Doughboy 21'x41' Autumn Breeze Build Log

[chrisklohn]

Easy to use and hassle free.

 

[chrisklohn]

We've been running the chlorine generator at only 10% and have been able to maintain a free chlorine level of 4.0-5.0 ppm with the cover off 12 hours a day and our CYA at 70.

The cell was initially set to a default of 50% and our free chlorine was 14 ppm the first time I checked it after three days. We kept the cover off for five days straight with the cell turned off before setting it to 10%.

It's nice to know it's not working to hard.

 

[chrisklohn]

Hayward Ecostar filter basket at low speed.

 

[chrisklohn]

Holy Crud there's a ton of boxes!

 

[chrisklohn]

Marking out the pool perimeter after everything is staked out.

 

[chrisklohn]

My wife and son stuck shovelling 8 tons of masonry sand for the pool bottom.

 

[chrisklohn]

Setting all the side posts in concrete. This was tough because we couldn't excavate a perfectly square edge in the compacted crush we used for a base. Even though the base was as hard as concrete the edge would crumble. We went with option #2 in the instructions and backfilled the blocks with concrete. Everything was solid after it setup.

 

[chrisklohn]

Slight forward lean, stringline, laser level, check, check, check.

 

[chrisklohn]

My wife helping me roll out the wall.

 

[chrisklohn]

Slowly starting to look like a pool. Once we had the walls setup it was way, way bigger than we had imagined.

We didn't excavate the deep end after lots of discussion on the pros and cons. I don't mind the digging if we decide to put one in down the road in a few years. The even depth has been great for games with the kids in the pool so far.

 

[chrisklohn]

Smoothing out the sand a little bit with our son.

 

[chrisklohn]

Tamping the bottom with a 12"x12" hand tamper. This is one of the things I wish I could do over. I went over the whole pool floor three times with the tamper. I sprayed water lightly on the sand and got it completely solid to walk on.

However, the pool floor did settle somewhat and you can feel some depressions in the liner. In hindsight, I would have either trowelled vermucilite in or rented a 300 pound plate compactor and went over it a few times.

Of course, my Wife tells me I'm the only one that notices.

 

[chrisklohn]

This is another thing I would have done differently. The pool cove went in great and appeared to be really solid. Unfortunately, the glue didn't hold up very well and by the time we had the liner hung the tops of some of the pieces had popped off the wall.

I should have taped the entire top with duct tape and completely eliminated the possibility. It was 102 degrees the day I put the cove in so that might have contributed to the glue failing.

In the end, there's four or five sections where the liner "sits" on a 3/4" ledge rather than rounds out smoothly to the floor like the other 90% of the pool.

Rookie mistake.

 

[chrisklohn]

Here comes the Blue Bayou!

 

[chrisklohn]

The liner wasn't packaged anywhere close to the instructions but we got it stretched out and over in the end.

 

[chrisklohn]

Getting the liner clipped on. Here's where we made another big mistake. Somehow one of us set a binder clip on the top rail when we were hanging the liner.

The binder clip was knocked accidentally into the pool and wasn't discovered until there was 30" of water in it the next day!!

We had to borrow a 5 hp pump from the golf course and pump the pool down to 4" deep. I then had to hop in, with my funny cardboard shoes, pull the liner back while my wife grabbed it with a rake.

Another rookie mistake

 

[chrisklohn]

Liner on and three garden hose in. It took 27 hours to fill the pool with three garden hoses running continously from three seperate houses.

 

[chrisklohn]

Starting to look like a pool!

 

[chrisklohn]

I put in three Hayward Widemouth skimmers, six return jets with adjustable eyeballs and one Hayward 1.5" vac lock attachment for our cleaner.

The skimmers were easy to put in using the template and a 4 1/2" angle grinder with a thin metal wheel on it. For all the extra returns I just used a bi-metal circular drill bit and held a piece of wood against the backside while drilling on low speed.

No leaks, no problems.

 

[chrisklohn]

Paving stone patio and a composite wood deck around the pool to come next spring. Until then it's Corona time!!