Goodyear, AZ (EMR) O/B Pool Deliberations - UPDATE - Pool is Filled!

[Nikilyn]

Looking good . Seeing the tile in the pool makes it feel so close. When is deck scheduled to be done?

 

[thewolf56]

Oh no! If you need helping figuring out the best way to get them cleaned up post up a pic and let us brain storm with you.

Thanks, Kim, Here's a picture, but it is hard to see with the glare from the morning sun. Plus, the bobcat is backs with more sand, so we'll see how many more tracks are there at the end of the day. My water heater went out about 10 days short of my warranty period about 5 years ago and the plumber drained all of the hard water right on the pavers. Left a nice calcium stain, but the home builder had someone come out and clean it off and did a really good job of it.

SWEET!!! Nice to have artist with a big saw on site!

Nice to see PRIDE in their work! How it should be!

Very nice to see. There are a couple of funky cuts (3 narrow pieces) near the artificial rock by the house wall, but I can see why they had to do it that way.

Can you stick a pole in it to make it work?

Not the way it broke, but they are working on the paver overlay at my covered patio right now, so they will have a while in the shade today and I can hopefully get a new one this weekend.

 

[thewolf56]

Looking good . Seeing the tile in the pool makes it feel so close. When is deck scheduled to be done?

Thanks, Niki!

They started working on the deck today. Not sure when they expect it to be finished, but I know that the part where the shotcrete needs to be fixed will be under decking, so definitely no earlier than that (repair scheduled for Tuesday).

 

[thewolf56]

A few pictures taken last night in between rain drops and after the dust storm.

 

[kimkats]

Will be interesting to see which of my ideas works best for cleaning that pretty driveway!

50/50 bleach with a stiff brush and good rinsing is my first thought.

 

[Winter247]

It's been a little bit since I have last updated.

Last Thursday, the decking crew had a giant pile of sand and another pile of fill delivered to my house and used a bobcat to move the materials around. With every load of sand they would bring in to line the pipes in the trench, they would scrape a load of rocky dirt from around my yard to deposit in their trailer. At the end of the day, they moved the rest of the fill dirt to a big pile in the backyard. Only problem now is because the travertine was placed along the side of my driveway, there is a tone of bobcat tracks I need to figure out how to clean off of my paver driveway, but no popped pavers or other damage.

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Yesterday, the coping crew came to lay the mortar bed on the bond beam for the coping and to shape the coping to bullnose (the 6x12 bullnose was out of stock at the time of order and they had the means to shape them). I left my pop-up out as I know it gets hot out here, so all of the progress of them working on shaping the coping could not really be seen from the camera. I took a look at the pile after they left and the shaping looked well done (couldn't tell it was shaped on-site).
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Today, the coping crew really got to work on laying the coping down. They started a little after 7 and worked until a little after 4. It was nice to take a look and see how meticulous they were when they were marking cuts. They did a dry fit of all of the coping pieces in each section between rocks before setting them permanently. Unfortunately, a dust storm started blowing through my area around 4, so they had to hurry and protect their stuff. My pop-up suffered a damaged leg from the wind, and we ended up having to break the leg off in order to close it otherwise even the sandbags I use to hold it in place will not guarantee that it would have stayed in place. (I had my gazebo pull the anchors out of the ground at my last house and ended up halfway in my neighbor's yard many ears ago and it is quite common for people to have trampolines fly into their yards from these winds). I feel bad that I won't have a pop-up for them tomorrow with the sun, so hoping I can pick another one up this weekend. I haven't been able to go outside and see the work or take pictures, but I will as soon as this storm is over. From what I can see so far, I think it looks good.

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One bit of bad news though. After we pulled the form off around the skimmer and autofill, I found a void in the bond beam, so now Shotcrete will be out Tuesday to fix. There were no cracks on the inside of the shell at that area, luckily and the other surface cracks I had seen before passed the crowbar test, but I'm going to have them looked at as well while he is here.
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You're pool is really coming along! The coping looks great! Definitely can't tell they did the bullnose on site!

My pop-up got busted too! I felt bad for the plumbing and electrical crews this week, they're was no shade. I made sure they had plenty to drink at least. I'm going to borrow one from a buddy and ordered one online.

How did the shotcrete co handle you asking them to come back? I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do... but I'm just curious in the current shotcrete climate if they gave you any grief? lol

 

[thewolf56]

Will be interesting to see which of my ideas works best for cleaning that pretty driveway!

50/50 bleach with a stiff brush and good rinsing is my first thought.

Thanks Kim.

I'll wait until the main project is done to do this. I do have a stiff brush on a long handle so I can scrub standing up that I bought for cleaning up my concrete driveway at my old house. I might also reach out to the paver manufacturer and see what they recommend.

 

[thewolf56]

You're pool is really coming along! The coping looks great! Definitely can't tell they did the bullnose on site!

My pop-up got busted too! I felt bad for the plumbing and electrical crews this week, they're was no shade. I made sure they had plenty to drink at least. I'm going to borrow one from a buddy and ordered one online.

How did the shotcrete co handle you asking them to come back? I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do... but I'm just curious in the current shotcrete climate if they gave you any grief? lol

Thanks. We were pleasantly surprised by how well the shaping turned out and they did a good job of staying away from the bullnose pieces that revealed a ton of holes after shaping when laying the pieces out.

I fell bad too. Didn't get a chance to get a new one yet, so it's going to hit them tomorrow. This crew is the first one where the water bottles are going faster than the gatorades. With just 2 of them most of the time, they are going through a little over half of the available drinks (I use one of those metal outdoor rolling ice chests for the drinks, so it holds a good amount, but not the best insulated, but drinks will still be cool by the next morning).

Shotcrete was a pain to get back in contact, but no grief given. He just asked for a reminder of my address and said his guy will be out Tuesday. It stressed me out as I started trying to get a hold of him on Monday and I didn't hear back until Thursday (after messaging/calling each day), so just crossing my fingers that Tuesday is still happening as it is going to delay my decking crew.

 

[thewolf56]

Friday, they started overlaying my covered patio with travertine and moving more material into the backyard with the bobcat. There was a misunderstanding though regarding the plans (new deck plans were posted on my easel) as the overlay on the side stopped at the side of the patio and I designed it to extend past it to allow for an outdoor kitchen in a future phase. Luckily, I caught it before anything had been cemented in place.

 

[thewolf56]

Saturday, they mortared in place the edge of the patio overlay towards the back in order to allow for deck drain to be installed (will be installed the length of the house wall and patio). They also moved the base material around the yard and started staking strings to determine the correct slope. They remembered without me asking to leave the space by my skimmer free of material for now to allow room for the shotcrete repair.

Here's a few pictures of it in the sun.


And you can see the variety of colors of the blend even more when it was in the shade this morning.


It's not as monochromatic as we were expecting, but we are happy with the blend. It was a 107 degrees out here today and my wife and I tested the heat on the coping in the full sun on our bare feet. It wasn't cool by any means, but we could hold our weight on it for several seconds before it started to become uncomfortable. I'm not sure how it is going to do when it reaches the mid-teens out here, but I can't imagine a whole lot being comfortable with 117 degree heat and full sun.

 

[Nikilyn]

Ahh, it’s so nice to see the yard flat again.

 

[thewolf56]

Ahh, it’s so nice to see the yard flat again.

It's strange how accustomed I had become to seeing the yard as a torn-up mess, especially with the very rocky dirt I had after excavation that was spread out. Seeing it nicely flattened out helps to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Newdude]

It's strange how accustomed I had become to seeing the yard as a torn-up mess

Preach !!! I was actually sad when they leveled Mount Basset. He was pretty hot about it too.

 

[thewolf56]

Yesterday, they worked on the patio expansion, placing deck drains, compacting the base for the deck and spreading out the sand.


And shotcrete repair crew showed up at 5:40 this morning. They really packed in the material into the void and filled in the bigger cracks of the shell. He checked the cracks and said they were all surface cracks (which is what our consultant believed as well and what I thought after doing the crowbar test).

 

[thewolf56]

Yesterday, they spent the majority of the day compacting the sand and leveling it (to the correct slope).


Once they got the sand screeded, they really went to work. It was like watching a 2-man assembly line seeing how many pavers they were able to place in just a short period of time (and also shows how much time and effort goes into preparing the base).


And a few pictures from the ground.



One little setback though. One of the owners dropped by to bring some tile to finish my skimmer (yay!), but the small turtle mosaic that has been back-ordered showed up without shadows. Hope it doesn't take too much longer.

 

[kimkats]

They are rocking right along for sure!!! SWEET! Here is hoping Peter Pan's shadow shows up soon!

 

[Winter247]

Yesterday, they spent the majority of the day compacting the sand and leveling it (to the correct slope).
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Once they got the sand screeded, they really went to work. It was like watching a 2-man assembly line seeing how many pavers they were able to place in just a short period of time (and also shows how much time and effort goes into preparing the base).
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And a few pictures from the ground.
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One little setback though. One of the owners dropped by to bring some tile to finish my skimmer (yay!), but the small turtle mosaic that has been back-ordered showed up without shadows. Hope it doesn't take too much longer.

Deck is looking good! That's beautiful travertine and seems like they're doing a fantastic job!

 

[Decoy205]

If you click through the pics fast it’s like a time lapse! It looks great!

 

[thewolf56]

Deck is looking good! That's beautiful travertine and seems like they're doing a fantastic job!

Thanks. My wife and I have ben very happy with their work.

 

[thewolf56]

If you click through the pics fast it’s like a time lapse! It looks great!

Thanks!

It's funny that you say that. Some of the shots that I have posted come from a security camera I setup right before shotcrete that records everything at 15 FPS and takes a snapshot every 10 seconds in order to do a timelapse video at the end of the project. That part has been a pain if I don't keep up with the folder as it will become over 100GB in a matter of days from the snapshots.