New pool build in Nicaragua

[MrNica]

Hello, I am new. This site is excellent and much appreciated.

We are undertaking a new build in Nicaragua for a big dipping pool. Very deep skinny house with a strange L porch.

Is about 23' x 23' with one corner 45'd. Deep is 68" shallow is about 44".

Will be all mosaic tile. Partially out of the ground. With a three seat bar on one outside edge. Future will be an outdoor kitchen in the lower left of the diagram.

This will be block with a bond beam bottom and top and rebar throughout.

Equipment will be.

7800 Gal all mosaic tile concrete FW
Pentair 420 SF Clean and Clear Plus cartridge filter
Pentair 1-1/2 Whisperflo 2 speed pump
4 returns
Pentair cleaner boost pump
Polaris 280
2 Intellibrite LED
2 Pentair LED Intellibrite Bubbler
Intellibrite controller
4 Jandy deck jets
1 36" Sheer descent waterfall
2 Ceramic vase water pouring spouts
All Jandy valves
Auto fill
Overflow


No automation

The pool will have a tanning deck at the top of the two sided steps
We will be renovating the floor of the porch and will install a home theater as well.

Since this is Nicaragua, it is more economical to hand dig the excavation.

We just started a couple hours ago.

Here is a pic

[/URL]

Marked off and ready to dig. Just starting.

[/URL][/IMG]


Tiles: The blue is the pool mosaic. The brown is accents for lines near edges of steps and seats. The red is for the porch (the existing porch tile is hideous 1970's vinyl) and the other large tile is for the pool deck.

[/URL][/IMG]

[/URL][/IMG]


Wood delivery for the bond beam forms!

[/URL][/IMG]

PVC purchased

[/URL][/IMG]


Here is a simple crude diagram and elevation legend.

[/URL][/IMG]

[/URL][/IMG]

More to come.

 

[jblizzle]

Wow, this could be very interesting. I am sure many of use would like to continue to see photos of the build which will be done very differently from how they are done in the US ... hand digging?!?! Single horse power wood delivery

 

[pwrstrk]

Welcome to TFP !
This is going to be very interesting to say the least. Please keep us posted on your progress with lots of pictures ! This will be one to watch. Hand digging, my hats off to you !

 

[MrNica]

Yeah, we will dig by hand because there is not really much. It is part out of the ground and the pool was designed to take advantage of the slope. A few guys a few days and done. There will be a lattice fence on the two open sides. Low cost of labor here.

 

[Divin Dave]

This looks great! Keep the pics coming!

oh..and welcome to TFP!

 

[Patrick_B]

This should be a very interesting build!

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing your build with us.

I'll be watching::

 

[Beens]

Subscribed!

 

[RangerBob]

Love the horse power! I am definitely following this build - Karen

 

[MrNica]

3 guys, 7 hours = 12% excavated.

8800 Gal all mosaic tile concrete FW, Pentair 420 SF Clean and Clear Plus cartridge filter, Pentair 1-1/2 Whisperflo 2 speed pump, 4 returns, Pentair cleaner boost pump, Polaris 280, 2 Intellibrite LED, 2 Pentair LED Intellibrite Bubbler, Intellibrite controller, 4 Jandy deck jets, 1 36" Sheer descent waterfall, 2 Ceramic vase water pouring spouts, All Jandy valves, Auto fill, Overflow

 

[pwrstrk]

Nice job ! What's the avg. depth you have dug out 3-4 ft ? Have you hit any rock and what's the plan if you do since it's all hand work ?

 

[Divin Dave]

man i hope it dont rain on you any time soon!

 

[MrNica]

Varies because of the slope of the terrain and we are gonna excavate the whole thing to same depth since it is block. Easy end will need a total of 39" taken out the hard end will be about 58". I think about 6 more days. No nasty rock or anything at all so far. Part of the pool is out of the ground.

This is dry season so rain is close to very unlikely.

 

[Patrick_B]

That's good to hear! I'm pretty sure this may be the first hand dug pool on TFP. These guys will probably get it done quicker than my PB did with an excavator.

 

[MrNica]

The guys say 4.5 days. This is day two.

 

[Patrick_B]

I think that's pretty impressive to be honest.

 

[Glock]

That is impressive. If I was digging it you would be waiting 4.5 Months and it would not look near as good as they are doing lol. I am excited to see this done.

 

[kimkats]

OH fun! Thanks for letting us come along for the build!

Kim

 

[MrNica]

Second day, 3 guys, 15 hours total = 25% excavated

 

[Patrick_B]

OH fun! Thanks for letting us come along for the build!
Kim

Indeed, I'm very appreciative of being able to see such an unusual build! I mean dug by hand, we just don't get to see that too often.

Question for you MrNica. We notice you have all the materials on site we normally don't see here until the various build phases. Things like plaster, piping, tile, etc. My wife is guessing this is because you may have a long way to go to get it? Around here, they just run down to the hardware/pool suppliers as they need things, or they order it near the end of the project.

Really looking forward to seeing this one progess, thanks again for sharing with us.

 

[MrNica]

We have a store called Sinsa which is like Home Depot on steroids in Managua. http://www.sinsa.com.ni/index.php 90 min away so I hired a large stake bed truck and got all the ceramic for 3 parts of the job, pipe, fittings and electrical because they have a better inventory than local places here and a better discount.

Everything else will be purchased local. Wood, rebar, cement, sand, gravel etc. (Delivered by horse). We have 4 decent small mom and pop places in town. Rivas is a decent size town. Maybe 75,000.00

We are not in the sticks here but a really great store like Sinsa is a small trek but not too bad.

There are two decent pool supply places in Managua but they are pricey. One small mom and pop pool supply place here in Rivas. I ordered all of my stuff, filter, pumps, lights, skimmer, floor drains, Polaris 280, return fittings etc everything from Amazon. All will arrive next week.

One thing you cannot buy here is coping bricks. I will use formed concrete with dye/colorizer. It will actually be a 2" thick wall cap that is radiused for most of it because a good piece of he pool is 20-30" out of the ground. (The side towards the house)