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

LOVE it! The colors in the night shot are outstanding!

The two pics from the PB look like magazine pics! WOW!

I LOVE how the water comes off the waterfall stones. That adds some much visual interest! I bet the sound is awesome!

:kim:
 
LOVE it! The colors in the night shot are outstanding!

The two pics from the PB look like magazine pics! WOW!

I LOVE how the water comes off the waterfall stones. That adds some much visual interest! I bet the sound is awesome!

:kim:

The sound is great. What is cool is the variable speed pump. You can dial it down for just a calm trickle or let it go full speed to Splashville. It's not a roar when on high though. I have definitely heard much louder waterfalls. I don't think we'd really want it any louder then it is on full though.


Plat, your pool is beautiful! Have you tried out the swim jet yet? How's the tile look? Can you notice the cracks?

Thank you!

The swim jet pump was damaged in shipping. It's being dealt with. Hoping next week it can come online. I'm really excited to be able to start using that while the water is still warm.

We think the waterline tile is beautiful. We love it. It is a great match to the water color, so it just kind of disappears which is what we were going for. As for the cracks, if I am looking for them, yeah, I see them. I'm usually not focusing on that though, so while not ideal, we're still OK with it. Also, the NPT cracking (so far) seems to be considerably less then the Mineral Tiles cracking was. It could just be the amount of time though as the Mineral Tile tiles were up for quite while as compared to the NPT ones.

There are some other punch-list items going on and the builder working on them today so I expect we'll see the list shrink rapidly.

I really dig the "Bubble Lounge"© area. We're working on that to get the bubble levels balanced out, but it's fun to sit in. It's just a spa blower with vents in the floor, but it brings a neat element into the pool if you want to use it to cool down a bit more while just sitting on the benches. At one point the caps blew off from the pressure. Let's just say it was.... "uncomfortable" to stand over them without the caps to regulate the air flow. It was tremendous.


plat.
 
What's the etiquette for wet bathers using the cushion chairs?? We don't have any cushions so I'm familiar with such topics. And does it very by age of the individual? And if they are family versus friends?
 
That is an outdoor arrangement and rated for rain/sun, but the exterior fabric will still hold water which is not good for anyone who is not already wet. Probably we'll just institute a dry off and put your towel on them kind of deal. We don't have kids, so it won't be too hard to manage.

The dogs though.... Well, they're good when they know we are watching them....


plat.
 
Dogs, Ha! I'm astonished by the amount of water that comes out of the pool on our dogs. It's like holding a hose running full tilt for several seconds each time they come out. Then comes the shake!

Maybe they are saying thanks for the new raised doggie beds when you aren't watching!
 
Well the swimjet is up and running, but I haven't been able to try it. My wife came home from a business trip last week and was/is sick. Turned out she's got a double pneumonia. I ended up getting her cold this week that got her sick in the first place and am out of commission as well. Had a hunting trip planned this weekend and had to bail out on it.

What I can say is that looking at it, it throws a HUGE amount of water out at full speed. I'll be lucky to stay even with it for now at 20%, LOL.

We've got some punchlist items to work through still and some finishing touches on landscape and fencing to do as well. I'll post more on the swimjet once I can actually get in the water and try it out.

plat.
 

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OH NO plat! I am sorry to hear your wife got so sick and that you got it :( Good idea to bail out on the trip. You don't want to get as sick as she ended up.

Nice to hear they fixed the swim jet! Now to get you fixed up so you can try it out.

LOL on the dog looking so pitiful on the cushions..........."DAD! You KNOW this is NOT comfy!" LOL

:kim:
 
I grabbed this pic the other day and just thought that Plat needs this in his thread! The cushions are up to keep him off. :)


Classic! Some things are universal.

plat.

- - - Updated - - -

OH NO plat! I am sorry to hear your wife got so sick and that you got it :( Good idea to bail out on the trip. You don't want to get as sick as she ended up.

Nice to hear they fixed the swim jet! Now to get you fixed up so you can try it out.

LOL on the dog looking so pitiful on the cushions..........."DAD! You KNOW this is NOT comfy!" LOL

:kim:


Thanks! Regular Theraflu and Chinese Theraflu (Hot & Sour Soup) are on the menu right now. Hopefully by Monday I shake this thing totally.


plat.
 
Were you going dove hunting? Sorry you have to miss it. Can't wait to see pics of the swim jet! Sounds like that will put a little circulation into your pool!

Yes. My buddy sent me pics of this morning's take to help rub it in..... They're having a good time as usual. It's a 1000 acre ranch about 40 miles south of Uvalde.

So I got in yesterday for 3 minutes to just test the jet out. I couldn't wait any longer. It's ridiculous on high. I have 0% chance of ever keeping up with it at that level. I couldn't stop laughing. It's literally like a river within 10' of it. It just blows you downstream away from it.

We had two rope anchors installed to the left and right of the jet so we could connect up floaties or whatever and hang out in the flow. I can't wait to try that next.


plat.
 
Sounds like a lot of fun! Is your water still warm?

Been running 79/80* during the day. OmniLogic says it's 78* right now. It's definitely below our "hanging out" temp range. For active swimming it's a good temp, but it is just a little too "refreshing" when I jump in until I get acclimated.

I did pull out a knee board and tried to get up on the swim jet flow. There are definitely some possibilities there to use it for something like that. It will take some practice though to get it figured out. I just kept getting dumped over to the side, but then again I was never very good at knee boarding to begin with so that's no great surprise.


plat.
 
I bet it was fun to try! Did you tie it off so it did not get push all the way back? Oh the fun possibilities!

:kim:

We had 2 wall anchors put in left and right of the jet for this specific purpose (kneenboard, floaties, tupes, etc...). To be honest though, while on the kneeboard, I got a little nervous at the amount of stress I was exerting on them to hold on. Need to talk to the builder about that. A floatie in the water is OK, but that kneeboard when you lean back on it puts a lot of surface area in front of the stream and it really takes some force to hang on to the ropes.


Sound like fun for someone much younger than me! LOL! Our pool temp is the same as yours and have been kicking around turning on the heater just to see how long it'd take to heat up to a "swimmable" temp.

We're still waiting for the gas meter install (had to have a second service put in on the other side of the house for all our goodies). Can't wait to heat up the spa once that happens!!!! Maybe 2 more weeks.


plat.
 

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