Dallas New Build 2019

My deck pour got delayed since the inspector didn't make it out yesterday. Got the tag today, so I'll have to see when it can get rescheduled.

In the meantime I've been thinking about the finish on the concrete. Currently it's calling for a light broom finish, but I'm getting a little concerned about the roughness and look. I'm wondering if a troweled finish with a non slip sealer may get me close to the slip resistance of the brushed with a cleaner look. Anybody have any experience with the non slip sealers?
 
Plaster reaches its fully cured strength after 28 days and having salt in the water can somewhat interfere with the process. The actual threat is very small - it just goes against best practices for plaster hardness/longevity.

There are plenty of pools where salt was added on day one and have had no detrimental side effects.

It's interesting that on the Pebbletec start up info only 2 things are in Bold letters: don't stop filling it once you start, and don't add salt for 28 days. So, you'd think that means it's a big deal. But, the pool guy our PB uses normally adds salt at 10 days...we told him we wanted to wait just to be extra careful. All we need is an issue to arise and then Pebbletec won't warranty it because salt was added early. So many different opinions/methods for all this pool stuff...literally every builder around here does something different regarding start up and when you can swim (from hours after fill to 2 weeks), when they add what chemicals/salt, etc. The only thing consistent is not using heaters for a month. ?‍♀️
 
You can read further on the salt here:


As for the heater, there is a lot of plaster dust in the water and the pH is usually very high. When you heat water the potential for scale formation increases significantly.

The actual timeframe for waiting to use the heater has no real merit. As long as the plaster dust is under control and the pH is in range there is no reason not to use it.

There was a theory that the heated water could effect the plaster but that was quickly debunked by taking a plaster surface temperature of a new pool while filling and finding it well over 100 degrees and less than 8 hours old just from sun exposure.
 
I decided to go with the troweled concrete instead of brushed. I saw the were a couple coatings/sealers that can add grip if it's too slick or maybe an acid wash.

That brought sealing in general with a salt pool. Is sealing of coping required/recommended in general and with salt? The pool builder is pushing for since I switched to salt.
 

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Deck's poured and troweled. Looks like it's going to be slippery but looks good. Gas inspection tomorrow. Clean up tomorrow or Saturday. Shooting for final inspection Monday. Doesn't look like plaster until the next Monday but doing everything I can to get plaster in next week before the 4th.
 

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I have a hand troweled deck. It's not slippery. I had other issues with some spalling on the troweled joints but I feel it was un related to the trowel work.
 
Inspector no showed today. Had the potential to move my plaster to Wednesday. Hopefully can still get it scheduled if he comes early and I don't need any changes. In the meantime here's that yard cleaned up a bit and the final decking. Doesn't seem like the trowelled will be too slick.
 

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Water finally in the pool and had my first dip! Looking pretty good. Started filling yesterday afternoon and was topped off about six this morning (after several checks through the night). Pool technician came out today and added chemicals. Said good for a swim after a couple hours of them distributing.

A couple items that are supposed to be addressed at pool school on Monday:
The sheer doesn't seem to be getting enough water to fully form. The returns line doesn't have a balance valve on it, only the spillway and shear. Hoping it's just a balance issue.
Can't seem to get the Intellicenter to connect to WiFi. It had the cable plugged into the wrong port on the antenna so fixing that cleared the 'No Ethernet Connection: No ethernet connection has been detected. Please verify that the cable is plugged in and try again.' error, but now getting a "Unable to connect to Wifi device. Please check the WiFi device is powered, fully booted and the network cable is connected to the ethernet port on the back of the IntelliCenter main board (TCP ERR)"
 

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