Another one in Las Vegas-Finaled, but not finished

BeachHead

0
Gold Supporter
Mar 22, 2016
182
Las Vegas, NV
Well, after a long delay in our plans due to a quick little medical thing that wasn't as "little" as I thought it would be, we're on track to shoehorn a little bit of liquid coolness for the summer into our tiny little back yard here in our new home in Las Vegas. I'd wanted the challenge and control of an O/B project, but a couple things (not the least of which is being able to reliably walk) that popped up, we decided to go with a contractor. As luck would have it, we found one who's not just a great guy, but our neighbor, and has built many of the pools in our neighborhood, and comes with a 100% happiness recommendation from several neighbors I talked to before committing. During our last pool build over twenty years ago, I had a less than positive experience, and I can honestly say that so far, so good with our choice.

OK, on to the details:

1. Pool is going to be about 12' x 35' with a 12' x 8' baja shelf, and an 18" 7' x 10' raised spa. I call it a "hockey stick" shape as it wraps around the corner of our house. It is shoehorned into our 20' deep back yard as tight as it'll go, but "ya gotta do what you gotta do", right?
2. Pool and spa are estimated to be about 14K gallons
3. Pool will use Hayward equipment and automation. This was one of the things that I compromised on, as had I O/B'd, I'd probably have gone with pentair equipment, as my experience between the two over the years is slightly better with pentair, but not unacceptable with hayward. But research on this site seems to indicate they all have problems. And this is what the PB uses, and I get the three year warranty...So, we'll have a V/S pump for filtration, a 2 hp pump for water features, a 425 sq. ft. cartridge filter, and a 400K BTU heater.
4. Pool will have a 12"-24" stepped raised beam rear wall, using stacked stone.
5. There will be 2 24" and 1 48" sheer descent in the wall area, and 2 bubblers for the grandkids to play with on the baja shelf.
6. The spa will have as much of an infinity edge/waterfall into the pool as possible (keeping water off of stone for appearance/scale build up reasons)
7. We'll have 4 LED lights across pool and 1 in spa
8. Pool will be saltwater with largest cell Hayward has.
9. Decking will be concrete cantilever with spray texture.
10 We're also having a fire feature built into the beam of the pool for ambiance.
11. Finish will be pebblesheen in blue surf color, hopefully with some extra bling added in.
12. I'm going with a suction side cleaner, as I just don't trust the inground floor cleaners, and i can always go to a robot when I get tired of messing around with it.

I think that covers the backgroud. So, here's the "fun" part! Some pics of this crazy project. So, let's start with the concept. Here's the general final design drawing (some of the details are slightly changed) Note, not shown on the drawing, is the master bedroom is in the corner where the compass rose is, and there is a door, so nice access for the late night spa soakings!:
Layout_zpsg992bwqn.jpg~original


Here are some of the PB's artist concepts of of the finished project. There won't be any palm trees though, but some sort of landscaping between wall and pool to break up the browns:








OK, i'll break this off here, and post some of the "action" shots in a few minutes.
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

So, let's jump in the wayback machine and travel all the way back to January 3. We started off with a pretty blue painting on the ground showing where the water would end up:

Spa:


Pool:


Scale of baja shelf:


So, now, how to get the magical machine into the back yard? Easy, mister PB, tear down that wall!:


Getting started:


End of day 1, this was a "hard dig", as we are on some rocky ground, and it took 2 1/2 days to carve out our little puddle:


And the hole is done!:


So, the slackers took the whole weekend off! And on Monday, the plumbers get started:


And they kept going and going:


Added a few more pipes and squeezed in some equipment:


Yes, it's a tight fit!:


And before the plumbers were done, the steel guys got busy:


pool:


fire feature's bones:


And then yesterday, the electricians came and ran conduit, but got finished just before dark, so no pictures of that yet, but they were getting ready for inspection today, 10 days after painting the dirt. Yes, I'm very happy with our PB's keeping this project moving. I've been wanting to start this thread, but they are moving so fast, I'm behind.

But fortunately mother nature stepped in! What's a pool build thread without some rain right? So, here we are this morning, with the first water "in" our new pond:


So, now we're caught up...planning on gunite next friday to allow for any inspection gigs, or delays due to the rain that was predicted for today. I know things slow down, so hopefully I can keep up with them now..LOL. For now, I'll leave one last picture....of what we're thinking of for waterline tile and stone. We're using the 1x2 irradescent in the spa, and the waterfall into the pool to add some "bling" but keep the overall budget in the "just barely unaffordable" category rather than the "extremely unaffordable" one, lol. The 1 x 2's in the picture are the same tiles, just different angles to the light:


Any comments, or ideas are much appreciated...:) I can't thank this site enough for the knowledge I gained by looking at other peoples projects, and I hope this in some small way helps someone else as they go down this rather intrusive road.
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

I didn't see any steps down into your spa. 18" is a deep step from coping to seat and another 18" seat to well. I just have one corner step down to seat level, but had I made more room I should have had a step into the well also.
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

Man on man where do I start???? I LOVE IT!!!! That tile???????? WOWER!!!!!

Equipment pad area-Make sure there is a light back there. Have you thought about where you will take the cartridge when you need to rinse it off/out? I just want you to think about it so you can plan.

I have an idea if you have not already thought of something.

Kim:kim:
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

That design is like something from a magazine. So cool.

Thank you, we hope it turns out as nice in "real life" as the concept drawings.

I didn't see any steps down into your spa. 18" is a deep step from coping to seat and another 18" seat to well. I just have one corner step down to seat level, but had I made more room I should have had a step into the well also.

We'll be cutting in a step into the seat when they shoot the gunite, but I think we are too far into it to add a step into the footwell. Darn, I should have thought of that..oh well, next time, LOL. But the design of the spa is also supposed to be "sit and spin" where you can sit on the coping and spin into the water and step down. We've never had a spa before, and went with the PB's idea on this.

Man on man where do I start???? I LOVE IT!!!! That tile???????? WOWER!!!!!

Equipment pad area-Make sure there is a light back there. Have you thought about where you will take the cartridge when you need to rinse it off/out? I just want you to think about it so you can plan.

I have an idea if you have not already thought of something.

Kim:kim:

Well thank you very much! For the cartridge, just around the corner is a door to an external water heater for that building, so I have water in that "closet", and there is a big RV pad in front of that building I was going to use to wash them out on. But, I am always open to other ideas, so I'd love to hear what you are thinking? And thank you for the light idea, I'll have to sneak it in, since it's not in the hoa approved plans...;)

Looks great... and a smart use of the little space you did have. I bet a few of the pool builders said you didn't have enough room for a pool... You sure showed them!!

Thank you. I think the bulders here are used to squeezing them in to tiny lots (ours is actually pretty big for most new construction in the area). But there was a couple who scratched their heads about the wrap around concept. In fact, I was talking with the superintendent from the excavator crew, and he said at first it didn't make much sense to him, but after they laid it out, it was neat to do something a little different.

We are putting a cross wall about 12 feet to the south of the external spa steps. That will give us third "gathering" place around the pool. Our vision was to put a pergola there, but lot setbacks didn't work out, so we'll put an umbrella sleeve, and make do. But we'll have that place to converse, the "sunning area" between the pool and patio, and then I plan to construct a barbque kitchen area in half of the covered patio, and use the other side for another conversation area. It seems like having several places for people to gather works well when you have family and multiple generations around, so we tried to accommodate this in our overall backyard design.

- - - Updated - - -

Nice! What 1x2 tile did you pick? It looks like NPT light waves blue? We used lightwaves aqua marine and love it.

Good eye! That is exactly what it is. Both the wife and I like blue colors, and this really has a few of them. Sort of reminds us of a peacock's tail. We'll also be using two rows of it to marker-line the steps, pool seats, and spa seats. Honestly, we would have loved to have used it as the pool waterline tile, but the tile store warned us of issues with it popping lose over time (as well as the extra cost) as well as the potential to scratch it. So we decided to use the 6 x 6 porcelain for the pool, and use the money on other gingerbread.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

Thank you, we hope it turns out as nice in "real life" as the concept drawings.



We'll be cutting in a step into the seat when they shoot the gunite, but I think we are too far into it to add a step into the footwell. Darn, I should have thought of that..oh well, next time, LOL. But the design of the spa is also supposed to be "sit and spin" where you can sit on the coping and spin into the water and step down. We've never had a spa before, and went with the PB's idea on this.



Well thank you very much! For the cartridge, just around the corner is a door to an external water heater for that building, so I have water in that "closet", and there is a big RV pad in front of that building I was going to use to wash them out on. But, I am always open to other ideas, so I'd love to hear what you are thinking? And thank you for the light idea, I'll have to sneak it in, since it's not in the hoa approved plans...;)



Thank you. I think the bulders here are used to squeezing them in to tiny lots (ours is actually pretty big for most new construction in the area). But there was a couple who scratched their heads about the wrap around concept. In fact, I was talking with the superintendent from the excavator crew, and he said at first it didn't make much sense to him, but after they laid it out, it was neat to do something a little different.

We are putting a cross wall about 12 feet to the south of the external spa steps. That will give us third "gathering" place around the pool. Our vision was to put a pergola there, but lot setbacks didn't work out, so we'll put an umbrella sleeve, and make do. But we'll have that place to converse, the "sunning area" between the pool and patio, and then I plan to construct a barbque kitchen area in half of the covered patio, and use the other side for another conversation area. It seems like having several places for people to gather works well when you have family and multiple generations around, so we tried to accommodate this in our overall backyard design.

- - - Updated - - -



Good eye! That is exactly what it is. Both the wife and I like blue colors, and this really has a few of them. Sort of reminds us of a peacock's tail. We'll also be using two rows of it to marker-line the steps, pool seats, and spa seats. Honestly, we would have loved to have used it as the pool waterline tile, but the tile store warned us of issues with it popping lose over time (as well as the extra cost) as well as the potential to scratch it. So we decided to use the 6 x 6 porcelain for the pool, and use the money on other gingerbread.

Same here. But now that it is in, I'm glad we didn't use it for the waterline. It is a lot of bling with the spa and markers and I think the waterline would be overkill. If we didn't have the spa, definitely.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

Same here. But now that it is in, I'm glad we didn't use it for the waterline. It is a lot of bling with the spa and markers and I think the waterline would be overkill. If we didn't have the spa, definitely.

Wow...just checked out your build thread...WOW that tile looks awesome! We're also planning on a grey grout, as the wife want's to see the colors and not the individual tiles so much. That little detail is just one of the many many little things that these threads do to help people like me who have no "imagination" for colors and such.
 
Another underway in Las Vegas

Thanks! Yea the tile has a lot of personality. Looks different from every angle and in different lighting conditions. And I completely agree on this site and how helpful it is. My build would certainly look a lot different and would have probably included a handful of "should of's"


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

My idea is to have a stand alone pad or extra room on the current pad to place the cartridge to rinse it off. That would mean having a water bib there. So if you do not have that already it might be over kill to get one since you have water and a place to clean it that you will not mind getting dirty.

Kim:kim:
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

My idea is to have a stand alone pad or extra room on the current pad to place the cartridge to rinse it off. That would mean having a water bib there. So if you do not have that already it might be over kill to get one since you have water and a place to clean it that you will not mind getting dirty.

And an excellent idea it is! I will definitely put some more "noodling" time into this. Thank you! And while I have ya, at what point do I need to order my test kit, and test my fill water? I know the PB will do the start up, but I want to be ready to transition to the TFP method as soon as I can. I'm ashamed to admit my previous "method" was to use a floaty, 3" tabs, and drain and refill every three years when I couldn't keep things going..:(
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

You can go ahead and order it now if you want. I have most people order it at the gunite phase but that is just the time I picked to suggest it as that phase stands out so much by making the pool look "real" and it is close to the end of the build.

Don't be ashamed. I did the same thing only I did not drain and start over since the Pool $tore told me it would be fine by just taking out 3 or so inches of water. I ruined my first pool listening to them :( I refused to get another pool until my husband found TFP. I even ordered the test kit BEFORE I ordered the pool :shock: to make sure I COULD do the tests. I could and it is fun to do! Look at me now..............a MOD on the best pool forum on the web! LOL

We have had several people show their PB their test kits and TFP. The PB was impressed with the knowledge the PO had and allowed them to do the tests, text the results and what Pool Math said to do. then add what needed to be added. Make sure to get it is writing if you can go this way.

Your PH will be the one that will need the most work. As the plaster cures the PH goes up. It is VERY important to keep the PH under control for the long term life of the plaster.

I have a link to share with you. Show it to your PB and see what he has to say. Don't worry the now swimming for 30 days. That depends on what kind of start up your PB does. He will tell you when you can get in the water.

Pool School - Start-up New Plaster

Remember your PB holds the warranty card. What HE says goes!

Kim:kim:
 
Re: Another underway in Las Vegas

Here is was, Friday morning. The skies were gray, rain was predicted, and PB had warned me that they'd make the call in the morning whether they'd shoot the gunite today or not. Our expectations were set low, so we were excited when a big truck rumbled up before the sun came up this morning, and a whole bunch of guys got to work. I'd never seen this process in person before. These guys are definitely artists! I bet they can make a mean sand castle too, as I suspect it's a similar technique.

Instead of me typing a few thousand words, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

First some set up:



Then the concrete stuff starts flowing:



As it builds up, they start forming features, and smoothing and straightening it out:


And it gets built up and shaped some more:


The fire feature was built as part of the pool, here it is being built up:


Here's the rig that mixes, and pushes the gunite through the hose.:


And here's how it looks after a hard day of work, mixed with some extra rain. (Thank God we live in a desert, so I don't have to worry about rain when the pool is being built!):


And a couple shots of the fire feature. They shot it solid, then dug out the tray where the gas pipe and fire glass will be installed. I don't know why I like this thing so much, but I do, lol:



So, it was too muddy to get any better pictures of the final product. But, I get to spend some time watering this down for the next couple weeks, so I can hopefully take better ones when it dries up a bit.

PB says as long as the tile we picked is in stock, he hopes to start the tile next week some time.

Thanks for taking a look at our little hole in the ground project, and any comments are more than welcome.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.