New Pool Build - IG Vinyl in Central Massachusetts

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MassNerd

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Apr 27, 2013
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Central Massachusetts
Been waiting a short while to start my own build thread. PB will be here tomorrow morning! :cheers:

The spec:
18’x36' IG Vinyl Pool 26,000 gallons
Rectangluar 2’ radius corners + 10’ roman stairs
10" Concrete walls + Vermiculite floor
2” PVC plumbing – 1 skimmer – 2 main drains (plumbed separately) – 4 returns
Hayward S244T - 24" Sand filter filled with Zeobrite
Hayward Tri-star 2-speed 1.5HP pump
Hayward Aqua Rite SWCG
Aquacomfort 125K BTU Heatpump
Hayward Color Comfort 4.0 LED color light

The backyard before the digging begins:
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A rendering of the pool (not decided on the fence yet) - attached
 

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I like that fence. Funny.......we live so far out in the country on 26 acres that we didn't put up a fence. Then......county inspector showed up a year after pool build and threatened to fine us for no fence. That sucked. Our screened in porch is above the pool by maybe one story? And also looks over our 2acre pond. Beautiful setting.......couldn't ruin it with a wood fence (and never would have put up chain link) so shelled out more $$$ for the black aluminum........looks great and I guess I'm better protected from lawsuits........you know......when that deer falls in?
 
Yes, we like that style of fence too Aimee. The problem is we think we'd like some privacy as we have neighbors to either side, so we are leaning towards white Vinyl privacy fence on the sides, maybe the back too and then picket facing the house.

PHOTOS OF THE DIG
More to be added later today...

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You need to check before you install that fence, around here code is pickets on the outside, facing away from fenced in area. The reason is the supports for the pickets can be used to climb over the fence....
 
I would stay with that fence and use landscaping for Privacy, it will look MUCH better.

Looks Nice, I am in Western MA and just started my planning a few weeks back. Good Luck, I am looking forward to seeing how it goes.
 
Carnut12 said:
I would stay with that fence and use landscaping for Privacy, it will look MUCH better.

Looks Nice, I am in Western MA and just started my planning a few weeks back. Good Luck, I am looking forward to seeing how it goes.
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Yes, that was my initial idea, but the wife wasn't so sure. I'll have to try to convince her. What do you recommend for landscape privacy? Arborvitaes or some sort of hedge?

Good luck on your build too!
 
Arbs are easy, depends on if you have deer, they like them. Green Giant Arbs grow fast and are deer resistant, you could try those. A hedge would work if your only looking for privacy in the Swimming months, something like Forsythia.

I personally prefer a Blue Spruce, but they get bigger. The other thing you can do is make a planting bed and include Tree's such as Clumped Birch, Plum, Dogwoods, and such that will add enough leaves and branches to give you privacy. Put in some nice Hydrangea's as part of the planting, they bloom all summer and get big enough to give you privacy under the tree's.
 
Great suggestions Carnut. I may need to hire you to suggest other landscaping improvements around our house! :-D I just have no creativity for that kind of thing.

More photos of the dig. Went very quick, in at 7:30am and done by 1pm:

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Still more fill needs to be brought in to build up around the walls.

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P
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A "retaining wall" at the well. Looks like that will be a good terrain feature to jump the mountain bikes off :lol:

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I began hand digging at trench around 1:30 and went until 7:30. Pitiful progress only halfway there. Hot humid day, I'm out of shape and there is so much clay in rocks in the ground. Ugg, back at it tomorrow morning.

Pouring the concrete walls tomorrow!
 
Looks Great!!!!!!!! Now I see how far your neighbors are, landscaping would definately do the trick and look a lot better than a solid panel fence. Keep in mind you do NOT want to put the fence on top of grass, it is a nightmare to trim, you end up destroying the bottom of the fence. Best case is your landscaping inside the fence continues to outside the fence along with the Mulch or Stone you use. More than likely they are going to destroy all that grass anyway so you will have a fresh slate to deal with.

It looks like you have some Arbs (Maybe something else, hard to see) planted already on the property line. If you do Arbs, especially Green Giant, space them well because they fill in pretty quick.
 

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Here is a picture of Leyland Cypress after 14 years. They were knee-high when planted and were 8' apart. The tips were touching in 5 years. They are a solid 30' tall now but pushing 20' wide tip to tip (not quite that wide at ground level as they slope out for the first 6 feet or so). This was a cheap option to cover 260' of property line with 33 plants. Ideally, I too would prefer Blue Spruce or a mixture of them and something else, but I didn't want to wait and the cost was much more. Leylands are not the longest living, so they are not for the next owners but hopefully they will last for me. But they might give you claustraphobia with the height. Our ground slopes down a lot so it has a different feel and they are only on one side. A hedge or mixed tree shrub border as suggested could work well. The various viburnums and spirea also make nice informal hedges or can be mixed in.

My personal feel is that most types of fences look nice in the correct settings. Aluminum fences almost always look nice but there are lots of choices. Sometimes cost can become a factor.

Your setting looks great there. Is the land behind you able to be developed or is it protected (or do you own it)? Ours is one acre but is sited well.

A second skimmer and a second gate (the walk inside can be pretty long for little kids...never mind I would never condone that) might be things to consider.

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Cypress is another great option. I agree on the extra gate placed somewhere on the opposite side of the front one. My plan is to do a drive gate (10 feet) on the front so I can keep them open during gatherings and it will make it look much more open, then I plan a 42" walk gate on either side. Think about the ball that goes over the fence, just a convenience factor for me.

All if this adds dollars, but it is a lot cheaper to do now than later.
 
bmoreswim said:
Your setting looks great there. Is the land behind you able to be developed or is it protected (or do you own it)? Ours is one acre but is sited well.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tree and other suggestions bmoreswim! Yes we like the property very much. The land behind us is to be developed, but its been that way since 2007 when we built. The housing market crash stalled that project indefinitely. We have 1.6 acres so the lot goes back another 120 feet behind the pool, again plenty of space for privacy and we have a nice start with some of the pines growing in.

Carnut, definitely putting a second gate in next to the equipment for access to that and chasing balls that make it over the fence :)
 
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This is great for me to watch, as our pool is also going to be a little ways from the house and we had intended on fencing in the pool only. We only have about 3/4 acre. We want to do some free form concrete decking around the rectangle. How much decking around the pool are you doing, MassNerd?
 
I noticed your Pool Builder does the Matrix Polymer walled pools, that is actually what I am leaning towards, is there a reason you picked Concrete instead? Just curious.

Looks Great so far!!! What liner are you going with? So far we are leaning towards the Sandstone.
 
amytude said:
This is great for me to watch, as our pool is also going to be a little ways from the house and we had intended on fencing in the pool only. We only have about 3/4 acre. We want to do some free form concrete decking around the rectangle. How much decking around the pool are you doing, MassNerd?
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Uh oh, pressure is on me to set a good example! ;) See my first post Amytude for an attachment showing the decking. Basically a larger 11’ wide area around the shallow end and 4’ around the rest of the pool. The only thing missing in the drawing is a 4’ path to a gate that will go to the left of the pool equipment.

Carnut12 said:
I noticed your Pool Builder does the Matrix Polymer walled pools, that is actually what I am leaning towards, is there a reason you picked Concrete instead? Just curious.

Looks Great so far!!! What liner are you going with? So far we are leaning towards the Sandstone.
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The polymer pool was actually $2500 more for a simple rectangle, so we went with concrete. Can’t beat the durability of 10” concrete walls right? Our pool builder really likes concrete for some reason. He has a reputation for it.
I like the classic blue liner, but with a fine pattern and a little brown speckled in. We are getting the “Princeton” liner shown on this page: http://vynall.com/pool-liners/pattern-selector/medium/
 
Pool looks great so far. When I was planning mine there was only one place around me that I spoke to that did concrete and their pricing was thousands more than the steel and polymer pools. Another builder did the permacrete stuff which was also ridiculously expensive. My parents have a pool very similar to what you are doing which was put in back in 1983 and other than a new liner about 4 years ago, it still looks great. I did steel and will always have that feeling that something bad will happen to it!

Looking forward to seeing the rest of your build.

As for your fence, not sure for your specific town but my town reuqired an additional foot higher than state code. State code is 4 feet, my town is 5 feet. I ended up doing kind of a hybrid style fence that uses stockade fence along two sides, spaced picket along one side and then "el cheapo" black mesh chain link along the final side. I had my reasons for doing it this way and it came out great. Would love to have spent more on the type of fence in your drawing but that was more than triple the cost.
 

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