New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-25 update

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Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 11-26 update

Absolutely a wonderful thread. I know your family are enjoying the months of hard work on all your parts. If that had been my build(and soon it will be) I think my wife would have taken care of the bad contractors and myself as well. Wish me luck with my build. Lershac I am local to you and would really like to pick your brain more about your build, contractors and such. I have also PM'ed you as well. I think someone posted earlier to put Lershac in for DIY'er of the year. I think this tread needs to be locked down at the top of the tread boards somewhere. This was the one tread of the hundreds of treads I have read on several differnt sites that is the most detail oriented, most pictures, questions, and happening of a true DIY'er. It deserves to be put up on the top somewhere and locked down for all future DIY'er to see and use.

Again wonderful tread, beautiful pool, deck, and home addition. Many don't understand it's not just about the pool, but the total package. And boy have you experienced the total package.

Good Luck and enjoy,
Todd
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 11-26 update

Just to update things...

Well the pool is technically finished even though I still have 3 significant details to complete. I am really in no huge tearing hurry to get them done so they will get done when the mood strikes me.

I have to put down the polymeric sand on the pavers to lock em in. We have not had a string of good dry weather to get this done, and because of that some of my pavers need to be re-set around the shower area and other odd places as the sand has settled or been redistributed underneath and they are a bit wonky.

I have to lay in the deck-o-seal between the pool coping and deck. The gap around the pool is full of Crud like leaves and organic debris that has to be vacuumed out and then the sealant laid in. Another job I am not in a hurry to do but it will get done.

Finally I have to dig a trench around half the perimeter of the pool and lay in some plumbing to re-plumb my deck jets that the deck guys broke the plumbing for... the original plumbing is buried in concrete and almost all of the fittings tee-ing off to the deck jets are broken. I do not look forward to doing this at all, but I know I will wake up one day and decide to do it!

So the past two weeks have been unpleasant. We had a gas issue and had to move the heater plumbing, so I hired out a plumber to come in and do the work. They came in and ran the new lines, set up the pressure test and inspection, and the city came out to inspect. It passed. We had to be without gas the whole time so no stove cooking and no hot water for a week. We did have hot water in the shower by the pool area so we just showered out there (I am sure we gave the neighbors a thrill!) After a couple of days Entergy still had not come to do their thing so I called. The permit was pulled under my pool building permit (agh!) which had not been closed out yet, so the city had not sent approval on to entergy. I called the city, explained the situation, and they agreed to release the gas permit, but under the condition that they were coming out to close out the pool inspections the next day (building, plumbing, electrical). ARGH! STRESS! I scurried around neatening things up, labeling breakers, cleaning up the equipment area (which had turned into something of a junk pile (out of sight out of mind!). I was stressing. I took the next day off work to be here for the inspectors... It was really nothing to stress about but I did not know it at the time. They pretty much just came out and admired the pool, and shot the bull for about 30 min each and then handed me my passed permit tag. One of em stuck around for almost an hour pumping me for details of my build, as he was planning his own build soon.


When Entergy came out to do their work they pressure tested the whole house, and discovered we had a leak somewhere else in the house. My wife was ready to kill me. Entergy pulled our meter, padlocked the gas supply and told us we had to get a new permit, get it fixed, and pressure tested again AND pass their final test again before we could have our meter back.

I was envisioning another nightmare. Well the entergy guy witnessed the fury in my wifes eyes when I informed her of the new issue. He took pity and we walked around the house and he soapy water sprayed every joint in our gas piping, even in the attic, and he located the leak for me. He walked away with our hearty thanks and a couple boxes of girl scout cookies (we have a scout in residence and a TON of cookies).

I called my same plumber back out to fix the leak and he came immediately and it was fixed within an hour or two. He called the inspector personally who came out the next morning and inspected, pass. The inspector personally called in the approval to entergy and told me who to call at entergy.

I called the # and spoke to a woman at length, explaining the issue, and the marital danger I was in. She put me on hold for like 20 min, and I was mentally cussing thinking we were looking at ANOTHER weekend without gas. Ugh. She comes back and apologizes profusely about the hold time, but explains that she was on the radio turning a truck around to come to our house RIGHT NOW! I confessed my undying love for her and proposed marriage. She politely pointed out that now I was not getting a divorce, so she felt she could not take me up on the offer. She also noted that her husband might object. Any who we had our gas back on in another half hour! Whoopee!

So everything is hunky-dory now right? Nah of course not. The heater ran for about 3 hours and then kicked into "service me" mode and thats where I am at. I have to get at the back of the board to troubleshoot further, but I said screw that and went fishing for a whole day saturday.
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Lershac,
Someone in another tread said the alittle pizza, water and powerade goes along way and gets you some extra work from the contractors. Looks like I'll have to add the girl scout cookies to the list as well.
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Oh yeah, definitely keeping a stocked cooler and pizza for the big work days go a looooong way with the actual workers. I started out doing that for everyone, but when things went south I just kept a big cooler full of bottled water.
 

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Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Doh! That does sound like a disaster!

Can I ask what the original problem with the gas line was that required you to move it?

Also before you deck-o-seal take a look at sika flex (available at HD) - search the site and theres some posts about it. I went the deck-o-seal route myself because I'd forgotten about there being another option. Anyway just a suggestion.
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

I was not happy with how the plumber originally laid it out for safety reasons. I felt it was a hazard and wanted to rotate the heater and re-plumb it so the gas line would be out of the way. Safety First in my book, it was bothering me enough to get it moved so I did.

And thinking about it, really glad I did since it uncovered a leak elsewhere!
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Wow you're fast!

So your fastidious attention to detail actually also caught a potentially serious problem with the discovery of that leak...did that help swallow the extra day without gas?

I only k is what I found on the board. It it appears to be more economic especially since you dont have to mix up an entire gallon and if you cant use it all you lose the remainder. Theyre both self leveling And I believe you dont have to mix anything with the sika.
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Lershac,
Are you using the heater for bringing up the temp of the pool or just mainly for the spa? When I start my build the location of my equipment slab and the location of my gas meter are about 100+ feet difference. So that means running a gas line all the way to my equipment pad. Our gas company(Louisiana Gas) says they must run this line and it's $9 minimum. I'm not understanding why they would want to run this line. They didn't run the lines inside my house when I built it. All work is done one the downstream(house) side of the meter.

Also have you considered any type of solar heating? I've been told the solar can be used two ways. For heating and also cooling in the evenings and at night. Anybody else have solar?

Thanks,
Todd
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Todd-

I use the heater for both.

Solar was too "soft" on the numbers. There was no documented cooling data to be used for designing and sizing a system so I went with a heat pump for that. The gas I have a 160 foot run from my meter, so I went with a dual stage regulation system that I specced, and had a plumber install. Running gas line is expensive. the 160 ft run plus another 40 foot run for a gas grill was about 2K with material and plumber costs. If the gas company wants to run it I am not sure you have any other option there, they control it. You can point out to them that you are installing a high-usage appliance and they may cut you a deal on the install ( they will make the money back believe me!)
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

A pool heater takes a **LOT** of gas. It is highly doubtful that your existing piping is anywhere adequate for supplying the heater, hence the need for a new line.
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

Ohm_Boy is right. In my area, they run 60 PSI up to the pre-meter regulator, and drop it to a few ounces pressure for regular house use. For the pool heater, they swapped out the regulator, dropping it to 2 pounds pressure, and ran that pressure to right close to the heater and then dropped it again to a few ounces.
 
Re: New Build in Red Stick- **pic heavy** 3-17 update

So a lazy day today, and the guilt started to pile up... all the stuff I have to do. I got a whole hour in of sitting on my butt before my conscience ruined a perfectly lazy day, and I got up and grabbed a shovel. Time to fix those deck jets the contractors messed up.

To do this I had to trench all the way around the pool from the equipment pad to the deck jets.... about 75 feet. So I grabbed my sharpshooter and got started. Trenching was not too bad. There were rocks from the under-deck layer, mixed with leaves, dirt, and some concrete cast-off. Only a few big roots I had to break out the sawzall for. I did think ahead and put a toner on my phone line which runs around the same area and locate it so I could be aware when I was digging near it. Yay I didnt cut my phone line! Thats a first.

Once I had the trench in place, I had to tunnel under the deck from the trench to the sleeves I had set in the deck. The only way to do this was by hand. Just reach in, grab some mud and rocks and pull it out of there. Only about 18 inches from the edge of the deck to the sleeves. Did I mention that ants had set up residence in two of the sleeves? That was fun. I have little whelps all over my hands and forearms from them biting me. I tried to flood em out or kill em off with pesticides, but my patience just wasnt there, I plowed ahead, bites and all and just got it done.

Once I tunneled under, I ran to lowes and picked up $150 worth of pipe and fittings, and came back and started assembling and gluing up. I started at the jets, and put in a valve on each jet so I could tune them for uniformity. I continued around the pool, and back to the pad, where I dug down and located the old pipe for the jets about 2 feet from the pad, and cut out a section allowing me to tie in the new pipe to the jets.

Like a dummy, on the last jet I didnt use an elbow, I used a tee, and forgot to get a 2" cap. Thats where I am at now, I am stuck at the house waiting on my daughters friends parents to come pick her up to go spend the night there, and figured I would write this up.

Last night, The replacement blower for my gas heater came in, and I installed it. This heater was a freebie given to me by a client. He had bought it not realizing that he didnt have natural gas at his 2nd home, and when he saw the price of using propane, he just never wanted to fork out the cash to do it. So he gave me the heater, and it sat outside unused for a couple of years before I fired it up for the first time after I built my pool. In a previous post I mentioned how it broke. I located the kit online from eBay, it was a pretty good deal. The kit new is around $400, and I got it used from a pool co in california for $125. Yay!

So as soon as my kid gets picked up I am off to lowes to get the cap I am short, and then hopefully my deck jets will be installed and functional!

I will post some pics of the work later.

Thanks for reading.
 

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