New Gunite Build - Cypress, TX - Done!

[AuralAlias]

First off, thank you to everyone for keeping this wonderful resource up and running. I really wish I had found this site sooner! But now that I'm here, I thought I'd throw up my build to see what everyone thinks about it. It's not a big pool, just enough to cool off in this Texas heat.

Pool Description:

• 11'8" x 28'6" Gunite SWG pool, 3.5' to 5.5' depth, ~8500 gallons
• 6' x 10'5" tanning ledge
• 7' x 7' elevated spa with reverse negative edge spillway
• Bubblers, waterfalls, elevated rear wall
• PebbleSheen Blue Surf
• Glass Tile waterline
• Travertine Coping
• 500s.f. of concrete deck with spray finish

Equipment(all Hayward):

• Pump - Tristar VS 950 2.7HP
• Filter - W3C5030, 525s.f.
• Heater - W3H400FDN, 400k BTU
• Control - OmniPL
• SWG - TCELL940
• Cleaner - Polaris Alpha IQ+
• Anything major I'm missing here?

Timeline so far:
May, 2021 - "Honey, I want a pool"
July 2021 - Moved into new house
Early Dec - Pool builder selected
Dec 14th - Design finalized
Jan 3rd - Design finalized for real
Jan 20th - HOA approval
Jan 27th - Big dig
Jan 28th - Steel
Jan 31st - Short stub plumbing
Feb 1st - Gunite
Feb 2nd - Plumbing started
Feb 3rd - Change to SWG, thanks TFP
Feb 4th - Equipment delivered
Feb 7th - Plumbing
Feb 11th - Electrical
Feb 12th - Tile/coping
Feb 18th - Deck formwork, drainage
Feb 25th - Deck concrete
Mar 5th - Plaster
Mar 7th - Acid wash and fill with water
Mar 12th - Spray deck texture and paint
Mar 13th - First beer by the pool
Mar 23rd - Call gas company to upgrade meter
Apr 2nd - First official swim
Apr 9th - Yard drainage installed
Apr 15th - Salt added
Apr 20th - Leak confirmed
May 4th - Gas hookup
June 1-4th - Leak repair

Rendering is before we extended the tanning ledge and redesigned the back wall

 

[AuralAlias]

And here's some of the build progress so far. My only complaint about the design and layout, and there's not much I can do about it, is that the equipment pad doesn't have much clearance around it for access.

 

[joel98z]

Looks Great! They are moving quickly to!

 

[AuralAlias]

Looks Great! They are moving quickly to!

They've surprised us how quickly they're moving. If it wasn't for the lengthy HOA approval process, we may have been looking at a finished pool by now.

Equipment was installed on the 7th. Looks like they're pressure testing and there's water slowly dripping from the filter around the band in the middle. Pressure has gone from 30 to around 25 after about 60 hours.

 

[Newdude]

Hey Aural and Welcome !!! I'm a HUGE fan of large VS pumps, honking large cartridges, robots and SWGs. Well done on all 4.

Keep them progress pics comin !!!

 

[AuralAlias]

Hey Aural and Welcome !!! I'm a HUGE fan of large VS pumps, honking large cartridges, robots and SWGs. Well done on all 4.

Keep them progress pics comin !!!

Thanks! Glad to see we did well on equipment knowing we went with the most expensive quote! They just seemed to know how to do things without cutting corners. It helped that we got to watch them build the pool across the street!

 

[AuralAlias]

Things slowed down a bit this week. Tile/coping took a bit longer than expected and we've got a bit of rain now. Deck forming likely starting on Friday. The tile came out better than expected, it adds tons of character!
We did have a slight issue with the coping joint alignment. The spa is very intentionally centered on our living room windows and they installed the coping slabs from left to right, cutting the last one to about 8" wide. Luckily, as you can see in the pic, they were able to come back in and fix it.

Thanks for taking a look!

 

[02slowride]

@AuralAlias Any update on your build?

 

[AuralAlias]

@AuralAlias Any update on your build?

I've been doing a terrible job at keeping this updated. Work got super busy this past month! So here's the final reveal! Water is still a bit chilly, but the kids tested it out a couple weekends ago and it was approved!

I'll update the original post in a minute with the timeline of everything. We're STILL waiting on the gas company to come out and swap out our meter for a larger one and connect the heater. Kinda ****** it's taking so long because we've really been looking forward to some late night relaxation.

 

[AuralAlias]

Here's another interesting update I'm hoping to get some feedback on. We started digging around the deck to plant some bushes and struck a bit of water. I assumed it was a sprinkler leak at first, but have since been told no leaks could be found after they came out to inspect. That mostly checks out with my personal inspection as well. This is right where they trenched for most of the plumbing, so they said it was just water standing from those trenches. I hooked up a small pump and pumped out quite a bit of water, and while it's not filling back up to the same level it was, it's not really emptying. We have not had any strong rains here recently, and I don't run the sprinklers much beyond 3-4 minutes per day, per zone.

Any ideas? Pics are from Saturday when they inspected and dug around, then today about 4 hours after I turned off the pump.

 

[BigPapaSmurf]

The pool is not loosing water, as far as you know? Do you have an auto fill? Could it be ground water? Can you pump it out completely?

 

[AuralAlias]

The pool is not loosing water, as far as you know? Do you have an auto fill? Could it be ground water? Can you pump it out completely?

We do have an autofill. Using the pump has lowered the water level quite a bit so I'm imagining it could just be a very saturated ground around where they dug around the pool and it will eventually dry out. I'm concerned it could be the autofill, but I would imagine it would be filling up this hole much quicker.

 

[AuralAlias]

Update, after pumping water out for about 30 minutes, it's still pumping water out of this hole at a rate of 20 gallons per hour. We haven't received heavy rain recently, and I typically only run the sprinklers 3-4 minutes per zone. Starting to think there's a leak of some kind.

 

[BigPapaSmurf]

Can you turn off the auto fill to check for a leak?

 

[AuralAlias]

Can you turn off the auto fill to check for a leak?

I just turned off the autofill and sprinklers and will keep pumping water out through the weekend to see if I can run it dry.

 

[AuralAlias]

100% sure there's a leak now. I turned off the auto fill yesterday evening and woke up to a pool level nearly a full inch lower. At that rate I'm losing hundreds of gallons a day, no wonder I've been having a hard time getting the chemistry balanced...

I'm going to leave the auto fill off a full 24 hours to see where it ends up. I know there's the bucket test to be certain, but losing an inch over night in a high humidity environment seems pretty certain from what I can tell.

Calling the pool builder first thing Monday.

 

[Toxophilite]

Did you turn off the main to the irrigation system? They very easily could have nicked the sprinkler feed line(s). I'm still fixing much water line and wiring.

 

[AuralAlias]

Did you turn off the main to the irrigation system? They very easily could have nicked the sprinkler feed line(s). I'm still fixing much water line and wiring.

Yes, I'm only turning it on when I need to run it, which I need to due to low rain and fresh sod. Although without the system running there shouldn't be much water standing in the sprinkler lines as it's only pressurized when the zone is turned on.

 

[Toxophilite]

Yes, I'm only turning it on when I need to run it, which I need to due to low rain and fresh sod. Although without the system running there shouldn't be much water standing in the sprinkler lines as it's only pressurized when the zone is turned on.

OK, was making sure, since many systems use in-line control valves which have pressure source run though entire layout underground to feed control box at each zone line.

 

[AuralAlias]

Water level has fallen nearly 2" after 40-ish hours. Something we've noticed more of now, though it was present before, there's a lot of air bubbles coming out of the returns. All the equipment looks dry, no water around the equipment pad.

Really hoping they don't have to do any major digging and it's just a leak around the skimmer or something.