Osage Hills Pool Build

[bpricedo]

Well, it's actually going to happen it seems. They are going to lay out the pool Wednesday and start digging Thursday. Hard to believe.

We are in north Tulsa County in Oklahoma and live on a hilltop on 48 acres. My girlfriend's previous house had a small fiberglass pool that served the purpose of making us want a pool in this house. Going gunite this time. I worked on several sketches and things evolved into a design that we presented to several builders and luckily the one we liked wasn't the most expensive! Here are the stats:

50 x 22 freeform, 129 linear feet perimeter, 27k gal
3.5 ft to 6.5 ft depth
10 ft diameter tanning ledge with two bubblers and two brass umbrella sleeves with lids
French gray plaster
6 x 6 waterline tile Master Tile Afrika series "Nairobi"
Integral color salt finish cantilever deck "smoke" color
Rear 50 ft of pool has extra width bond beam with 18 in wide stone coping with boulders

2hp Whisperflo 2sp pump
TR 100 sand filter
Pool Pilot SWCG
Polaris 280 with booster
2 Intellibrite LED lights
36 in channel drain
2 skimmers
5 returns

That's the gist of it. Still trying to figure out pictures...

 

[bpricedo]

Here is the builder's drawing.

Here is the back yard from the mancave over the garage. We started removing some of the lawn with a sod cutter, will finish that this weekend. That stuff's expensive! So I'm moving it to another part of the yard. And, yes, I need a new spa cover. The spring storms ended this one. The tub will move into the garage, it has a small leak that needs repair and the existing deck will be demo'd to make room for the salt finish deck.

 

[bpricedo]

Day 1!!:

PB on the left with his helper on the right laying out the pool and leveling forms. Old patio has been demo'd already.

This is the same shot as before from over the garage. No patio or spa now. Sorry about the shadows!

This is a shot from the other direction back toward the house instead of away from it. It's gonna look great!

 

[Christian]

What a beautiful house! I love watching pool builds, congratulations and keep the pics coming!

 

[bpricedo]

It seems the truck broke down that would bring the excavation equipment out. They have rescheduled the dig for tomorrow. They still think we can do shotcrete next Friday.

 

[bpricedo]

Day 3:

Houston, we have a hole!

Crew trimming and squaring the hole. PB is in the Bobcat spreading out the dirt.

Tony in the excavator doing his thing.

A shot from the tanning ledge toward the deep end.

A shot of the excavation from over the garage. Obviously this is my favorite shot! I love the way it looks from up here. They will return on Monday to start the steel.

 

[Yukon Jack]

Talk about no neighbors across the fence to be concerned with! Can you take a pic from the pool to the tanning ledge?

 

[bpricedo]

I had taken one but was trying not to go too overload on pics. But just for you, Yukon, here it is:

Not sure if this is what you wanted but this is with me standing in the deep end back toward the tanning ledge. I am taking these with my iPad, it doesn't do wide angle very well.

 

[Flatlander]

Looking good!
I was curious who you are using for a pool builder? Who else you considered? I'm looking in Edmond and my brother is looking in Broken Arrow.
Look forward to next weeks pics!

 

[bpricedo]

I was thinking that was a pretty crappy pic for Yukon. My problem again is the iPad doesn't have a very wide field of view and we are right on the slope of the hill, so if I step back away from the pool far enough for it all to be in the pic, I am getting lower in elevation compared to the pool so you can't see it as well. Anyway, I went and took another:

I held it up over my head to try and catch as much of the pool as possible. I should have moved their Bobcat and climbed on top of it!

 

[bpricedo]

Flatlander,

I am using JP Construction in Tulsa. So far, so good on everything. They are not cheap so if he is looking for the best deal, it is not here. But from reputation and what I've seen, they do all the little unseen things right, quality construction, and it happens fast. For example, this crew is only doing my pool and (supposedly) will be done in 3 weeks. We'll see. It will all be on display here, good or bad!

 

[bpricedo]

Flatlander,

Sorry, I didn't answer all of your question. I also spoke with Dennis Anderson (called DA Designs, LLC at this moment), and Pools Plus by DK. The Pools Plus bid was too high but they started coming down when I told them I was going elsewhere. They didn't come down enough! Dennis has way too many issues to even rationally consider. But if you want it cheap, he's your man.

Friends have had pools built by Advanced Custom Pools and Pool Creations. Others who have used Advanced said they would hire him again. My builder said positive things about Pool Creations. I always hear that Baker Pools is good but very expensive. Some of my friends did get bids from them that were high, I did not personally talk to them.

 

[Flatlander]

Thanks for the info, I will pass along to my brother.
Good luck with your build!!

 

[bpricedo]

Day 6:

Not too much happened today. It was 110, give or take, and that's just too hot. Wish I had a pool...

They are starting the final grade on the hydrostatic gravel. That is what the PB called it. It is a 3 inch layer of gravel that gives ground water an unimpeded path to the low point of the hole where the hydrostatic valve is so it can work properly. They also use the gravel for the final grade of the pool depths. It is hard to see but the two guys in the deep end are putting a string across the forms and marking points on it to measure down to the gravel so that they have the correct depth for the final water level. There is also a string already present in the shallow end but you can just see where it is tied to the forms.

Starting steel.

More steel.

Some progress. The drain is in. Some steel. No good pics since their shade tarp was laying on top of everything.

 

[mhosborn]

Good looking build you've got going on there!

We just had our pool finished earlier this year, and JP Construction was one of the bidders. Unfortunately, they came in much higher than anyone else. Our "finalists" were Baker Pools, Atlantis, and Raley Pools. We ended up going with Raley Pools. In hindsight, perhaps we should have considered JP a bit more, because one of their strengths is that they try to work on only one pool at a time, making the process much, much faster. For us, we signed our contract at the end of August, but our build wasn't completed until the end of January. This wasn't that big a deal, though, as we knew we wouldn't be swimming until this year anyway.

Enjoy your build...I love to look at build pictures!

 

[bpricedo]

Day 7:

Just another day of laying steel.

Robert (main helper) and another crew (don't know name yet!) tying steel.

PB is forming steps.

A shot down the pool.

Steps.

Tanning ledge with bubbler plumbing. Umbrella sleeves TBD. Not too exciting I know but, I was excited to see this:

Light niches! And what looks like returns! Also this is one of the boulders going on the bond beam. This rock is off of my land and all of the rock on my house is as well.

Skimmers! Yeah, I know, easily excited. We have just 2 more working days until gunite, I'm rooting them on!

 

[bpricedo]

Day 8:


Just one picture today, looks like we are ready for pre-gunite inspection tomorrow and gunite Friday. I am stressing a bit about the placement of the umbrella sleeves in the tanning ledge. There are two and I feel good about one but not the other. Checking it with an umbrella this evening after work made me question it. I would like to see it around 2-3 in the afternoon but I am working. Her schedule is more flexible so she will check it again for me tomorrow and I'll move it if necessary. Don't know why this is the most stressful thing I've dealt with so far, but it is.

 

[bpricedo]

It passed inspection so gunite is on for tomorrow! I took off work to supervise

 

[techguy]

One thing I read about adding sleeves for your umbrella was to consider only adding them to the deck and place them so they provide shade where you want shade to sit in as opposed to adding them to the center of the area you want shade in. Basically, if you add them to the center of where you want shade, the shade will not be there...it will be over there. Also they suggested you add more of them than you think you need as they are cheap to install now.

 

[bpricedo]

The deck is on the west side of the tanning ledge. If I only had an umbrella there, by the time of day that it would provide any shade, the sun would already be going behind the house. So I have one on the front edge of the ledge and one toward the back to provide shade throughout the day. That has been the trick, to actually stand out there with an umbrella at different times to see where the shade actually falls.