Re: New Pool IG - Inland Empire, CA - Decking Poured 10/6!
Nope, no mastic, I have yet to see anyone fully convince me that it's necessary in our environment. If water is going to get under the decking etc., it will find a way and I doubt that mastic along the ONE boundary between the decking and the pool will make a difference. I have friends with no mastic around their pool of 10+ years old, and it looks fine, our cement guy has done several pools (5+ years) with no problem without mastic, so... we went without it. Everyone from the PB and the cement guys related to them just went along and said "This is where the mastic goes and it's a set price of X"... when I started asking 'why?'... I was told reasons, but never full blown examples... I get the reasons and understand them back East etc. and in some situations, but not ours.
Yeah, our stone guys layed down wire to the pool rebar and bonded the pool. It's required by Rancho code and it was signed off on by the inspector before the decking work began.
SO, the cement is done, it's drying and looking uneven at the moment due to the variable drying, but it should be walkable by Saturday, hoseable by ~Tuesday, and fully cured/color finalized by Thursday according to our cement dude. By last light tonight it is already multiple shades lighter than in the images below. The texture turned out great and really looks nice with being broken up by the few smooth cement lines. This has been 8 years in the making for our backyard. We await walking up the stairs this weekend!
The stamping was fun to watch. The pattern is pretty nice, it's funny that if you're standing straight above the cement and look straight down from the balcony, you can notice the pattern repetition... but down on the ground any way you look at it, not a thing.
The release they put on the cement to allow the stamp to not stick to it is some sort of petroleum based oil I believe... and before pouring the forms they sprayed down the wood with diesel (again for non-stick purposes)... so for the time being the backyard smells like fuel. It gave a nice sheen to the cement, made it difficult to photograph the pattern in the afternoon sun, and it has taken longer to boil off than I thought it would. Either way, it's drying :-D
So, patio looks nice. It's funny how looking at the edge of the coping for so long with ~6'' exposed on the non-pool side, having cement now flush with it changes the look. The pool is growing up into a beautiful backyard!
The steps look great. We like that we went with wider steps...
Here's the raised patio and the area being prepped for flagstone (aka left over coping). We debated back and forth about the 1' border around the patio... but finally decided to do it... it makes a thin area for the flagstone leading to the jumprock, but we figure it 'leads' to it...
Not the best view, but an overall of the work and showing off the steps to the Phase II patio. Cement guy asked us to lightly spritz the cement tomorrow morning and evening so we'll be doing that. I'll take pictures to show you how much it has lightened through the night etc...
Cheers!
Nope, no mastic, I have yet to see anyone fully convince me that it's necessary in our environment. If water is going to get under the decking etc., it will find a way and I doubt that mastic along the ONE boundary between the decking and the pool will make a difference. I have friends with no mastic around their pool of 10+ years old, and it looks fine, our cement guy has done several pools (5+ years) with no problem without mastic, so... we went without it. Everyone from the PB and the cement guys related to them just went along and said "This is where the mastic goes and it's a set price of X"... when I started asking 'why?'... I was told reasons, but never full blown examples... I get the reasons and understand them back East etc. and in some situations, but not ours.
Yeah, our stone guys layed down wire to the pool rebar and bonded the pool. It's required by Rancho code and it was signed off on by the inspector before the decking work began.
SO, the cement is done, it's drying and looking uneven at the moment due to the variable drying, but it should be walkable by Saturday, hoseable by ~Tuesday, and fully cured/color finalized by Thursday according to our cement dude. By last light tonight it is already multiple shades lighter than in the images below. The texture turned out great and really looks nice with being broken up by the few smooth cement lines. This has been 8 years in the making for our backyard. We await walking up the stairs this weekend!
The stamping was fun to watch. The pattern is pretty nice, it's funny that if you're standing straight above the cement and look straight down from the balcony, you can notice the pattern repetition... but down on the ground any way you look at it, not a thing.
The release they put on the cement to allow the stamp to not stick to it is some sort of petroleum based oil I believe... and before pouring the forms they sprayed down the wood with diesel (again for non-stick purposes)... so for the time being the backyard smells like fuel. It gave a nice sheen to the cement, made it difficult to photograph the pattern in the afternoon sun, and it has taken longer to boil off than I thought it would. Either way, it's drying :-D
So, patio looks nice. It's funny how looking at the edge of the coping for so long with ~6'' exposed on the non-pool side, having cement now flush with it changes the look. The pool is growing up into a beautiful backyard!
The steps look great. We like that we went with wider steps...
Here's the raised patio and the area being prepped for flagstone (aka left over coping). We debated back and forth about the 1' border around the patio... but finally decided to do it... it makes a thin area for the flagstone leading to the jumprock, but we figure it 'leads' to it...
Not the best view, but an overall of the work and showing off the steps to the Phase II patio. Cement guy asked us to lightly spritz the cement tomorrow morning and evening so we'll be doing that. I'll take pictures to show you how much it has lightened through the night etc...
Cheers!
feel better? 
