New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country UPDATED WITH PICS

[dmalma]

Howdy, fellow TFPers! I've been lurking for months, soaking up as much information as I can (it's overwhelming! ) before deciding to jump in and start a thread now that we're getting closer to starting our build.

My husband and I interviewed 4 PBs before deciding to go OB, with some moral support from justinjudd (thanks Justin!) and help/advice regarding subs from both spillmar (thanks Roger!) and Corleone (thanks Nick!).

I was able to create a pool plan using Pool Studio (great program) and we were issued our permit last week. (Yay! ) Below are the drawings from Pool Studio as well as pics of what our yard looks like currently.





Current Pics (using pvc to design with before using pool design software:tongue:



Same view last December 30th when a freak snow storm hit Southern California and we got 1 1/2 feet of snow!:rendeer:


We're still interviewing subs, but it looks as if digging will begin in the next week or so. As we get further along, I'll be sure to post in-progress pics. In the meantime I have a few questions:

1. Do you think 6 jets is too few for an 8' round spa?
2. What do you think about installing lights on the steps in the pool? Does anyone who's done this have any pics?
3. Do most people have overfill drains?

Thanks so much for your help!!!
Laura

 

[dmalma]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Here are a couple of additional pictures of the pool design. The reason why I ask about lights on the steps is because the pool lights will be on one side of the pool (nearest the house) and I'm not sure if the those lights will be able to light the steps that are on the other side of the spa. Lighting is pretty important to us because my husband is blind but can still see a little light so if there is light on the steps it might help guide him. Thanks!

 

[SuzfromTexas]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Oh my goodness, Laura! Gorgeous design and beautiful artist rendering. Everything about it is so graceful and elegant - pool, decking, and landscaping. Since this is OB, I'm assuming the deck and landscape layouts are part of YOUR plan. I love how the designs begin with the pool and then "ripple" outward repeating the pool shape in the deck and echoing in the planters. Well designed! Bravo!

Then there's the setting for your pool... beautiful house and lovely scenery! When may I come???? Don't panic, I don't fly or drive far distances - you're safe, from this poster, anyway! LOL!

The snow picture sends me over the moon!! I love snow. Of course, I've never lived as an adult where snow is regular. I might feel differently about it if I did.

I'll give you my opinions to your questions, but keep in mind, my pool isn't even yet completed. And I've never owned one.

1. Our spa is a 7' round with 12 jets. Our PB said around here (Houston area) that 6 jets are standard. But I wanted to be able to control at least some of the water features and spa features separately which meant more pumps. So then, he said I could easily have double the jets. Since I'll be using the pool and spa a great deal for physical therapy, I thought extra jets would be a good idea. But.... not ever having a spa with 6 jets, I can't tell you if that would be enough. Maybe this will give you a benchmark for reference.

2. I would definitely get lights for our steps - if I had only thought of it sooner. This is something I have already put on my "next time" list even though this will be our one and only pool. But I have 7 spiral-type steps which hug the spa, and I think a light would be great. Again, my pool is still in the build process, so maybe I'll find afterwards that our pool lights shed enough light onto the steps. I also wish I had asked for a return at the top of the steps to help move debris off the steps. (BTW - I love how your spa is centered at the top of your steps - lovely!).

3. Overfill drains? Right now, I think I have that, but am not sure. Do you mean in case you get an abundance of rain and the water level gets too high? If so, a friend of ours who built his pool 25 years ago does NOT have that. He said it was a PITA to hook up a hose to something-or-other and then put the hose end in one of his deck drains to lower the water level. When I asked potential PB's about this, they sort of looked at me like it was a silly question. I gather that around our area at least, it is fairly standard.

I so wish I were an expert to better answer people's questions. But maybe opinions and thought processes are useful, too. Maybe? Sort of? Kind of???

I'm excited you're posting on this site and sharing your beautiful plans and scenery with us! Thank you! Keep the pictures coming. This will be fun to watch! All the best! Suz.

 

[pooldv]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Definitely recommend overflow drain. Especially with all the rain this spring. It makes lots of rain a non-issue. Without an overflow drain the skimmers flood, all the stuff runs back in the pool. Depending on where the pool overflows it can make a mess on your deck, etc. And you have to go drain water back down to normal level so that your skimmers work well.

 

[TW Pool]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Looks great, Dmal! I'm not sure how much you care to spend on lighting (because it can get stupid expensive quick), but Pentair makes "shallow water" lights. You could likely do your whole pool with 4 of these instead of 1 large light. Just remember that your electrician will charge you for every light run.

I can't wait to see you get started!

 

[bdavis466]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

The lights are the Pentair GloBrites and they would work perfect for your application in the steps. If you choose these then I would stick with low voltage lights in the rest of the pool. There are noticeable color differences between the 12V and 120V lights.

Absolutely include an overflow for the pool.

6 jets are plenty and would allow you a lot of options with pressure since you are using a VS pump. If you do more than 6 jets then I would absolutely recommend a 3" suction and return line to the spa with a minimum of a 2" looped return in the spa.

I also suggested you step your salt cell up to the IC60. The price difference is minimal and will allow you shorter run times...a definite plus with Edison's rates

 

[SuzfromTexas]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Bdavis, would you explain about the color differences between the 12v and the 120 volt lights? I've never heard that addressed. Thanks so much! Suz.

 

[TW Pool]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Bdavis, would you explain about the color differences between the 12v and the 120 volt lights? I've never heard that addressed. Thanks so much! Suz.

Suz,

12v is DC and 120v is AC. Some places are now requiring 12v because they are safer. 120v, if not grounded properly, are what causes electrocutions. It happened at a Hilton in Houston about 2 years ago where a guy died. They went after the shoddy electricians criminally. Ideally, they is why you hire a good electrician AND a good inspector.

12v lights cost about the same as the 120v, but require a transistor (about $100 for the transistor and $100 gouging by your electrician to install it) per light sequence. Meaning, if you want your spa to be a different color than the pool, you need a second transistor.

I hope this helps! I really wanted to go 12v, but ended up 120.

 

[bdavis466]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Bdavis, would you explain about the color differences between the 12v and the 120 volt lights? I've never heard that addressed. Thanks so much! Suz.

The colors don't look the same, they have different shades. Blue for example looks blue in one and more purple in the other. All the colors are slightly off from one another.

 

[SuzfromTexas]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Thanks! Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Suz.

 

[dmalma]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Thanks so much for your lovely comments, Suz! Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I work full-time, in addition to having family issues right now, so sometimes my focus has to be elsewhere...We did go with lights on the steps. As dark as our pool will be we need more illumination, especially as my husband has very limited vision. (i.e. he can only vaguely see light and dark). We also will have an additional pump for our spa so we added more jets in our spa. We went from 6 to 12. Hey, if you've got the horsepower why not take advantage of it right?! Take care, Laura

 

[dmalma]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Thanks so much for the info bdavis466! I had no idea about the color difference. I think you live near me (I'm in Murrieta/La Cresta-unincorporated County of Riverside) so I'm assuming we have to go with 12v. (I should know what code says, but I didn't check because we were going to go with 12v anyway.) I really appreciate the heads up about the color issues and am also upgrading to the IC60. Thanks again!

The lights are the Pentair GloBrites and they would work perfect for your application in the steps. If you choose these then I would stick with low voltage lights in the rest of the pool. There are noticeable color differences between the 12V and 120V lights.

Absolutely include an overflow for the pool.

6 jets are plenty and would allow you a lot of options with pressure since you are using a VS pump. If you do more than 6 jets then I would absolutely recommend a 3" suction and return line to the spa with a minimum of a 2" looped return in the spa.

I also suggested you step your salt cell up to the IC60. The price difference is minimal and will allow you shorter run times...a definite plus with Edison's rates

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you so much, TW Pool! I looked up what you were talking about and found the Globrites. We're installing 2 of them.

Looks great, Dmal! I'm not sure how much you care to spend on lighting (because it can get stupid expensive quick), but Pentair makes "shallow water" lights. You could likely do your whole pool with 4 of these instead of 1 large light. Just remember that your electrician will charge you for every light run.

I can't wait to see you get started!

 

[dmalma]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Thanks for the reply, pooldv! So my husband vetoed me on the overflow. Must be because we've been in a drought for what seems like forever (I'm in California) so he thinks we'll never get rain again. However, when the rain does come again and it's pouring out I'm going to make him stand out there and deal with the overflow!

Definitely recommend overflow drain. Especially with all the rain this spring. It makes lots of rain a non-issue. Without an overflow drain the skimmers flood, all the stuff runs back in the pool. Depending on where the pool overflows it can make a mess on your deck, etc. And you have to go drain water back down to normal level so that your skimmers work well.

 

[prs]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

You may want to have another chat with your hubby on the overflow drain. It doesn't rain much here in Bakersfield, but this Spring I had to go buy a submersible pump to lower the level in my pool because it got so high the skimmer stopped working. Remind him that it rains in the winter when outside temperatures are low so there is little evaporation from the pool. Each time it rains the water level builds up and eventually you will have to deal with it!!!!

The alternate to an overflow drain is to have a line from the pool pump that allows you to pump water to waste. This line, like an overflow drain. needs to go someplace that takes the water away from your house and yard. Pumping a thousand gallons into a flower bed is not a good idea.

 

[bdavis466]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

You can install either the 12v or 120v lights. There is no code issue and both are perfectly safe. The 120v will end up being less expensive, especially if you chose to have them on seperate cicuits.

I would absolutely install an overflow line and a waste line after the pump...I wouldn't even consider that an option.

 

[SuzfromTexas]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

Thanks so much for your lovely comments, Suz! Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I work full-time, in addition to having family issues right now, so sometimes my focus has to be elsewhere...We did go with lights on the steps. As dark as our pool will be we need more illumination, especially as my husband has very limited vision. (i.e. he can only vaguely see light and dark). We also will have an additional pump for our spa so we added more jets in our spa. We went from 6 to 12. Hey, if you've got the horsepower why not take advantage of it right?! Take care, Laura

Laura, I can not imagine building your pool while working full time, and yet, it seems that's how it is for most OB pools.

I noticed you were away for awhile. I hope your being back means things are better now or at least leveled off for the time being.

You'll be glad you added the lights for the steps. And I'm hoping the 12 jets will be a good thing. We may need to tie down women and children, but it should be fun, right?! What's next? Suz.

 

[Hemess]

Re: New Owner Builder Pool/Spa in SoCal Wine Country

I love the view out of your backyard, beautiful. The pool design is fabulous too. Great work! I had an autofill installed (its been three years and I haven't hooked it up yet). However, I wish i had know about an overfill...you don't need it until you need it. My goal is that my pool is as hands off as possible (automation, automation, automation).

Can't wait to see more pics of the build.

 

[dmalma]

Hi, everybody! Well it's been awhile, but I finally found some time to sit down and post progress pics of our pool.

Tuesday 6/2/15: Excavation Day 1:



By the end of the day this was as far as they'd gotten with the dig because they had to bobcat each bucket of dirt 250 feet down our driveway to another level area of our yard:


Wednesday 6/3/15: Excavation Day 2: Having realized it was going to take forever to dig the pool AND move the dirt out they brought in another bobcat!


By the end of day 2 our pile of dirt had grown to a humongous hill! The pile was so big I could only get 1/6th of it in the picture. It's amazing how huge 250 yards of dirt is!


Finished excavation:




Thursday 6/4/15: Steel Day: The steel guys worked like machines, arriving at 6:30am and leaving at 2:30pm. The only extra work we had them do was add heavier rebar to the bond beam (#4 vs #3) and cut out for an additional pool light. On the surface their work looked great and, since these guys were recommended by a couple of people, I trusted that it was all good. Big mistake. Since I didn't go in the pool to check their work (I know, stupid right?! ) I didn't realize the steel placement wasn't 3" from the dirt (i.e. it wasn't to code). (More about the steel issues later.)






You can see where we had them move the light niches to add an additional light:



Monday 6/8/15: Plumbing started. No real pictures for this time period because we ended up ditching the plumber (even though he came recommended to us.) His work was really, really bad. No real $ loss though because we only paid him $500 and he dug all the trenches (plumbing/electrical). The only thing we lost was a little bit in materials for the crappy work he started (and the cost of broken door/windows from when our house was broken into when we went on vacation, which coincidentally only he and his subs, and my sister, knew we were going to be gone and our neighbor saw a truck that looked just like the subs race past her house right after our alarm went off).

On Friday 6/26/15 plumbing resumed with a new, MUCH better crew and continued through Saturday 6/27/15, along with electrical:








Pipes in the trenches: FYI, I wish the pipes in the trenches weren't piled on top of each other, but these guys used the first plumber's trenches, which were deep enough but not really wide enough. I guess they didn't feel like widening them since our soil is "decomposed" granite. I didn't really protest because I was just happy we were moving forward.

By the end of the day we were ready for our first inspection (or so we thought)...

Wednesday 7/1/15: First inspection: Failed...sort of. The inspector was going to fail us because the rebar wasn't 3" from the dirt. He thought the plumbing and electrical looked great, but the rebar...no way. I knew the code was 3", but had been so distracted by the bad first plumbers and the break-in in addition to a million other things that were going on that I forgot to check the spacing before inspection (and before we paid them ). The inspector went ahead and passed us since he knew that we were definitely going to fix the problem. (We didn't want our steel to rust from the ground up!).



But now the ENTIRE pool (including the new light niches we paid the steel guys to excavate) needed to be dug out. We had many areas that were 1/2" from the dirt. We did contact the steel guys/excavators about the problem, but of course the steel guys blamed the excavators and the excavators blamed the steel guys, which meant I got stuck fixing it. :grrrr: Ironically, we hired the excavators because the steel guys recommended them. Too bad the steel guys didn't tell me when I asked them BEFORE they started working on the steel that the excavation had problems.

Wednesday 7/15/15: Finally ready for shotcrete! We had a 2 week delay from inspection to shotcrete due to me having to excavate the entire pool by hand to get the 3" clearance and also wait for the shotcrete crew to become available. (Sorry no pictures of me with a digger bar, chisel or lugging at least 50 five gallon buckets full of dirt out of the pool or of the many MANY blisters all over my hands. )

The morning of shotcrete started out nice and cool (and initially foggy until 11am or so), but by the time they finished at 3pm it was in the upper 80's. Luckily we actually got some rain over the weekend so I didn't have to water the pool for 2 days and the high humidity has helped a lot.









And that's the progress so far! The plumber/electrician subs are coming back on Saturday and we still have to hire a mason to do the coping/pavers but at least we have something that resembles a pool! I've been shopping for coping and tile and have yet to decide on that eye candy. :tongue:

I will say, despite some of the problems we've encountered along the way, I do like going the OB route. It's not for everyone, but since we got royally ripped-off from the general contractor who built our house I much prefer the control that comes from being an OB especially since I can schedule the subs according to my schedule. It takes a lot of the stress out of the process.

 

[kimkats]

You are doing a great job! Too bad about the steel! OUCH in so many ways! Got to love the blame game

Thanks for sharing!

What color family are you thinking of going with? Blues, Greens, Browns? GOLD?? SO many to pick from!

Kim

 

[ummgood]

Just an FYI some of the skimmers I have seen (including mine) have a place for attaching an overflow line. Yours appear to have that on the back near the top. All you would have to do for an overflow is punch out the plate inside that is sealing the hole and attach a PVC pipe from there to open air right above ground. You can still do this (you might have to chisel out some of the gunite on the back of your skimmer. Our PB is going to hook up our overflow in the same way and there is a notch in the gunite to allow for the pipe on the far side skimmer for this. Super easy and cheap and with some PVC cement, a couple elbows, about 5 feet of pipe, and about 20 minutes you could have an overflow.