New pool build *Avondale/Litchfield Park, AZ* Presidential Pools

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Wow, they delayed you for standing water? I had swimming water and we shot gunite.

I'm only half kidding, they really did have to pump out about 2 ft of water first, but it was that or risk another cave in. Its crazy, I think you guys started the day before us and you have basically everything installed except your gunite. I have nothing installed except gunite and a mud pit. It is slightly wetter here though. LOL. I hope you get your gunite shot soon its fantastic to watch them do it if you get the chance. And water and gunite are not a bad thing. If there is water seeping in the bottom after they pump it out they just dial back the water at the nozzle. Wet ground also helps to slow down the cure time making the gunite cure nice and hard. I had a lot of this explained to me today as they were shooting in a rainstorm.
 
Beadedbiker said:
Wow, they delayed you for standing water? I had swimming water and we shot gunite.

And water and gunite are not a bad thing. If there is water seeping in the bottom after they pump it out they just dial back the water at the nozzle. Wet ground also helps to slow down the cure time making the gunite cure nice and hard. I had a lot of this explained to me today as they were shooting in a rainstorm.
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I surely agree!! When they shot our gunite shell, it was bone-frickin' dry and I was outside every couple of hours hosing down the shell. I was praying for the monsoons to come because it was practically evaporating faster than I could wet it. My PB almost brought in a water truck because he was concerned about the shell not curing properly. Thankfully the rains hit about 10 days later and I could dial back on the sprinklers.


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kimkats said:
I was going to ask if you could turn a sprinkler on it. I was thinking there was NO way to stand there and use just a hose to do the whole pool.

Kim
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Yep, after standing there with a hose like an idiot for two days the better-half was like, "why don't you use two hoses and a sprinklers?" One trip to Ace Hardware later and I got to finally sit back in the plastic lawn chair, drink a beer and act like real site foreman....

Shows you who in the family is the brains of this outfit....




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We often use a sprinkler and a battery operated timer (home depot). You can set it to run often at first and then spread times out.

Inspectors generally wont pass a pool with water in it because it could have mud and dirt on the rebar.

The Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete (ACI 318) states in Section 7.4.1:
ACI 318, Sec. 7.4.1: At the time concrete is placed, reinforcement shall be free from mud, oil or other nonmetallic coatings that decrease bond.

I have had, on more then one occasion, to have someone with wire brush clean all the steel in the bottom that got dirty from the mud and water.
 
I'm in Chandler and we got hit hard! My pool is overflowing. I thought of your build here and the delay for your gunite when the rain was hitting! Hopefully you won't be delayed too much, but I fear you have a mess on your hands!
 
Not good, not good at all.
Flooded with some wall damage, LOTS of water in the pool and city came to inspect TODAY of all days and ... you guess it - FAILED!
I was just out on the side of our lot trying to dig some small trenches to keep the pooling water over there moving, really tough when your foot sinks completely into the desert mud.

4:25am
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FAILED
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This is one of those times you wish TFP would let you use some serious potty mouth adult language :(

Cracking beer open in 4....1.....3.....wait....4.....2....1.....aw heck, guess I shouldn't have had those 4 shots of bourbon first ...


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I actually can't believe your PB's knew rain was coming, and didn't do anything to protect the walls or put a pump in to remove standing water. Of course my build is proof you can try and take precautions all you want and still end up with a nightmare. Still it doesn't actually look too bad. A pump will remove that water in short order, hopefully thats about the worst of the cave ins and it won't take them long to get the soil out. I do completely understand how you feel though. This last week about drove me to drink, and my PB's along with me.
 
I don't think this is that bad. Our hole had four feet of water in it before gunite and the rebar was buried in the bottom. I was stressed but, they pumped out the water, dug out the caved in dirt and shot gunite a couple days later. It wasn't a big deal to the PB. He'd seen it many times before. I'm guessing yours has too. It will certainly cause some delays but, what's a pool build without delays?

Bob
 
They don't always tell you this up front but unless its exceptional circumstances (like rain every day for a week) they are not going to come out the day after a rain storm or work during one. After we had our 7" rain storm I was quite mad that no-one was coming to check out the damage. Then I found another builders website, explaining about their rain protocols and it made so much sense. The ground is too wet to deal with, they'll tear up your dirt walking across it and likely do more damage to your pool walls. It also risks injury to the builders with deep mud ruts and no good footing. Its better to give it a day or so for the water to soak into the ground and evaporate off. It helps to have the soil firm up again before climbing all over it. Hopefully being in Arizona you'll return to your regularly scheduled weather of hot, sun and more hot and sun and it will help your ground dry out quickly. I'm guessing the ground wasn't saturated either before this, so you should be good to go pretty quick. In the great scheme of things a delay of a few days when you are going to enjoy your pool for many years is no big thing. I just went through this same thing and apart from feeling bad for the guys having to dig the dirt out, it really didn't affect us too badly. Plus you have the added bonus of having all your plumbing in and tested before all this happened. Our wash out was before that point, so they had to shoot the gunite before they could do the rest of the plumbing and test it, so we'll have to keep a close eye out for leaks when they do that.
 

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