Indiana Hill Billy pool dig...with pics!

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Finally got the walls up and leveled. The final deck height was off so my husband insisted we shave the hole down three inches. I wanted to leave it and just have a shallower pool because I'm lazy. He won. The clay was very hard so he ended up tilling down the 3" and we all shoveled it away with snow shovels. The bottom is a mud hole and the children treated it as such. Still have plenty of shaping left to do.
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Building a pool is all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Actually, this injury was not pool related but happened today and turned out to be the picture perfect end to a hill billy day!
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Thanks for the image instructions!
 
Tough weekend for us. We spent the entire week trying to get the last omitted wall shipped to us. The manufacturer claimed it was not included in the package price so we would have to pay for the wall and the shipping. In the end, we decided to build the wall out of cinderblock and concrete and won't be ordering the rest (diving board, lights, slide, liner, etc) from them. Soooo, spent the weekend building the wall. It was cheap, but wow, the labor. I mean, watching it really looked laborious! Every weekend we think it will be vermiculite time, but something else becomes more important. Here's the latest pic.

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we purchased from Polar Pools. We told them that we did not care for the steps they offered. We said we didn't want their steps and planned on building steps the length of the shallow end. Of course, in our minds, we still wanted a complete pool, just a whole wall instead of steps that jetted out midway through. Everything got shipped on a semi that couldn't get to our drive. We had to unload on a very busy road making several trips in a pickup. The shipping papers showed 'x' amount of walls, we counted 'x' amount of walls so things seemed okay. It wasn't until we started putting it up that we found we didn't have enough. We looked on the shipping papers and sure enough they had written in 'across pool covered step', thus omitting the entire wall. How they thought we were going to keep the water in is anyone's guess. We called right away and they dragged their feet a whole week (no vermiculiting for us). They finally called back and said it would be an additional $1300 for wall AND $300-500 to ship. It was very upsetting. Kind of a low blow. Today we purchased two lights and a heater and they didn't get the sale.
 
Fantastic work!

I am a Hoosier (S.E. Indiana) also, and am planning a similar design (including the steps). I appreciate your posts, and am really looking forward to your outcome. How will the liner work with the steps (I assume over the top)?

My wife and I have 7 kids itching to dive in...

I had looked at Polar Pools, and, based on your experience, will look elsewhere!

Thanks!

P.S. you have a beautiful group there!
 

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thanks, we let the cute ones be in the pictures. We are vermiculiting today!! So far, so good. Set the main drains last night. After verm, we will measure for the liner. Yes, it is going over the steps. We initially wanted the inwall ladder in the deep end but decided against it because the comparative cost was so much higher. I am nervous of some mischievous child dropping the hinged ladder onto the cover, or forgetting the raise the ladder before closing the cover. I will have to start the season out with numerous threats. Hoping to get some pictures posted tonight.
 
Today was a tough working day. Weather was great for the first six hours. Luckly our 13 year old was grounded and sentenced to an entire day of hard labor. Boy did we have the perfect job for him! We managed to get the bottom and slope vermiculited. I think everyone was glad when it finally rained and work had to end for the day. Sunday is jam packed with family stuff, but we'll be back at it on Monday. The heater was delivered yesterday, but they couldn't bring it all the way up the drive to the garage, so the driver left it in the yard at the end of the drive. From far away, the big box looked like a dresser in the middle of the yard. Bet our neighbors just love this project.


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Vermiculite is finally done, and so the week of heck is finally over. This was some super extreme labor intensive work. My husband took the week off to devote to the pool. It rained the first three days leaving us with a muddy mess. Then, he came down with what he thought was the flu. Not wanting to waste the time at home, he forged through three days with a 103 degree temp. in 90 degree heat. Thursday night, he and the neighbor put out work lights and vermiculited until 10:30 pm. This pretty much wiped him out. Friday morning he went to the Dr. and found out he didn't have the flu, it wash bronchitis instead. I asked him if he would do it all over again. He said he was happy to say he 'built' the pool himself, and was glad he took on the vermiculite challenge. However, in hindsight, maybe he would lean towards subbing it out.

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Because we had many low spots, we ended up using 110 bags of vermiculite. Luckily, it was available at our local AG store and we were able to get it when we needed it. Through the whole process, the worst part was the loading and unloading of 100 lb bags of portland. Then, the lifting of said portland over the head to place it on the mixer. Of course, wheeling the portland up and down the wet slippery ramp was no picnic either. I witnessed one hilarious moment when my nephew slipped while trying to push a wheel barrel of portland up the ramp. He slipped facedown while still holding the handles, the wheelbarrow tipped up and he almost 'Jimmy Hoffa-ed' himself. Was a nice moment to laugh and enjoy pool building.

Overall, it really wiped us out. Now, we need a hot tub. Of course, if we chose to build a hot tub instead, we would already be done!

We took it easy today and started the plumbing.
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we took the week off to visit chiropractors! JK! Gonna be back at it tomorrow. Hopefully to pour the form for the next step and remove and replace the eyeball piping (our genius neighbor offered a better way to pipe in the eyeballs). More pictures soon! Thanks for all the encouragement.
 

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