Well, another short snag. Despite being told consistently that the wall material I picked, Techo Bloc Raffinato smooth in greyed nickel, was always only a 3-5 day lead time, Techo Bloc is out of it and they don’t pour again until spring. The only color they have is beige cream. I was theoretically ok with this if it still had the grayed nickel cap, and for “matchy matchy” purposes my pool builder wanted to switch my coping to use that same material instead of poured concrete (for an upcharge of course, though not much above their cost). Then I want to the stone yard to look at the beige cream - all the samples were pink, not beige, in widely varying shades, and I didn’t like the cap as a coping. The other alternative is to do a polished greyed nickel finish on the wall - it’s a pricey upcharge, but not as pricey as the coping the builder was proposing. So I picked and they order it Monday. Another week’s delay. I’ll be ready by summer, but at this rate just barely.
Fiberglass build in NoVa
- Thread starter chazas
- Start date
jtburf
0
Techo Bloc sucks. Polished Raffinato wall block was not in stock anywhere either, despite many assurances to the contrary. I ended up with Travertina Raw in Riviera. It will look fine, and I’m not getting upcharged from my original contract. All in all, at least two weeks’ delay from this, though.
Retaining wall is almost done. Concrete pour is scheduled for Monday. 
Deck and equipment pad are poured. The deck looks great. The equipment pad, well, they didn’t leave enough room for a fence to the side of it, which is an issue I’m discussing with the builder later today. We’ll figure it out.
- Jul 16, 2012
- 7,283
- Pool Size
- 27000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
Looking good! The wall looks great. And I'm sure you'll figure out a workaround for the fence by the equipment.
On a completely side note, are those Leyland Cypress on the side by your neighbors house? If so, they do get to be massive beasts and I can share my 20 year experience with a 260' row of 33 of them - with some near the pool. And it's not all good news. Crape Myrtles are beautiful, but close to the pool, the millions of little blooms are a source of frustration as they fall over a long period of time.
On a completely side note, are those Leyland Cypress on the side by your neighbors house? If so, they do get to be massive beasts and I can share my 20 year experience with a 260' row of 33 of them - with some near the pool. And it's not all good news. Crape Myrtles are beautiful, but close to the pool, the millions of little blooms are a source of frustration as they fall over a long period of time.
I think they're Leyland Cypress (and not Green Giant). All were stuck on my lot on random places and I moved them here, though one is dying. Frankly I doubt I'll be here 20 years, this needs to look good in the next few. I know they're too big for long term, but it is what it is.
Movement is slow but pretty steady. I am hoping they can finish this up before we have a complete “shelter in place” order here - some of them seem to except home repair, wondering if finishing a pool counts. Anyway.
Most of the progress on the pool itself since the last post has been on plumbing and wiring. They have the pump going, cleaned out all the big construction debris and the pool is now filtering. They’re in the process of wiring the wall lights and landscape lighting. When they finally removed the coping forms, the deep end edge turned out pretty rough - I pretty much laid down the law and said the concrete sub needs to come back to do whatever fixes he can before another draw, so we can see if we have a real problem. Contractor says that the’ll fill it in/smooth it out, polish the edge all the way around, then parge the whole thing so it’s consistent. We’ll see.
While they were pricey, I picked paver materials for the connecting areas between the brushed concrete patios and as steppers to the front drive that matched the TechoBloc retaining wall material. It’s going to tie everything together.
I love the young dude who’s doing my landscaping work, even though after a couple of days of work with his buddy (who is his only helper) they get tired and take a day or two off. No matter, they’re moving, and super reasonably priced, which is hard to find in NoVa.
The equipment area behind the retaining wall will be fenced with a 5-6’ horizontal redwood board fence with 1/2” gaps, which I will probably stain myself to some blue-gray tone that mediates between the house and the gray vinyl privacy fence and the TechoBloc materials. That contract is signed, just waiting to be scheduled.
Most of the progress on the pool itself since the last post has been on plumbing and wiring. They have the pump going, cleaned out all the big construction debris and the pool is now filtering. They’re in the process of wiring the wall lights and landscape lighting. When they finally removed the coping forms, the deep end edge turned out pretty rough - I pretty much laid down the law and said the concrete sub needs to come back to do whatever fixes he can before another draw, so we can see if we have a real problem. Contractor says that the’ll fill it in/smooth it out, polish the edge all the way around, then parge the whole thing so it’s consistent. We’ll see.
While they were pricey, I picked paver materials for the connecting areas between the brushed concrete patios and as steppers to the front drive that matched the TechoBloc retaining wall material. It’s going to tie everything together.
I love the young dude who’s doing my landscaping work, even though after a couple of days of work with his buddy (who is his only helper) they get tired and take a day or two off. No matter, they’re moving, and super reasonably priced, which is hard to find in NoVa.
The equipment area behind the retaining wall will be fenced with a 5-6’ horizontal redwood board fence with 1/2” gaps, which I will probably stain myself to some blue-gray tone that mediates between the house and the gray vinyl privacy fence and the TechoBloc materials. That contract is signed, just waiting to be scheduled.
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Things are finally coming together. Landscaping work is 99% done, for now - I will fill things in later, this is just the bare bones, but the hardscape and general parameters are done. The retaining wall still needs a couple of cap pieces to replace ones that were broken on delivery, and there are three more landscape lights to go. Pool builder still has to program the automation, and there are still some touch-ups needed on the cantilever. Then the fence needs to get reinstalled, and I’m having a 6’ horizontal board fence with 1/2” gaps put in around the HVAC and pool equipment - will probably stain it myself, still looking at colors. Still and all, pretty cool. I’m happy.
Looks great! I have two questions:
1. Are you happy with the larger river rock And color? We are looking at the same for our pool build next month.
2. What did the neighbors say about the pool shell sitting in the yard before it was installed?
congrats on the outcome.
1. Well, the river rock was unexpected - I thought I was getting black river rock. Also, it was supposed to be 1-3 inches, and clearly is not. I'm ok with it, though, we've moved most of the big ones to places where they aren't as noticeable. I like the colors, they tie together the gray from the wall and stepping stone material to the more beige color of the brushed concrete. Frankly, my landscape guy is a huge bargain - a young guy just getting started who just wants to please. This is one of the things I cut him some slack on.
2. They were entertained - I think they wondered if it would ever get finished.
2. They were entertained - I think they wondered if it would ever get finished.
It looks great. I like the river rock with the stepping stones. I’m sure it’s nice to see it all finally coming together. I’ve enjoyed keeping track of it.
So, there’s still a pool punchlist, including the weird stains I posted in the other thread. However, I power washed the patios and put out all my new/old/refurbished yard furniture today. I also turned the heater on, tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely day - despite work, I’m swimming. (The fence around the pool and HVAC equipment will eventually get stained a dark blue/gray.)
jtburf
0
So, yesterday was an awesome pool day, one of those that makes the whole thing worthwhile. That’s good! I spent hours and hours staining the redwood fence in front of the pool and HVAC equipment a semi-transparent dark blue - not sure how blue it actually looks, but I’m happy.
The not so great - with goggles, it’s apparent that the “weird stains” are really areas where the textured finish on the bottom was either not applied or scraped off during the manufacturing process. They’re not stains, they’re the absence of a layer. The pool builder assures me that Barrier Reef will be stand up, eventually, just that it may be a long road and to be patient.
I would not do concrete cantilever coping if I had it to do over again. The patio sub frankly just didn’t do a very good job - form material stuck to the coping and was not removed before they parged over it, and the bottom side is really rough with lots of voids at the deep end. Pool builder thinks they’ll be able to make it look good, they spent some time sanding and breaking off the really uneven pieces on the bottom, and I anticipate a heavily supervised subcontractor visit to clean out the remaining styrofoam form material and reparge, followed at some point by a line of caulk between the pool and the coping. The builder has acknowledged it isn’t acceptable as is and they are on top of the sub.
The backup plan is to saw out the coping area and replace it with pavers. I’m really hoping we don’t get into that, I can imagine tons that can go wrong with a “redo” of that magnitude. Anyway, lesson learned for them - they asked me a couple of times if I wanted pavers and I said no, they really should have been more forceful in their recommendation.
Construction is always a process. If I hadn’t built pools and houses before, I’d be more upset. I’m a bit philosophic about it - it looks 90% great and it’ll get better before everything is over and done.
The not so great - with goggles, it’s apparent that the “weird stains” are really areas where the textured finish on the bottom was either not applied or scraped off during the manufacturing process. They’re not stains, they’re the absence of a layer. The pool builder assures me that Barrier Reef will be stand up, eventually, just that it may be a long road and to be patient.
I would not do concrete cantilever coping if I had it to do over again. The patio sub frankly just didn’t do a very good job - form material stuck to the coping and was not removed before they parged over it, and the bottom side is really rough with lots of voids at the deep end. Pool builder thinks they’ll be able to make it look good, they spent some time sanding and breaking off the really uneven pieces on the bottom, and I anticipate a heavily supervised subcontractor visit to clean out the remaining styrofoam form material and reparge, followed at some point by a line of caulk between the pool and the coping. The builder has acknowledged it isn’t acceptable as is and they are on top of the sub.
The backup plan is to saw out the coping area and replace it with pavers. I’m really hoping we don’t get into that, I can imagine tons that can go wrong with a “redo” of that magnitude. Anyway, lesson learned for them - they asked me a couple of times if I wanted pavers and I said no, they really should have been more forceful in their recommendation.
Construction is always a process. If I hadn’t built pools and houses before, I’d be more upset. I’m a bit philosophic about it - it looks 90% great and it’ll get better before everything is over and done.
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- Jul 16, 2012
- 7,283
- Pool Size
- 27000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
I like your approach. Make the best of a generally good situation. It's not like the pool isn't very pretty and functional. It's ironic on one aspect though. We normally tell people to "get what you want, it's your pool", and the PB should defer unless it's critical. Your coping seems to fall in the gray area. If it had been properly done by skilled contractors, it would probably look great. But in you scenario, listening to the builder may have produced a better result. But had you done that, you might have always said, "I wish I had pushed them harder for my cantilever coping".
Bottom line, summer is right around the corner!
Indeed, it is going to make for a much nicer (at least semi-) quarantined summer! PB is coming with the concrete sub tomorrow, so I suppose I’ll know more about how that is going soon.
The coping isn’t perfect but it looks much better after repair.
hey I am in NOVA also, wondering if you could share your installer and any changes from earlier posts on overall experience now that it's settled in a bit?