite a lot, even with just a few swimmers. With a rowdy bunch splashing and moving around and diving and jumping, the wave action will be a lot, and most of that water, as waves, will be crashing over the channel and landing on the deck, where it will drain to the garden or wherever. Gone.

I don't have any hydrodynamic equations, this is merely based on watching the water in my pool. When the kids get going, or even when it's just me diving in, the water in the form of waves slams my edge tile, then travels in every direction. Left, right and down go right back into the pool. The water that is forced upwards across the tile slams into the underside of the overhang of the coping, and then diverts straight out horizontal, away from the tile, and back into the water. That's what I meant by splash guard. With me so far?

If there was no overhanging coping, the water would not divert and it would shoot more or less straight up, with some of it escaping the perimiter of the pool, because of the inertia of the wave. And then as the water comes back down from the air, about 50% would land in the pool, the other 50% would land on the deck, and drain to the yard. I'd lose a huge amount of water every time someone jumped in the pool, or even just got in quickly. (I've always assumed this is why coping overhangs a pool.)

Now imagine that happening in your pool. But you don't even have a vertical edge tile to divert the waves, let alone an overhanging lip of coping, to stop the waves from diverting vertically. And these won't be 1/4" or 1/2" ripples, I'm talking up to 6" waves, maybe higher (especially from your, uh, width-challenged pals). That size wave will just flow right over the channel and onto your deck, but not back into your wells and sumps. It'll be gone. Your pool level will drop with each dive or cannon ball. Heck, when I cannon ball, even with my water level about 6" lower than my coping, I can sometimes create a wave that will go right out of the pool over the coping!

Again, this is not a matter of displacement. This is what will happen when 24+ gallons of flesh hit the surface of the water, with 200+ pounds of force. It's going to make a large circular wave that will travel in every direction. Even a small child will be able to make a decent wave. Only the part of the wave that flies over the infinity edge will be recaptured. The other 3/4" of the wave will shoot right onto your deck, on all three sides.

I just don't imagine this working any other way. Did @JamesW account for this part of the physics?
 
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Dirk said:
OK, I think I got a picture of this, and yes, I understand that there is a channel drain running around the three sides. I can grasp the concept of the displacement, and how displaced water will need to be kept somewhere, and then pumped back into the pool rather quickly when people leave the water. I'm guessing that this is all standard stuff for an infinity edge. But that's not what I'm going on about.

Your channel on the other three sides, what I called a gutter, is 2" wide between the tile and the concrete deck, right? The toe-breaking hazard aside, what I'm wondering is how that relatively thin span of a channel, no matter how deep or how much water it can receive, is going to stop a wave going right over the top of it, bypassing it almost completely, and splashing the deck. That water will not be reclaimed by your pool plumbing and holding tanks, etc, it'll be splash-out, for which no amount of pumping will compensate. It'll have to be replaced by fill water, at a rate that the splash out is happening, which I'm guessing could be quite a lot, even with just a few swimmers. With a rowdy bunch splashing and moving around and diving and jumping, the wave action will be a lot, and most of that water, as waves, will be crashing over the channel and landing on the deck, where it will drain to the garden or wherever. Gone.

I don't have any hydrodynamic equations, this is merely based on watching the water in my pool. When the kids get going, or even when it's just me diving in, the water in the form of waves slams my edge tile, then travels in every direction. Left, right and down go right back into the pool. The water that is forced upwards across the tile slams into the underside of the overhang of the coping, and then diverts straight out horizontal, away from the tile, and back into the water. That's what I meant by splash guard. With me so far?

If there was no overhanging coping, the water would not divert and it would shoot more or less straight up, with some of it escaping the perimiter of the pool, because of the inertia of the wave. And then as the water comes back down from the air, about 50% would land in the pool, the other 50% would land on the deck, and drain to the yard. I'd lose a huge amount of water every time someone jumped in the pool, or even just got in quickly. (I've always assumed this is why coping overhangs a pool.)

Now imagine that happening in your pool. But you don't even have a vertical edge tile to divert the waves, let alone an overhanging lip of coping, to stop the waves from diverting vertically. And these won't be 1/4" or 1/2" ripples, I'm talking up to 6" waves, maybe higher (especially from your, uh, width-challenged pals). That size wave will just flow right over the channel and onto your deck, but not back into your wells and sumps. It'll be gone. Your pool level will drop with each dive or cannon ball. Heck, when I cannon ball, even with my water level about 6" lower than my coping, I can sometimes create a wave that will go right out of the pool over the coping!

Again, this is not a matter of displacement. This is what will happen when 24+ gallons of flesh hit the surface of the water, with 200+ pounds of force. It's going to make a large circular wave that will travel in every direction. Even a small child will be able to make a decent wave. Only the part of the wave that flies over the infinity edge will be recaptured. The other 3/4" of the wave will shoot right onto your deck, on all three sides.

I just don't imagine this working any other way. Did @JamesW account for this part of the physics?
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Wow, so how do you really feel about this Dirk? So I guess the point you're making is the wave could move past my 2-in channel so fast that it doesn't have time to gravity drop into the gutter section around the pool. And I'm sure that's the case if you get a real rowdy group of kids or adults. I certainly have seen that even in my previous traditional pool when water was splashed all over the deck. I think for normal operation though most of the water will be recovered in the channel drains because I will slope the coping tile just beyond the channel drain toward the pool for about 6 in. This will allow me to block in the two pipes that carry the channel drain water back into the catch basin below the infinity edge. This will allow me to raise the level in the pool slightly which should increase the flow over the infinity wall. My Infinity wall is pretty long for the size pool I have. I've read every article I can find on design and construction techniques for this kind of pool. There is a huge amount of information available since there are really thousands of pools like this now. Several videos even exist on YouTube that discuss the pluses and minuses of this kind of design. Water loss is never mentioned as a disadvantage. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist but I'm not especially worried about that living in Florida. I dump a lot more water every year than I add. Actually my biggest concern about this kind of design is the aeration effects with the infinity wall. I'm sure this is going to consume a lot more acid. My second concern has really nothing to do with the kind of pool design rather my pretty crappy well water. I have a pretty sophisticated softener and sulfur removal system that makes the water very good quality but it does let a tiny amount of tannins through. These seem to create a film on the plumbing fixtures over time . Not hard to remove like iron but I just don't want to have to deal with that issue on my pool surfaces. I don't seem to be able to find a reliable source of water trucked in to do the first fill. So I may just bite the bullet and build my whole house RO system at the same time. The guts of the RO system will be a 2000 gallon per day Hydro-Logic Evolution brand. Once I get the pool up and running the incremental fill water will be mostly from a gutter recovery system to collect rainwater.

Thanks again for your comments.

Chris
 
Chris, are you going to have all of your returns on the floor? That is a common feature I have observed at resort pools that have a perimeter overflow.

Below are pics of a pool in Crete I was at last month. It has a rolled plaster edge that water flows over and into grates. There is a constant low flow from the returns in the floor pushing water over the edge.

I saw a similar design in theis pool below at the Waldorf on Berlin.

Neither pool had skimmers. All surface debris was pushed over the edge into the perimeter basin. The perimeter basin had many exits for water down into the plumbing.

This seems to be a common high end pool design in Europe.

As a guest I got no insights into their pump setup behind the scenes. I find it interesting that in other places around the world there are very different pool designs then the typical American pool.

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Allen,

The design does not show any right now. The way my pool design is done they have multiple smaller details and sections for almost every pool under the sun. For example they have sections for a traditional skimmer and for my zero edge. I'm sure this approach allows them to be more cost effective than a complete redesign for each pool. But I don't see anything for floor returns. I think that's a great idea though. A nice feature of the zero edge pool design the entire pool is a skimmer so no guessing about where to place skimmers. If there's a strong surface breeze more of the skimmer function happens where ever that happens to be. The incremental cost for the basin does come out higher than the cost of a few skimmers though. But even that isn't a large cost. Do you think there's anything special I should do for the penetration detail since they come through the bottom? I'm guessing long radius elbow, maybe put them mostly in areas that could be dead spots near corners and edges?

The more I think about it this is a great improvement and very easy to implement. Thanks much Buddy!

Chris
 
The floor returns were surprisingly simple. Flat plates with a few holes in it flush to the floor. It looks like screws or bolts anchored the plates.

The Berlin pool has stainless steel plates. The Crete pool had white plates that blended in with the plaster.

The floor returns were spread evenly around the floor, not particularly in corners. There was a grid pattern on the floor to it. As though they ran a few pipes under the floor the length or width of the pool and then T’d up to floor penetration. So the pump(s) feeds the few pipes leading underfloor and the water flows up out of the plates. No returns on the walls.

The Crete pool also had LED lights in the floor and walls that let them put on quite a light show at night.

I think you have to take a tour of resort pools for ideas. I can give you a few locations in Berlin, Crete, and Cabo.

And then seek out who the designers and builders are for more details.


IMG_0061.jpegIMG_0060.jpeg
 
ajw22 said:
The floor returns were surprisingly simple. Flat plates with a few holes in it flush to the floor. It looks like screws or bolts anchored the plates.

The Berlin pool has stainless steel plates. The Crete pool had white plates that blended in with the plaster.

The floor returns were spread evenly around the floor, not particularly in corners. There was a grid pattern on the floor to it. As though they ran a few pipes under the floor the length or width of the pool and then T’d up to floor penetration. So the pump(s) feeds the few pipes leading underfloor and the water flows up out of the plates. No returns on the walls.

The Crete pool also had LED lights in the floor and walls that let them put on quite a light show at night.

I think you have to take a tour of resort pools for ideas. I can give you a few locations in Berlin, Crete, and Cabo.

And then seek out who the designers and builders are for more details.


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I floated the idea that the cost of the pool build was going up since I needed to spend time at the resorts you mentioned. Didn't go over so well. So I'm going to need to figure this out on my own. Doesn't seem all that hard and I'll try to adapt proven pool construction techniques as much as possible to reduce risk.

Thanks much Allen. We'll lock in on floor drains and the timing is perfect. I'll be talking to pool plumbers next week.

Chris
 

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AQUA~HOLICS said:
What other questions do you have? I’ll try to help if it’s retaining to the construction practices of the swimming pool.
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Aqua,

Thanks before I start I'll say the pool is 22' x 32' with about 10' additional at each end for a hot tub and sun deck at opposite ends. More details are at post #80 here so much and here goes:
  • I've read a lot about different materials for sealing pipe penetrations in the wall and floor. Do you have a favorite or things to avoid?
  • What techniques are best to assure level across the infinity edge?
  • What materials work best for tile across the infinity edge? I'd like to use a material that has color consistency through the tile so if there is any minor grinding it does not remove the glaze. I'd much prefer to get it perfect and not need any grinding but it seems all pool builds I've watched in progress end up doing some grinding to perfect the over-flow especially in the corners for square edges?
  • The back side of my infinity wall is planned to have a rough cedar shingle layered style using porcelain tile to break up flow. Half of what my wife likes about the edge is the white noise it makes. Do you have a better way that you like?
  • What level control for the basin to you have the best performance from? I'm planning to have two large pumps that use a simple level control that starts one pump first then if level still rises it kicks the other on. They will have flow capacity of 80 gpm each. Pool size is ~25000 gal.
I'm having a lot more fun getting ready to start construction for the pool than I did for the house... not sure why that is but Iike all my projects I am learning a LOT and enjoying every minute. People like yourself that are willing to share their knowledge are a tremendous help. I appreciate it much!

Chris

PS Moderators may want to move this to my pool build thread so I don't divert the intent of this thread... and that's fine with me
 
Folks,

I think most here recognize the high quality of the Pentair Intelliflo line of pumps. I certainly agreed with this and also felt it came at a price many can't afford. For my new pool where max flow is more critical since I have the infinity edge and basin level to maintain I thought the 3.0 Intelliflow would have a big advantage. But I'm not seeing it on the pump curves. Am I missing something? Flow at my TDH design operating point of 60' and 3000 rpm is higher for the Tristar. And it looks like max flow is higher at any TDH close is equal or higher as well.

Chris

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IntelliFloXF VSF Pump

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Pipe Size and Flow Rates

You want to keep the water velocity below 6 ft/sec on the suction and below 8 ft/sec on the pressure side of the pump.

Pipe Size....6 ft/sec..........8 ft/sec

1.5"............38 GPM........51 GPM

2"...............63 GPM........84 GPM

2.5.............90 GPM......119 GPM

3.0".........138 GPM......184 GPM

4.0".........235 GPM......312 GPM

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James,

I was hoping I'd hear from you. So my answer is kind of based on help you gave me back in post #351. My thought is most of the time flow will be much lower but when we're in the pool wife likes the white noise and just over-all look of a "good amount" of flow over the edge (that's as quantitative as she gets). I figure that's probably around 160 gpm to meet the 5 gpm/lin ft. But I also have the dynamics of this with the large instantaneous flow rates that occur when several adults or a few grand kids enter. So reserve capacity is important to minimize over-flowing the basin. I think I'm getting my arms wrapped around the flow part (thanks in part from your earlier help) but my question is really around the performance difference between the Tristar 950 2.7 and the Intelliflo 3.0. I thought the 3.0 would have a significant advantage... at lease based on the curves I found.

Thanks again for all the help you provide.

Chris
 
PS my plan is for two pumps. One for most of the time and a second to handle instantaneous max flow. Not completely optimized yet as obviously we can build a large basin and there's a trade-off here. Also there's a limit to the size of basin that's practical with my lot. I'm close to the set back line as it is..

Chris
 

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