Georgetown, TX Pool Build (North of Austin, TX)

[jimbethesda]

Ha Kim, the mud has begun for sure. No more videos until the fiber is repaired :-(. Also, rock is covered in all the pool quotes in our area, so no unexpected costs due to rock. I've already got the pressure washer out clearing the driveway so we could park again. It may be a week before they make it back out here due to the rain. At first, my wife thought it was a good idea to drive over the driveway into the garage. She found out that was a bad idea.

Jim, they didn't make it back out today. After looking at the forecast, I'm not sure when they will be back out. To be honest, it may be a blessing in disguise. The difference between Wednesday, when it wasn't raining, and the past 2 when it has been raining is night and day. The bobcat sinks more and the kids start tracking mud in the house vs dirt. What part of Austin do you live in? If you are getting a spa, you are probably in the same boat as me. I'm hoping to be relaxing in the spa during Christmas. Since we can't turn the heater on for 28 days, it will be close.

That makes me feel better. 7 day weather forecast still looks bad.

I’m in the great hills neighborhood near the arboretum

 

[drewhiggs]

A week and a half later still no internet, but the pool is formed now. AT&T ran new fiber, but another group is supposed to come by on Monday to terminate it. After that I go can back to regularly scheduled time lapses.

The pool is formed. Initially the form was 3’ out of alignment length wise, but it was resolved once I brought to their attention. The excavation crew has to come back out with a jack hammer to manually remove some more rock.

Here are a couple of pictures. It’s difficult to get a good angle without the eye in the sky, but something is better than nothing ��

 

[kimkats]

Good work on finding the missing 3'! Bet they were hating life that day!

The pics are good! They show everything you will need to see when you look back over the build. Now the no internet part That would be the hard part for me! All of my teacher's manuals are on line so I NEED it to do my lesson plans and such!

Kim

 

[drewhiggs]

Eye in the sky is back online! Kim, their were definitely some adjustments that had to be made. My wife was constantly using her phone as a hotspot to finish work up, but that part is over now .

Main drains and rebar were started today. I was impressed with how much one guy can do in one day with rebar.

 

[jatkinson]

Good old OSB! Where would we be without it to make cheap forms?

 

[kimkats]

Makes you glad you hired him to do the job I bet!!!

Once he is done take your plans and a tape measure out to the pool. Is it wide, deep, long, etc enough? Add about 6" for the gunite and plaster. NOW is the time to fix/tweak if needed or wanted.

Kim

 

[drewhiggs]

So should skimmers be completely level? They completed plumbing and rebar, everything is great but the skimmers are not equal height. I’m estimating they are off 2.5”. I texted the pool sup about my concerns, but he didn’t text back. My outdoor cam showed that he stopped by, but I’m not sure if this should be a concern or not. The skimmers are water level, so I’m thinking 2.5” will show up. Below are pictures of it being off. I've laser leveled the rest of the osb and it is all within reason. Only the skimmers are off....

 

[drewhiggs]

Actually, I just laser measured again and it appears to be off on one side. This may be an issue they can fix once they spray gunite, but I'm new at this and don't know. Here is another picture of what I laser leveled tonight. I laser leveled from the top of the OSB to the other top of the OSB.

View attachment 87335

 

[bmoreswim]

Do not let them shoot the pool with skimmers that are at different heights. It will be an issue for life. Any amount they are different in height will reduce the operating range of your pool water level. The high skimmer will suck air first and the low skimmer will top out first and not skim the surface. Ours are about 1” different. It’s not a dealbreaker but that lack of attention to detail will have consequences as described above for the life of the pool.

 

[drewhiggs]

Thanks for the reply. Since I texted the sup this morning and evening and I have not received a reply, I decided to email the owner of the company as well. Since gunite might be sprayed on Monday, I don't want to take any chances.

 

[kimkats]

It may come to being there when the truck shows up and making them fix those before any other work is done. Should you have to do that? NO but if you don't then you cannot be sure they are fixed before it is too late

 

[drewhiggs]

Well here’s to hoping the skimmers was leveled correctly as our gunite was sprayed yesterday! I had an email and several text messages explaining the issue and also several assurances that it would be resolved.

I left for Vegas yesterday morning while they were spraying. At our layover we were checking the process and it looks fantastic. The pool builder said he would stop by once a day to water the gunite since we are out of town. I’m not sure if I need to ask my neighbor to fill in as well. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[kimkats]

What are your temps like? If they are in teh 90s I would ask the neighbor to pop over to do a good watering. If it is a real good neighbor you could get them to get water timer and sprinkler to use.

Here is hoping the skimmers are level! Let us know what you see when you get home!

Kim

 

[drewhiggs]

It's been awhile since I posted, but we are in the home stretch. We've had ups and downs, but every thing has been addressed and resolved. The biggest issue was the shallow end being to deep, so they added some more concrete to level it out to 4' in the shallow end. This had me worried for awhile, as the pool was going to be too deep for the kiddos, but the PB made it right and it's now exactly what I wanted. Other changes included an upgrade to pebble sheen aqua blue from pebble fina and changing the decking from kool crete to salt finish.

Electricians came by on Friday and finished connecting all of the equipment. At this point, I'm only waiting on the gas line connection, another electrical outlet, and plaster! It's a possibility that it will be done this week, but since it's Thanksgiving week, I'm not sure that will happen.

As for my yard, it's been destroyed ;-)....now the work begins for me. I started working on the sprinkler system yesterday, which was quite the learning experience. I found out more yesterday than the previous 6 years combined. I bought an orbit wireless controller for the sprinkler system and that was worth every penny! It's so much easier to troubleshoot the system when I don't have to run back and forth.

Question for TFP gurus.....How long would you wait until turning on the heater for the Spa? PB says it's best to wait 30 days and Pebble Tec says 14 days. I'm definitely going to listen to the PB for warranty purposes, but I wanted to know what TFP thought.

 

[kimkats]

I have always heard 30 days to protect the heater from the dust. You will be brushing the new plaster twice a day for a while. Once you stop seeing dust coming off the new plaster you can back off to once a day.

I have a set of links for new plaster. Read through it and share it with your PB and see what he says:

-How to set up to have the best plaster job: A Plastering 'Watch List' | Professional Watershaping | Watershapes

-Brief snap shots of different start ups: Pool School - Start-up New Plaster

-Full run down on the best BUT hardest start up: A Bicarb Start-up guide for TFP members

-Next best start up BUT it leaves out to NOT put water in the pool right away. Wait at least 6 hours after plaster is put in before putting water in! The back of the card is what you want: google "NPC start up card". (I can't link to pdf files for some reason.)

Kim

 

[drewhiggs]

Thanks for the links Kim.

I performed all the tests from the tf-100 kit tonight and below are the results for the fill water.

Chlorine = .5
CC = 4.5
TC = 5
CH = 350 ppm
TA = 250
PH 7.2
Bromine = I wasn't able to determine the number

Do all of these numbers seem reasonable?

 

[kimkats]

You have some awesome water right there!!! The cc is high but that could be from what they treat the water with. The TA is high but that is EASY to fix. TA is the last thing we work on with water so we will hold off on throwing the "how to" at you right now.

Bromine is like CYA in that it has to be added so no worries there. Plus you don't want any bromine in your water as you will have a chlorine pool.

You next homework is to add that awesome test kit to your signature so anyone helping with your pool will know what you have.

Kim

 

[drewhiggs]

I don't want to jinx it, I probably am, but I've been told that pebble sheen is being applied tomorrow! We have been staring at the same pool since November 6th (when decking was poured) and we are ready to finish this project! We had a lot of rain in September/October and I was told this put the pebble tec applicator WAY behind.....which is the reason for delay.

I've decided to take Dirk's advice and monitor the water meter to determine pool volume. I've already measured how much water the shower, bath, toilet, and sink use and told the family we will be timing how long showers are and how many toilet flushes we have ;-).....I've had a few eye rolls lol

 

[kimkats]

WHAT??? OH yeah! Is there any way you can be there when they drive up? Make sure they have the correct color and any extras you asked/paid for.

Kim

 

[drewhiggs]

I’m not sure I can be there and I only had two options for tier 1 pebble sheen, blue surf and aqua blue. I’ll be fine with either but choose aqua blue. I didn’t add anything extra like shells.

I’m hoping the rain holds off we get this done!