Sprinkler valve seems fixed now. I found two pieces of some kind of hardened blue pipe sealant in the valve that kept the diaphragm from sealing up. I didn't replace any parts yet, so I'm going to watch it close for any slow leaks before declaring total victory. But it is fixed for practical purposes now. Word on the street is plaster TOMORROW! Forecast is calling for 15 mph wind tomorrow and pretty hot and dry conditions. Usually blows 5 mph faster than forecast at my property, so I'm hopeful this doesn't mean lots of check cracks in my plaster.
East Texas pool build in progress
- Thread starter Ryno98
- Start date
Plaster is going in NOW!!! These guys get that stuff thrown in there quick. I was taking a few pics and it went from plain gray gunite to blue plaster in a matter of minutes. Pics to follow; got to go make money to pay for this thing.
So the pool is filing nicely, only about 1 foot left to go. The crew was out here working like crazy today, but I'm not too sure the pumps are actually completely ready to go as there is still quite a mess of wiring by the equipment. Unfortunately the wind has been absolutely nuts here over the past 2 days, and with the dry conditions I'm sure there is about 20 lbs of dirt in the pool at this point. AND there is a 50% chance of rain tomorrow, which will most assuredly stop the crew from working on electrical stuff. How bad is it for the pool to fill and then just sit there with no chemicals and no circulation for 2 or more days?? (Friday is also 50% chance of rain, then who knows if they will come out on a Saturday). And should I start brushing without chemicals or circulation? They haven't even given me a brush yet - they are supposed to b/c it's on the quote. I'm sure hoping the rain holds off so they can at least get the pumps going and do a proper start up.
All I can say is WOW!!!! What a great summer you're going to have! Congrats on an incredible design. If you've got kids, i'll be they are ecstatic.
Update (the bad kind): The pool is up and running - sort of. They got the pumps cranked and chemicals in just prior to all day rain yesterday and last night. It seemed a little weird to me that the spa jets were left running full blast with the spa overflowing into the pool as I thought you really didn't want to run waterfalls on a new plaster startup. It turns out the PB identified a leak in one of the returns, and the only way he could circulate the pool was to draw from the main drain and then return back to the spa. So now we have a huge mud pit being excavated to expose the leak. I've been told that the leak was isolated to a pipe going to the beach entry bubblers and they are going to try to have a plumber fix it today. Luckily they don't think it is under the deck but it looks like they have chipped about 2 feet under the edge of it now; they think it might have been hit by a piece of rebar used to build the retaining wall at the edge of the deck. In the meantime, we are back to my least favorite part of this whole build - giant super muddy holes. And the phone line got cut during this excavation. How it missed damage during the past 5 months of heavy digging and just now got cut I will never understand. Glad to have a pool full of water, but I'm quite certain that this build will never end. And they asked for their last check today (supposed to be given at plaster completion) - kind of interesting to ask for that on a day with so many problems. The rules are the rules, I guess... And we are still waiting for completion of the main rock/water feature plumbing, outdoor kitchen, lights in rock feature, and low voltage lighting.
They have fixed part of the problem. They found a cracked 3" suction pipe at a 90 degree elbow, but they are not sure if they caused that today trying to dig things out or if it was already there. That has been fixed and they've filled in the hole. The pipe to the bubblers, however, is leaking from somewhere over the rainbow under the deck where evidently nobody can see. Which really makes me worry about the status of the plumbing as a whole... When asked how they are going to deal with this they simply responded with "the pool builder has a plan". Here's hoping the plan doesn't involve tearing up the deck or compromising the pool design.
I'm sorry to hear the bad news. You were so close to finishing and now this headache! I hope they continue to attack each problem and resolve it quickly.
Long overdue update: First, the good news. We are SWIMMING!!! The pool is awesome and we are definitely enjoying it. Especially considering we have an almost 3 month old baby which would otherwise mean no swimming at all this entire summer (considering the pain of going to a public pool with an infant). Also, nearest I can tell, everything works!
Now the bad news. The aforementioned leak in the bubbler line turned into quite the headache. They were unable to fix it by tunneling under, but felt confident they could just cut a small piece out of the deck. One small piece led to another:
I wish I could say that is where it stopped. They had planned to lay some "accent tiles" in the diamond shaped cuts to make it look right. They still didn't find they leak, so the cuts continued until I had a huge Tetris piece (you know the one everyone hates) carved in the deck. At that point they knew where the leak was but STILL hadn't exposed it. Long story short, they have now hammered up 2 or 3 entire sections of deck, removed mastic joints, etc. and finally fixed the leak. We are supposed to have new concrete poured tomorrow. Hopefully they can do it without taking down the fence we JUST put up. Then it will have to be re-sealed, new mastic, etc. so I'm still a ways from being completely DONE with this thing - and I still have to get the planters in the rock formation planted, grass laid, etc. I've held back on posting pics until everything was done, but I have some prior to deck destruction I can post. Thanks to everyone here at TFP for providing support and an education for taking care of this pool.
I need to get some better nighttime shots. Might have to get the better camera out for that. I also did a review of the Hayward LED Accent Lights under the Reviews section of the forum, check it out if you're interested.
Now the bad news. The aforementioned leak in the bubbler line turned into quite the headache. They were unable to fix it by tunneling under, but felt confident they could just cut a small piece out of the deck. One small piece led to another:
I wish I could say that is where it stopped. They had planned to lay some "accent tiles" in the diamond shaped cuts to make it look right. They still didn't find they leak, so the cuts continued until I had a huge Tetris piece (you know the one everyone hates) carved in the deck. At that point they knew where the leak was but STILL hadn't exposed it. Long story short, they have now hammered up 2 or 3 entire sections of deck, removed mastic joints, etc. and finally fixed the leak. We are supposed to have new concrete poured tomorrow. Hopefully they can do it without taking down the fence we JUST put up. Then it will have to be re-sealed, new mastic, etc. so I'm still a ways from being completely DONE with this thing - and I still have to get the planters in the rock formation planted, grass laid, etc. I've held back on posting pics until everything was done, but I have some prior to deck destruction I can post. Thanks to everyone here at TFP for providing support and an education for taking care of this pool.
I need to get some better nighttime shots. Might have to get the better camera out for that. I also did a review of the Hayward LED Accent Lights under the Reviews section of the forum, check it out if you're interested.
Awesome! What kind of lights are those that are out of the water? The ones installed on the stairs and such?
I love the waterfall/rocks/slide/grotto - My wife and I have been having a discussion about doing something like that, but I don't think it would blend well as we don't have that type of stone close to where we live...
I can't tell from the photos if you used a manufactured slide or if it was hand-shaped into the gunite. If you used a manufactured one could you tell me which one you went with? We're looking at Dolphin Water Slides and I'm getting used to the slide cost, but the shipping cost is insane...
I can't tell from the photos if you used a manufactured slide or if it was hand-shaped into the gunite. If you used a manufactured one could you tell me which one you went with? We're looking at Dolphin Water Slides and I'm getting used to the slide cost, but the shipping cost is insane...
It's a gunite slide. The entire rock/slide/grotto structure is gunite - which is nice in that all the drainage and conduit for lights could all be strategically set up prior to spraying.
The saga continues! I've had a 99% complete project now for almost 5 months, but had one of the Hayward accent lights missing in the waterfall due to clearance issues when they first attempted the install. It's honestly not that noticeable since I have so many other lights, but the PB had told me he would get it installed somehow. I was pretty ambivalent about it as it looks fine now and starting more headaches of work in my backyard was not high on my priority list. I got home from work early today and found a group of workers clustered around the light "hole" in the waterfall structure with cutting wheels, power chisels, and a shop vac going to town on my beautiful gunite rock structure. I think this may be a perfect example of "the enemy of good is better". I'm having visions of a light that doesn't sync with the other network lights, a hack patch-job on the gunite rock that will not match the surrounding stained and textures surfaces, and water intrusion into the structure and rebar that leads to premature decay. I sure hope I'm just being a pessimist here!
Next I still have to tell the PB about the leaky outdoor shower shutoff valve and the intermittently leaky/barely competent air relief valve on my cartridge filter... Does it ever end?!?!?
Next I still have to tell the PB about the leaky outdoor shower shutoff valve and the intermittently leaky/barely competent air relief valve on my cartridge filter... Does it ever end?!?!?
Wow, I really really hate to hear that! Especially since we share the same PB!
Just remember, that entire gunite structure was virtually full of leaks before they did the waterproofing. So hopefully it will be as simple as putting back on that waterproof material around where they've made the cuts and all should be well. If its a small enough area I'm sure a little texturing of any sort with some paint (I peeked in the truck this morning, it's just sherwin williams paint...nothing super exotic), a little spray gun, a few puffs, and you should be good.
However, I completely empathize as I'd probably have the exact same worries, but I'm willing to bet it'll be fine.
Just remember, that entire gunite structure was virtually full of leaks before they did the waterproofing. So hopefully it will be as simple as putting back on that waterproof material around where they've made the cuts and all should be well. If its a small enough area I'm sure a little texturing of any sort with some paint (I peeked in the truck this morning, it's just sherwin williams paint...nothing super exotic), a little spray gun, a few puffs, and you should be good.
However, I completely empathize as I'd probably have the exact same worries, but I'm willing to bet it'll be fine.
Well, they finished and it actually looks great. I can barely tell they did anything considering the man power and power tools involved. Now I just have to get this added light programmed with the rest of the networked Hayward lights. I'm pretty sure it was easier to program the computers on the space shuttle than to get this many lights all setup correctly...
That waterfall/slide really is a work of art. Can you elaborate on what's going on with your air relief valve? I'm curious about that.
I think the O-ring in the air relief valve is bad. When I close the valve, it leaks quite significantly for a few hours, then slows to a trickle which continues for a day or two before finally stopping. I want to take it apart to inspect it, but each time I've opened/closed the valve the problem gets worse and I don't want to do it again without either having parts available or just asking the PB to take care of it.
This has happened to me with 2 brand new filters. The first filter was a DE grid style filter, which is not the one I ordered. I didn't realize I had the wrong one until I discovered that the pool startup tech never put any DE in it when they started up the equipment. I was forced to clean 3 weeks of plaster dust off the grids so that I would still have some filtration until PB could send the plumber back to connect the quad DE that I really ordered. After cleaning the grids on the first filter and putting everything back together, my air relief valve started leaking exactly the way you described. Now the valve on my brand new quad DE is doing the same thing.