Radiant Metric 24' Round Install in Western NY

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DuckHunterJon

0
May 17, 2016
41
Marion, NY
We broke ground finally this weekend, so I figured it’s a good time to start a build thread.

The pool is going to be a 24’ Radiant Round. We are going with the walk in steps as well. A paver patio will go about 1/3 around the pool, and the rest will have an 18” wide stone wall built up around it, capped with bullnose coping pavers. Due to a slight slope, the pool will be flush on the patio side and about 24” out of the ground on the opposite side. Other additions will be a 10’ x 12’ pool/equipment shed (built off the back of the garage), full perimeter of aluminum fencing, and a second patio/fire pit/stone wall seating. My pool builder hasn’t given me a start date yet, but the pool is ordered and it should be in the next week or so.

Equipment wise, the pool store spec’ed out a 1.5 HP Hayward above ground pump. Being that the equipment shed will be above the waterline, I wanted them to upgrade it to an in-ground pump. After much back and forth, they said “if you don’t mind, go order it yourself and we’ll credit you the $380 it would cost us”. I thought I was set on a 2 speed Hayward, but when I went to order it last week, Amazon had last year’s Hayward Super VS pump on clearance for $445. Given this includes a digital timer, it was cheaper than any 2 speed pumps I was looking at. I still have to figure out what to do for a surge protector/gfci for it. Also going in will be a 250# Hayward Sand filter, Circupool RJ-30 SWCG and stub out’s for future solar heat. Finally, I ordered a TFT-100 kit a couple weeks ago, and started using it this weekend with the hot tub.

Below is a ROUGH drawing of placement. We have about 50 acres, and the house is right in the middle of it – yet we had a very difficult time with where to put the pool. Ideally, I would have had it more behind the house, but the septic tank is there. The other side of the house has trees we're partial to. Between the deck and the pool will be a dry river bed with stepping stones, and some various shrubbery. The stepping stones will continue up to the garage and shed (doors adjacent to each other). On the back side will be a free form patio/landscaping.



 
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OK, I think I figured out the picture issue - I was deleting the URL portion of the IMG line, but apparently it wants that left in. Anywho...

Here are a few shots of where the pool is going to go (bare spot in grass from playground will be about the center of the pool). The two very sad looking Dogwood's will be coming out. The playground will be going in the fire pit, to be replaced with a new one (built mostly of Pine logs off our property).







 
That's going to be real nice, the stairs are a great touch. Keep posting pics.
We just completed phase 1 of our pool/patio. Radiant Metric 16*32 oval with stairs, Pentair Intelliflow VF pump (awesome pump), Pentair cartridge filter, Pentair IC40 chlorine generator, Pentair easy touch 4 control, and pentair glowbrite LEDs.

Enjoy!
 
Thanks! I had thought about going with the Intelliflow, but in the end couldn't pass up the deal on the Hayward. Hopefully I won't regret it down the road.

- - - Updated - - -

Now that I've figured out the pictures - this should catch us up to today.

This weekend, we got started on the shed. My goal is to be able to pour the shed floor at the same time we pour the collar and step base, so I want to get a jump on the shed before they start the pool install. I still don't have an install date, so I figure I have some time yet (though, my wife decided she's going to call today - sickin' the big dogs on them!)

Holes in and inspected:



Posts in:






If I can stand the heat, hopefully I'll be able to get the girders, ridge beam, and some of the rafters up tonight.
 
No pictures of yesterday's work. It was 96 degrees when I got home. I got the girders up on the eave walls, and the ridge beam set. Ridge beam was 2 2x10's laminated - by 12' long. Lot's of fun to put up myself in that heat. By the time I was done with that, I didn't get around to taking a picture.

Will try to get to start on the rafters tonight, but the lawn is screaming to be mowed. We'll see.


I'm sure people are saying enough with the shed - where's the pool! Very long story short, my wife called the PB yesterday after many of my failed attempts to reach him. He told her that the reason for the 3 week delay is because I didn't make up my mind on the top coping style. Funny, he told me that they could change that out at any time and it wouldn't hold up the order. He also told me that once it was scheduled for install, they would order the pool. He told my wife that they ordered it, and would put us on the schedule once the pool parts were delivered. I don't think they knew what hit them - my wife has wanted a pool for years, was told we would have it around the end of June - and it's been in the 90's for the last two weeks. Yep, she wasn't a happy camper and let them know. I still don't have a firm date, but they have "promised" me they would expedite it. We'll see...
 
Re: Radiant Metric 24' Round Install in Western NY - couple of questions

So progress has been slow as we were out of town for the weekend. I'll get some more pictures up later today - I have the shed roof sheathed, about ready to shingle.

The good news is I finally heard back from the PB - it's been a bit frustrating, but I'll spare the details. Weather/other jobs pending - we should be starting end of next week, beginning of the following! Guess I need to get busy with the rest of the prep work.

Couple of design questions i'd love input on. First - I'm planning on doing a Bullnose Paver coping around the entire pool/steps. The section (about 2/3's of the perimeter) with the wall stone will also have a 6 x 9" border. The other third of the area will have the patio pavers come up to the back of the bull nose. Questions are - should the bullnose pavers be tuck-pointed/grouted between them, or just dry laid next to each other? I've seen both, the stone place says don't mortar them together so water can drain between them (there will be compacted gravel/sand base under them to facilitate drainage). Second question - should the pavers be angled away from the pool, or set level? Again, I've seen both, I'm leaning towards level, but not sure if there should be some angle to help with drainage.

Another question - I'm going to take this opportunity to tie a few of my gutter downspouts into a burried drain, that will come out to daylight about 50 feet from the pool (down about 3' in elevation). I figure while I am trenching, I'll run a line up to the equpipment shed. I plan on putting a floor drain near/under the filter/pump, and I'd also like to plumb in a backwash line. Question - I know this is fairly high flow, do you think 4" corrugated will carry that flow from the backwash line? I can go to 4" smooth, but of course the cost goes up quite a bit.

Lots more questions, but I'll attack them one at a time.

Thanks!
 
Time for another update. The important part – I have no more update on install date. :mad: The sales rep sent me an email last Wednesday saying they would tentatively schedule the dig for today or tomorrow, but he would get in touch with me a couple of days ahead with a confirmation. Nothing since then despite many attempts to contact him, so I’m likely out another week. ARRRGGGGG!!!

Given that, I slowed up a little on the shed and ground prep. Last week I got to the point of being ready to put shingles on the roof – only to find out that they were on backorder for 2-3 weeks – my poor planning. I could go with a slightly different one, but really want to keep them the same as the house. Here are a couple of shots of the shed progress.









This past weekend, I rented a mini-excavator to do some ground work. I dug a drain line for 5 downspouts, a floor drain in the shed, and a backwash drain line. The ground is so hard right now from no rain in the past 6 weeks, it was like digging through concrete. Even still, had the drains dug, plumbing in, and backfilled in about 3 hours.





Since I had the excavator for the day, I decided to go ahead and scrape off the sod from everywhere that will have stone/pavers. Again, just like scraping concrete – there’s no way I would have dug it by hand.



With 2 hours left before they picked up the rental, I was VERY tempted to just start digging for the pool, but figured my wife would shoot me if I took on a new project right now. Of course, the first words out of her mouth when she got home were “Why didn’t you just dig for the pool while you were at it?”.


Hopefully more soon!
 
It was a busy week last week! Monday morning, the PB showed up to start digging. Nothing too spectacular here, other than with as dry as it’s been, it was sort of like digging through concrete. Still, no show stoppers. All total, it took them about 6 hours to dig and level bottom. I will say, I was impressed at how much they paid attention to leveling – if they were more than a quarter of an inch out, they were fixing it. Although I was mostly standing around watching the dig, I was able to get the electrical brought into the shed, and started thinking about how I wanted to place components.











- - - Updated - - -

Tuesday morning, 5 guys showed up and started in on the pool install.





Holy cow the walls go fast. They spend about an hour leveling the concrete blocks (under each spline between the panels) to within an eighth inch. Once those were set, the walls went up in about 10 minutes flat. Next came the steps, taking a bit more time to align them and bolt them in. Once they were in, I dumped sand over the wall while two guys shoveled and two guys raked. Next, they rolled the bottom and formed the cove.













At this point, I went to grab lunch for everyone, and when I came back 20 minutes later, the liner was in and they were cutting out for the stairs. The water truck showed up at about 1 and dropped 4000 gallons in.







Once this was done, the guys started plumbing for the skimmer and returns. Here is where things got hectic. I was under the impression that they were going to handle stubbing out through the slab for me. Instead, I got the two flex PVC lines up to the shed, and was told it’s all yours! So with about 15 minutes until the concrete truck showed up, I had to plumb in the suction, the return, a floor drain, and a backwash line – then get everything backfilled, tamped, gravel, tamped, and steel mesh down.

Consequently, I’m not real enthused about my layout (everything basically came out right next to each other) – but I made it work. The concrete truck showed up at 3 pm, they poured 2 yards around the steps, then 1.5 yards into the shed floor, then another 4 yards around the pool collar. While the guys were working around the pool, I was able to screed and float the shed floor. As soon as they were done pouring the collar, they loaded up and left. I spent several more hours cleaning up and troweling the floor. Long day!









 
Wednesday, the PB and his son showed up to make final connections at the skimmer and returns, and to install a temporary fence. I spent the day doing the one thing I truly detest – plumbing. Given my rush to get the stub-outs in before the concrete truck showed up, I couldn’t place the chlorine generator and flow switch where I had originally planned. Instead, I had to place it behind the filter. While not ideal, it still gives me plenty of space to work around everything, and it’s easy enough to get to to clean/replace it when needed. I ended up with a bunch of unions to be able to work on the components if necessary.



Two more loads of water came Thursday. When I asked about more water, he told me that with this drought, everyone is calling him to fill wells. Hard to prioritize filling a pool vs providing someone drinking water. He finished with 4 loads on Friday.

Friday afternoon, I hung a couple of socks of CYA in front of a return, and added about 1.5 quarts of 12.5% chlorine. Added chlorine a couple more times throughout the weekend to maintain level. Will get a full set of numbers tonight to see where I'm at. Yesterday, my daughter was about ready to explode, she wanted to swim so bad. I quickly checked PH (right on) and FC (right on), and said go for it! Water was right at 80 deg, and beautiful! She spent 2 hours in it with my wife. I took a break from roofing to jump in myself - love it!
 

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Re: Radiant Metric 24' Round Install in Western NY - initial start up questions

So I started up the pump and filter on Friday (and fixed a few leaks in the process!).

My initial test of course resulted in 0 CYA. Using Pool math, I figure I need about 8 lbs to bring it up to 60, before I turn on the SWG. Not wanting to overshoot, I hung 2 socks totaling 4 lbs of CYA on Saturday morning, and been giving them a good squeeze/massage every time I walk past. Last night, I'd guess there was about a quarter pound left, the rest has dissolved. My numbers last night were:

FC – 1.5 <-- added bleach to bring back up to 3-4
CC – 0
PH – 7.2
TA – 110
CH – 125
CYA - 20 <-- maybe, I could just barely still see the dot

Am I right in thinking that the CYA just hasn't had enough time to show up in the test? Should I add more tonight (2 lbs to start), or wait a few more days?

I'm also gathering I should hold off on adding salt/starting up the Circupool until CYA is stabilized, correct? Just anxious to make sure that part of the system works. When I do, how much should I add initially (pool math says 350 lbs to bring it to 3000 ppm, should I start with half, 75%, 90%?).

Thanks!
 
I haven't heard from anyone, so I went ahead and added another 2 lbs of stabilizer. I really don't want to overshoot, but I think I'll be OK. Pool math says I need just over 8 lbs, this will bring me up to 6 lbs. once it's dissolved.

I tested again last night with almost exactly the same numbers. I'll give this batch of CYA a couple of days and retest. Really anxious to get the SWG going this weekend if possible. Lowes carries Diamond Crystal "bright and soft" pellets - 99.8% pure salt - will this work?

One more question on the salt - how accurate is the Circupool Salt concentration measurement? Wondering if I should order a Salt tester, or can I rely on the Circupool for now. Thanks.
 
Get the SWG running! Don't worry too much abut CYA, it is a slow process. It will rise. I started at CYA 30 when I dumped in the salt. 1 month later my CYA is 50. FC is 4.2.

I use solar salt, it's a bit larger but dissolves in a couple hours. Just look for small rocks, sometimes there may be one, just pick it up when you go in the pool.




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Not sure if anyone is looking at/following this project, but another update for this week. I started back filling around the pool two weeks ago with crushed gravel. On the south side, this means backfilling the full 54 inches around the over-dig, as well as packing it up under the walk in steps. On the north side, it will be backfilled/built up about 30 inches or so. Rough calculations put this at about 60 ton of gravel. By itself, that wouldn’t be bad – but two things compound it. First, I really only want to do this once, and I don’t want to pavers/retaining wall to settle – so I’ve been spreading and tamping gravel in 2-3 inch lifts. Of course, all of this portion has to be hand tamped up next to the pool. Secondly, with the piles of dirt around the pool, the deck, the trenches, etc – I haven’t been able to pull the tractor in to dump gravel into the over-dig. So, it’s been hand shovel gravel out of the tractor bucket, rake, tamp, repeat.

That said, things were going well until Saturday. I had about a foot of gravel tamped in by Saturday afternoon, and took a short break to go purchase siding for the shed. When I returned 2 hours later, I found out we got about 1.5” of rain in about 10 minutes. With no rough grading - the pool now had a moat! I didn’t think it would be too bad, after all I’ve spent all this time tamping the stone in – but it turned to absolute mush. I about gave up – tired, sore, and now depressed. So I switched gears, finished up my plumbing and electrical, added salt, and got things ready to turn on my SWG for the rest of the evening. Also ran the bonding wire and convenience outlet into the shed and backfilled those trenches finally.

Sunday, I got up early and refreshed, and decided to dig out most of what I had done for the last week and a half, and add a drain around the pool. I had specifically asked the PB if I should do this, and he said he had never heard of doing it, wasn’t needed. Should have followed my gut! I dug a trench out to the downspout drains and tied into that daylight drain. A friend came over and as fast as he could wrap the perf pipe with landscape fabric, I was shoveling in gravel to hold it down. By Sunday evening, I had the drain line in and covered back up and ready to continue with gravel. No pictures of the moat, but a few afterward:









So this week has been backfilling/tamping every night. I figure I’m about half way complete on this part, not including building up the patio area. The good part is each night I work for about 2 hours, then enjoy a beer sitting on the steps of the pool – so glad we went with the steps.





Also, if any one is curious, I love the Doheny Discovery. Especially with the mess around the entire pool at the moment, lots of dirt and sand in the pool every day. I've run it every other day this week. As mentioned in my other post, my daughter refers to him as Wall-e:


 

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