Houston, TX Pool Build Diary - From Design to Dive-In

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Well, it's going to be amazing. It's better to take your time and get it right than to rush and settle for mediocre ; you only get one chance to get it right. There aren't too many next times with pool building! That's why this site is so valuable! It really helps the buyer understand what's normal and what's not. I'm glad you are making sure your pool is as good as it can be. And again it's going to be so beautiful! I can't wait to see the final product. Keep us posted.


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Marlahoutex said:
So Plat, what's been going on??
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We were in California last week/this week. It's been busy here on the pool. Plumbing trenches to the equipment pads are in and tile/stonework has been moving along. It's nice to finally get some progress going again. It kind of felt like we dropped off the radar for a bit there after the fractured tile issue. There is no doubt that this will be a 6 month pool build at this point.

We're starting to talk to the fence company again to get that lined up (we have to re-do a lot of our fencing) and we're going to work with the builder on landscaping which they also do so it goes in right after the pool is done. We're hoping that we'll have a pool by Labor Day weekend now. It's been a long road since thoughts of a 4th of July opening... We lost an entire summer of use which is a bummer, but I guess nothing good ever comes easy.

I'll post pics with some updates once I can get some good ones.



plat.
 
platipus said:
We were in California last week/this week. It's been busy here on the pool. Plumbing trenches to the equipment pads are in and tile/stonework has been moving along. It's nice to finally get some progress going again. It kind of felt like we dropped off the radar for a bit there after the fractured tile issue. There is no doubt that this will be a 6 month pool build at this point.

We're starting to talk to the fence company again to get that lined up (we have to re-do a lot of our fencing) and we're going to work with the builder on landscaping which they also do so it goes in right after the pool is done. We're hoping that we'll have a pool by Labor Day weekend now. It's been a long road since thoughts of a 4th of July opening... We lost an entire summer of use which is a bummer, but I guess nothing good ever comes easy.

I'll post pics with some updates once I can get some good ones.



plat.
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plat! My gunite twin! I feel your disappointment. I'm so sorry! We also lost most of the summer, but we are swimming some now. We are at 6 months as well.
You build is going to be so amazing when it's completed!Hopefully we have a very warm fall so you can get in several weeks of swimming!
 
platipus said:
@Marlahoutex - We're in Kingwood. As far as size, perhaps it's just the drawing. Easements and lot size have limited us really to 13' width in the main area. One of the benches for a short stretch bumps it to 15' wide. Not including the baja shelf, it's 34' long. On the one end it goes down to only 9.5' width of standing area.

The River Flow system is like and Endless Pool, just another brand. Lets you swim in place. I have no experience with them. We just didn't have the length to be a lap pool of any substance, so I decided I wanted one of these. Here's their YouTube marketing video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh_wpyQNGag

I think at least two other members here have them and they seemed to like the system.


Here are a few renderings from one of the builders.





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Wow, this rendering is absolutely gorgeous. Nice job. This is one of the best designs I've seen. Makes me question my own design.
 
spoonman said:
Wow, this rendering is absolutely gorgeous. Nice job. This is one of the best designs I've seen. Makes me question my own design.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the compliment. I think this is kind of normal though. Hindsight is 20/20. We're locked in to pretty much everything at this point, but I still see people posts pool designs here and think how neat something is and wonder if we made the right choices. In the end, I think we're going to be happy and it seems most everyone else is as well once they are all done.

I will say though that we spent a good long time reading and posting here and got a LOT of good advice that helped guide us.


plat.
 
OK, so a few updated pictures...


The floating steps went in. They are custom designed out of a cast concrete material. We used the same thing for all of the raised beam capstone.







The waterfall wall got the embedded flagstone for the water to flow over.







We're hoping to see more featuress finished this week and it also sounds like all the pumps and filters will be going in this or next week.


plat.
 
Met with the builder today to hammer out the final schedule on how things will roll. Sounds like the next 2 weeks will be busy. We should have water by Aug 29 so we have a week to let the water clear a bit just in time for Labor Day weekend!!! Landscaping is supposed to be about 80% done by Labor Day weekend as well. There are some specific plants we want that may not be available right away, so will have some items to wrap up after.

I'll post again once there is some equipment installed or any other good progress.


plat.
 

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Speaking of weather.

I think I mentioned a while ago about us getting hit by lighting over Memorial Day weekend and all the damage we took. It also killed the tree it hit (70' pine) and the tree right next to it. We have a tree guy scheduled for Monday to cut them down, and of course rain is in the forecast for Monday. We need those trees removed before we get the fence redone which we want done before the landscaping starts so they don't trample it... This is going to be "fun"!


plat.
 
OK so this is the newly found pool nerd in me but I thought it was pretty cool.

Our builder had an idea about the pool fill water source. He hates auto-fills as many people do, but I think they are neat and convenient. Until they break... But I still want one. He had this great idea that he has been doing for a while to put the fill line on a sprinkler system zone so it can only come on for a set amount of time each day or every other. It seemed pretty ingenious to me. I thought when he said that, well, let's do that to the auto-fill line. If the auto-fill is working, I'll only get water when I need it and if it ever locks open, I'm looking at basically running as much water down the overflow as a single sprinkler zone which is not bad.

Then he kicked things up a notch. He spoke to Hayward (we're going with an OmniLogic system) and they are pretty sure their relays can operate a sprinkler solenoid. That being the case, I could use the OmniLogic to set the fill schedule and even control it from my phone app if I wanted to. If it doesn't work, we'll just put it on a yard sprinkler zone.

Otherwise, there is a lot going on today. The equipment pads have stuff on them and a truck showed up with a mountain of PCV pipe on it. I'll try and grab some pics once things calm down and post them.


plat.
 
Yes, the sprinkler thing is done pretty often. I have an old school toilet float autofill that has worked great for 5 seasons. That and an overflow means that I have never had to worry about water level in my pool. Ever! I like that. The month it sticks or breaks I'll get a bigger water bill and replace my autofill.
 
Just enough space! We weren't 100% sure it would all fit. Looks like maybe even space for a chiller if we decide to add one later on. Main pump, cartridge filter and 400k btu heater.




Secondary pad with water feature/spa pumps and additional 100k btu heater for quicker heatup. Air blowers need to go somewhere...




Because of the amount of relays needed on the OmniLogic for all of this stuff, Hayward was considering letting us beta test a new 10 relay add-on unit, but it was not ready to release after all so we ended up going with all variable speed pumps since they don't require a dedicated relay evidently. Kind of overkill, but we'll be able to control all water feature flow levels from the app.

plat.
 
Are there in pumps left to see to others in your area?? LOL

I love the fact you will be able to control every thing so you can get it just right for each mood or event.

Are there unions of some sort on those pumps? VERY important to add them now if there are not.

:kim:
 
kimkats said:
Are there in pumps left to see to others in your area?? LOL

I love the fact you will be able to control every thing so you can get it just right for each mood or event.

Are there unions of some sort on those pumps? VERY important to add them now if there are not.

:kim:
Click to expand...


It just kind of kept growing. We wanted to be able to individually control all features.

As far as unions, yeah, these Hayward pumps all have built in unions on the pump housing. That was one of our plumbing design asks up front.


Also, we have one of these sitting on a table that we need to get added in:

http://tftestkits.net/FloVis-Flow-Meter-Complete-p74.html

If I like the way it works (which I think I will) I am probably going to add one into the koi pond filter plumbing as well.



plat.
 

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