New owner builder in Sacramento Ca

[Icemannocal]

Hello all,

I am a new member and starting a pool. Excavation should start in about 2 weeks. Pool is ingound gunite, 36 by 13 with Baja ledge, 95 linear feet and 420square foot total, 12,870 gallons,12 inch raised bond beam, pebble tech or equivalent, and about 1400 square feet of deck.

We are using basalite brand, San Francisco cobblestone pavers for the deck and basalite bullnose coping that measures 4inch by 12 inch by 60mm thick. I have a couple questions on coping and 6 inch waterline tile.

I would really like to do the coping and tile myself, but have no coping experience or tile for that matter, just a youtube warrior but no one really goes into step by step or much detail on youtube that I can find.

For the tile, from what I could find, making sure the bond beem is level and top part of inside wall is plumb seems to be crucial. And people seem to think using a water level is the best to lay out tile but none of them show how to do it on youtube.

Do you find the highest point of bond beem and hold one end of the water level there and then stretch it over to the other side of pool and see how it is, do you also do it from side to side or multiple spots?

And if it’s out of level do you build up the top of the bond been with concrete until it’s level? Can someone with no experience do this job lol?

I will post my coping question in a new thread and leave this one for the tile.

thank you and any help is much appreciated

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the fourm!

You ask some pretty specific construction questions so probably why you are not getting much response. This will your question!

I know you want your water line tile level with the water, otherwise you see just how out of level your pool is.

We also have 4"x12" pavers as coping and it was pretty labor extensive due to having a free form pool. Nearly every paver had to be cut. So be aware of that.

Take care.

 

[Icemannocal]

Thank you for the response, I was not sure if anyone would know but took a chance. My pool,will also be free form so I have my coping work cut out for me. I will figure this out somehow and I will at least post up what I do for the next guy in this situation

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I forgot to ask, on your 4x12 pavers, did you have them spaced and grouted, or cut to where they are tight to each other?

Welcome to the fourm!

You ask some pretty specific construction questions so probably why you are not getting much response. This will your question!

I know you want your water line tile level with the water, otherwise you see just how out of level your pool is.

We also have 4"x12" pavers as coping and it was pretty labor extensive due to having a free form pool. Nearly every paver had to be cut. So be aware of that.

Take care.

 

[mknauss]

Spaced and grouted. It took one guy nearly a week. The cuts were tedious. Not sure I would want to bite off that one myself.

What are you using to for decking that will but up against the coping? We have pavers. Another amazing number of cuts were needed.

Take care.

 

[Icemannocal]

Spaced and grouted. It took one guy nearly a week. The cuts were tedious. Not sure I would want to bite off that one myself.

What are you using to for decking that will but up against the coping? We have pavers. Another amazing number of cuts were needed.

Take care.

I will also have pavers for the deck. Lol, and it will be one guy doing all the cuts. Me... I figured it would take me a week or 2 for the coping, as I work full time so I will put a couple hours in after work each day and full,days on my weekends. It’s about 1400 square feet of pavers. I have to do it myself as I was quoted 39k for the pavers and that was way out of my budget.

 

[GregInClaremont]

I'm looking forward to watching your project develop. I too had some sticker shock with the Pavers but they sure do look great!

 

[dustin2471]

Howdy Icemannocal,
I am in Roseville too! and we are is currently picking out the tile, coping, and travertine, needless to say going a bit over budget on the cost of the pavers. Little worried as I will be installing the tile myself too, but you asked some very good (and helpful to me) questions. Good luck on your project, looking forward to watching its progress.
dustin2471

 

[Icemannocal]

Howdy Icemannocal,
I am in Roseville too! and we are is currently picking out the tile, coping, and travertine, needless to say going a bit over budget on the cost of the pavers. Little worried as I will be installing the tile myself too, but you asked some very good (and helpful to me) questions. Good luck on your project, looking forward to watching its progress.
dustin2471

Dustin, if you get any answers or info please share, and I will do the same. If you are doing any concrete pavers, I found a sale that basalite was having on discontinued pavers, they are in Tracy and manufacture concrete pavers. I drove down there 2 weeks ago and bought 17 pallets for 1 dollar a square foot. Maybe they have some left, they had 2000 pallets they were liquidating.
Are you doing an owner builder?

 

[Icemannocal]

Here is a link to making and using a water level.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sorOPOY_F2c What I have found so far for the tile is most guys use some type of bender board and nail it all the way around the pool at where they want there tile to start, and set there tiles on top of it using it as a guide, After they determine that water level point of course.

More questions. What if the top of the bond beem ends up wavy, or one side out of level. When you lay your tile, say some end right at the top of the bond beem lip, but some go an inch over the top, to keep your water line level. Is it ok to mud your coping up to the back of the tile that hangs an inch over the top. And do you mud higher than the tile,so your coping does not rest directly on top of the coping or is it ok to sit right on top of the tile...

So many question, so little time...

 

[Icemannocal]

So this is going down today. We hit a snag on the dig and had to renegotiate on price. My yard is nothing but river rock/cobble. And it looks like it will be that way all the way to 7 feet. I had to,authorize a hammer and maybe sacrifice a foot in depth, still working on negotiating...

lets see see if I can figure out how to post pics.




Hello to to my new jackhammer friend. This was about 500 square feet that I hammered and hauled. Saved about 1500 doing it myself and it took me 24 hrs. There is a place 5 miles from my house that takes clean concrete for free so that was a bonus.


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It will not let me post anymore photos, says limit exceeded, can someone help me on how to post more pics

 

[Texas Splash]

It will not let me post anymore photos, says limit exceeded, can someone help me on how to post more pics

Members have a limited upload limit unless they consider becoming a TFP Supporter which helps the site maintain that storage, among other things for site maintenance. If you refer to the Supporter button at the top of the page, you'll see options which will allow you more flexibility. We hope you will consider being a supporter. Thanks for posting your progress.

 

[PoolGate]

If it isn't too late, I would go with more pool and less deck. 1400 sq feet is a lot compared to your relatively small pool. I have almost exactly 1/2 the deck and twice the pool that you do.

 

[Icemannocal]

To late. I can’t really have a larger pool, it would take up my whole yard. With setbacks I have 26 feet on shallow end for a patio area and 14 feet on deep end for a sitting area.

 

[dustin2471]

Icemannocal, sorry for the long delay in the response we have been in a lull regarding building and I have not been surfing TFP forum lately, my wife has picked travertine and is on the hunt for that type of paver, sounds like you got a screaming deal on your pavers though! wow hopefully you have enough space in the side yard to store everything?
We too are owner builder here is a link to my boring build
PM me if you have any questions or need subs, their seems to be an OB network of contractors around and some of them really like to stick it to the OB, we have been very lucky so far but we have talked with a couple subs that our gut (and pocket book) just told us NO!
In my talks with my decking guys I may have them do the tile and coping also, they are reasonable and very good. I only have about 1/2 the waterline tile to do since I have some rock features that are the other 1/2 of the waterline.
Good luck, I am enjoying watching your build. one way to to post more pictures is to click the "Support TFP" tab at the top of the page next to the "Forum" tab, lots of information in there.

 

[Icemannocal]

http://www.pooleng.com/Minimizing-Swimming-Pool-Structural-Problems-Due-t/av-66.

http://www.sakrete.com/blog/bonding-to-existing-concrete

well here is some information I found that may in the future answer someone’s questions. It explains the why to do things a certain way but not how.
Now if I can find out which bonding agent and leveling mortar to use to level the bond beam it will be a start. Bump Incase anyone knows, as well as if anyone knows which mortar to use to level the inner top of the beam before tilting. Maybe the second link is the way to go. I will join up soon and post progress pics.

 

[Icemannocal]

Some progress has been made in the last couple weeks. I almost made it to gunite without rain but missed it by 1 weekend. Didn’t have to much water problem, just a little clean up.
progress pics. Notice the cobble in the first 2 pics, my whole yard down to 8 feet is nothing but river rock on top of river rock with minuscule amounts of dirt between.






Dig complete.


In go the main drains and hydrostatic valve


Rebar


Let’s dig up some more rocks for the plumbing pipes


And in they go




Rough plumbing complete and passed first inspection. Tarping around the perimeter ready to shoot gunite

 

[Icemannocal]

 

[Texas Splash]

Looks like you're getting yourself a pool! Just in time.

 

[bmoreswim]

Your soil is fascinating. Is your geography an alluvial fan?

 

[Icemannocal]

You got me, I had to google that one.. And I guess it is something like that.The soil is like this for miles around me so there had to be water flowing over it at some time.I would like to see what this area looked like a million years ago. It is the reason I am doing pavers in the whole back yard, I never want to stick a shovel in this yard again. Unfortunately, I have to hand excavate a bit more before I can throw the shovel away.