New Northeastern Pa Build

this week i was looking at getting a device for the end of a pole incase i get a metal stain or organic stain, but then mr. bruce gave me the tech he uses. toss the puck in. place it over the stain let it sit and then net it out. so today i had 2 stains little ones. dropped a puck in and sat it over the stains for 30 secs. nothing. so i went into the house grabbed a sock smashed up some vit c. tossed that bad boy in. used the pole to hold it down and moved it around a bit. i saw the acid from the pills cloud out. moved it to the side and bam gone. both stains. both were metal stains. but the toss and hold and met tech worked very very nicely. so thanks to him for that!

what does have me concerned it 2 little metal stains. why? no metal in the pool. no one has been in since past weekend and i deff without a doubt know each were not there last night! but they r gone. i am worrying i need to add sequstrant in for metals? i did a nitrate test and phosphate test. both dip sticks. both were in the safe zone. there was the slightest color change. phosphate is deff 100 or lower. nitrate did change but ever ever so slight that my wife said i was seeing things.

worry?

but man vit c is a bear. 5 secs gone!

jim
 
ok here we go. first pour of 2 this saturday pool house foundation first. mostly set to go. few odds and ends left for lou to clean up. we did everything the other night but ran out of stuff we needed.

got 6 low volt conduits for pool and stuff from house and around pool to get it into and out of pool house. 1 for electrical up in the corner. and the larger dvc is for gas lines in and out as needed. toilet and sink plumbing and kitchen sink plumbing. we didn't have to put the flange on cause i'm running pavers through the pool house so the flange can go on later when we do pavers since it's the thickness of the paver. makes the pour that much more easy.

you can also see the final layout for the lower decking and how i will have 3' deep planters wrap around part of house and porch. we are overpowering so the retaining wall for it can sit on concrete vs bed material. we are ending the pavers at the corner of the house and into corner of the pool house this is where my fence will go. next our is the lower decking and we have to dig out behind the pool equipment to build a footer for a wing wall off the pool house to hide the pool equipment for my neighbor. aren't i a nice neighbor.

IMG_8866 by Jim, on Flickr

IMG_8868 by Jim, on Flickr

IMG_8869 by Jim, on Flickr
 
That thing is going to be huge! NICE! LOL on hiding the equipment from the neighbors! If you let they swim in the pool they won't care if they have to look at the equipment! oh wait................yeah hide the equipment! Better than having the neighbors over all of the time! hehe

Kim:kim:
 
They got their own pool over there. I’m pretty sure the eye itching is high over there as me dumps 1 gallon chlorine in each week with zero testing. He is so empresses with himself that he has never tested his water and it’s clearxall the time he says. I will say I don’t think I ever saw him get algea.

It looks big. It’s not deep. Only 12 feet deep so that’s why it’s long. It’s only a storage area. A very small bath. A medium sized living room area and a kitchen.
 
Well the concrete is done for pool house pad. Took a while cause it was cold today. I’ll have pics tomorrow. I was busy doing stuff for my winter closeup. I did my first slam today. Glad it was a test run slam vs an algea breakout. Checked all my numbers

ta 60
ch 450
cya 60
fc 7
ph 7.6
temp 57 then to 60 by the time I was done
Csi -.29

ch drifted up a bit since it got colder. I’m keeping the ta at 60 for the winter to help with my csi staying in check as ph rises.

Ill do my over night test tonight. I have been running pump at 2000 rpm this morning for 6 hrs I ran it at 3000 rpm.

Friday we will close.

And that’s it. Only undecided is to remote salt cell or not. I have a dummy but that wire. Darn wire!
 
Well I passed the overnight test. I figured I would but u never know. So now we get crushed with rain tomorrow. Dry up for the rest of the week. Have to setup for the last pour for next Saturday and close on Friday. That’s about it and my thread will be done for the winter.

I did get a slamming deal deal from one of our distributors for speakers for the pool house. I have to decide if I’m going with rocks or an array for around the pool. I don’t know if I want to dump all that money for just summer use. I know I can prob get the large speaker rocks on sale for a 10th of an array. I can use that money for something else.
 
Thanks Kim. Ya know I swear the powder chlorine test shows diff readings based on the amount of powder used I know it says a heaping spoonful. It I swear I noticed that different amounts yeild diff readings. I mean this one really needs to be spot on too cause 2 drops can mean a fail or pass.

Jim
 

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  • The precision of the measurement is plus or minus one drop when up to 10 drops of titrant are used, or plus or minus 10% of the final reading, when more than 10 drops of titrant are used.


This statement kinds worries me cause cause I was off 3-4 drops. This morning I did the test 3 times. 2 matched one was off 3. Even last night had to do it 3 times. So you really don’t know if u pass when u look at this on paper cause of the error.

I might atart using 2 even scoops to make sure I am always using the same exact amount. I don’t like that above statement though cause if one really has algea cause of the error or when one has algea does it really drop at night like 2 or more cause knowing a diff of 0-1 in kinda impossible them?
 
So now I’m using 2 even scoops. My powder test result have been the same now vs eyeballing the scoops. I did it a bunch of times last night and this am in dark all times and all match. I think telling people to do the 2 scoops should be in the manual. The eyeballing is just too inconsistent. And it isn’t recent. It’s been all summer on and off but never thought anything of it since I haven’t been doing the test for pass or fail except 2 other times but not under stress of having algea either.
 
my pool build got sidetracked today on a job so he sent his 2 guys down to do the cover instead of friday. all they did was the cover today cause i want to brush, vac, and i have to drop all my chemicals still. So the cover is just on right now with everything running.

looks good. getting the straps inlace is easy, but taking them off with the tool is a pain. i hope cause it's just new to me. it's very a very awkward motion to get it in place.


tonight i circulated the beautec scale and stain along with the algaecide 1.5 hrs later. I have my pump running at 3000 now for 3 hours to mix up everything good. I decided better to waste some chemical when i bring the water level down vs mixing when the level is lower and no pump on. figured this way i get a good mix. the money i'm wasting out in the water leaving the pool is insignificant vs not having a good mix or wrong amount of chemicals i feel.

so tomorrow noting to the pool.

early friday morning before they come to start closing i'll circulate in the final acid and chlorine drop.

it's almost over. :(

we do the last pour for the pool house saturday. my buddy is framing away for the pour down there. he has all kinda slopes going on down there for the drains. too much going on for me to help cause he has it all in his head. i dug in another conduit to have power in another little area just in case for the future kinda thing yesterday. that's my contribution to the last thing for the fall. lol

jim
 
well all closed up. sad day. lol

so now i go on monthly check duty. i'm checking FC 1xmonth and PH. I'll mix in liquid chlorine with the sump pump. PH I'll evaluate and se where we r at with the CSI. I'm letting the CSI dictate my move.

I'm also going to make sure I keep my skimmers free of water with a shop vac so nothing freezes in there for as long as i can. might look into the antifreeze upside down bottle idea also. right now there are those gizmo's in there for control the freeze expansion.

my water level is like 10 inches below my tile line. he said biggest hing is keep it way below the tile so no water can freeze behind the tile. we want them to stay as dry as possible. he said if i can keep the water away form them i won't get pops. he said thats when he sees tile pop off.

- - - Updated - - -

so here are the first pour pics. these pics are so typical of my buddies and my dad's buddies.

IMG_8883 by Jim, on Flickr

angelo feel free to stay a while and work. take ur hands out of ur pockets and push some. lol he didn't know if he was cold or hot. he took a lot of busting all day for that. lol

IMG_8886 by Jim, on Flickr

mark feel free to do something too. looks like he is going to the beach doesn't it?

it's always louis doing everything. only guy working. lol

IMG_8889 by Jim, on Flickr

oh wait there we go. everyone working now. lol

i was having a cup of coffee watching if anyone was wondering if i was working. lol i said i was going hands off for this part. well the really hard stuff at least. lol

jim
 
here are some closing pics for anyone who never saw a closing. i never have so i didn't know most of this.

IMG_8890 by Jim, on Flickr

cold cold morning! heavy frost. i wish nothing was in the pic cause it would have been a great pic.

IMG_8892 by Jim, on Flickr
IMG_8896 by Jim, on Flickr
IMG_8900 by Jim, on Flickr

they blow the lines out from the multipart valve. then they switch the valve off to keep any water from going back in. that is for the bottom drains and return. the top returns and cleaning port for my hand vac they keep blowing out. cap it quick and then turn valve off.

ya some water stays in there i assume but not enough to blow a line out in freeze. any water left in bottom drain or return will not freeze due to frost lines. and it can't climb that far up to get out of freeze zone. unless a ton of water was left in there with i assume is minimal. i hope!

IMG_8899 by Jim, on Flickr

IMG_8897 by Jim, on Flickr

this is how far down they took it. he said keep it as far away from the tile as i can to prevent possible popping tile in spring.



IMG_8894 by Jim, on Flickr

that's the gizmo for the skimmers. goes in hole to line back to pad. i guess when skimmer takes on water and freezes. it squeezes that thing so it doesn't push out on skimmer. i'm going to try my best to keep all water out of there so it didn't have to do its job.

well that's it. nothing big, but just some info for the future for someone.
 
LOL the guys had to KNOW you would have a camera to pick on this with! Surely they know you by NOW???

With seeing the closing do you think you will be able to do it next time? What do you think was the hardest part?

Kim:kim:
 
oh they know. oh they know.

is it hard. no. it looks pretty easy. you just have to make sure u clear the lines and turn the valves correctly or you have to redo the blow out. but the blower is constantly going. will i do it myself. no prob not. i'll put it on my builder yearly to be safe. i trust him and his guys who do it. it's all they do open/close and service. the kid has been with him 18 years. taught by my builder and i can tell he knows his stuff. i think i was in good hands.

lets hope the winter plays nice. lol

jim
 
well last pour is done. done for the year. all we have to do now is get some plastic down to protect the teams and sides for the winter. it was a long long summer. i can't believe the amount of work we got done. if i still had any money i would have tried to squeeze the framing in but. . . i'm tapped. lol

you can see we got some nice slope going on. we used pressure treated in the concrete to hold the place of the drains like we did on the decking. we also decided to run the drain back by the steps we can have full pavers vs cuts. should look cleaner. the drain starts right off the soilder course this way everything is sloping away from the pool house towards the steps. it also mad the slope bias towards my porch so we increased the slope a bit to keep water off the house. deff was a lot of thought into this framing and pour vs the decking even.

IMG_8903 by Jim, on Flickr

IMG_8908 by Jim, on Flickr

the extra concrete went in the hold next to the pad to make a nice brick wing wall to hide the equipment. it's main purpose was to lower the elevation off the pad so there isn't as much slope into my neighbors yard. same with the pool house. we did a deeper brick ledge to lower the elevation 2 blocks.

IMG_8911 by Jim, on Flickr

you can see the pitch.this is the section near the porch. the drain is going to end right at the bump out of my fireplace and the pipe will travel under my retaining wall to the gutter underground pipe. worked out well.

IMG_8906 by Jim, on Flickr

kate wanted to stay down the the guys as usual. i don't like her around concrete cause of the lime but all the dumping up that end was done by then so no splashing.
 
That's all folks! At least for this year! The wallet if flat BUT the yard is full! WELL DONE!

I am glad Kate got to watch. She will learn so much just by watching and listening. How to do this kind of work and many new adult words as well :roll: LOL

So nice of you to make sure the run off is not going to go visit your neighbors! :hug:

Kim:kim:
 

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