Outdoor bathtub is all I need...maybe slightly bigger (Buckeye, AZ New Build)....

[Phx_Jay]

Getting ready to finalize the contract for a new pool build. I've looked at OB and several pool builders but I've found two I like, both highly rated and their prices are about the same. One does not do salt water pools and tried to talk me out of it so I'm going with the other one. I'm building a spool but going to wait on adding a heater for now...might try a solar cover first and then solar panels if I still want more. Here are the specs:

Perimeter: 70 lf
Area: 303 s.f.
Depth: 3'6" to 5'
Gallons: 7600

Interior: Pebblesheen
Deck: Salt finish Colored Concrete
Accent Boulders
Aerator

Benches: 16' @ 18" deep
Stairs: 4 Entry steps
Sun Shelf: 12' 10" X 7', 12" Deep

Pump 1: Pentair sta-rite intelliflo vsf 3 hp variable speed
Filter 1: Pentair sta-rite 450 cartridge
Sanitizer 1:IC-40 salt
Cleaning System:Port for a vacuum by owner
Surface Skimmer: Paramount venturi
Drain: Paramount 360 superflow pebble top
Auto Water leveler: Paramount paralevel
Pool Light: 250 watt white
Returns: 3 Directional
Sleeves: 5 Umbrella
Flatwork: 380 s.f.
Control System: Easy Touch with Pentair Screenlogic 2

I'm going to have a plumber tap into a water line inside the house to make a hose bib where the equipment will be. The bib will be tapped into the soft water system instead of the outside hose bibs. At this point I don't have any water features. I've been on this site for over a year now and I've come to believe the fewer holes in the pool the better. However, I've recently found the Jandy Sheer Arc that looks nice and is pretty small. Anyone have experience with them? I already have an outlet that would be about 10-15' from the pool to power the robot. Any other ideas I need to ask about before this thing gets finalized?

Thanks!

Jay

 

[Jimrahbe]

Jay,

Looks good to me...

The only thing is the last item.. I suspect it is more of a typo than a real problem, but ScreenLogic2 is not a standalone automation system. So, I assume that you will be getting an EasyTouch automation system, with the ScreenLogic add on.. so that you can control things from your PC, Phone or Tablet...

I would also make sure that none of the accent boulders touch the waterline or replace any of the waterline tile.

Good luck with your spool build.

 

[Phx_Jay]

Thanks Jim. You are correct. It is the Easy Touch..I'll fix that. The accent boulders will be above the waterline and there will be a 6" waterline tile all the way around.

Thanks!

 

[kimkats]

I would also add in a overflow line. This is set in the top half of the waterline tile and is piped into the house gutters and such. This helps when you have big rains.

Also make sure you have a light by your equipment pad. You will thank me the first time you have to go out there at night LOL

Now measure 5' on you and any other adults in the house. Where will the water hit? Adjust from there. I am 5'5" and a 5' depth would have the water right under my nose so........If you are wanting to have a pool you can walk around it you might need to adjust your depth.

Kim

 

[Phx_Jay]

Thanks Kimkats. The overflow line is a great idea. I'll ask about that at the meeting this weekend. My yard is unique that if water runs towards the house and is high enough to get over the lip of the back porch I'll be in trouble. The grading has to be correct. I just added a sump pump to my list of equipment just in case we get a 100-year storm or something...better to have a plan now then wait until its too late. I have a flood light right above the equipment pad but I will probably add some LEDs. I also tend to keep a few headlamps hanging around...very useful when working on stuff at night and minimal cost. My wife will be almost underwater at 5' but I'm almost 6' so it works pretty well for me. Our last pools were 6' deep and I don't think we need anything that deep with the kids grown. We are putting in a lot of benches with the expectations of entertaining friends and family. I hope I don't regret the 5' depth but I want to be able to stand and still be almost entirely in the water...



I have another question for everyone....I was putting the umbrella sleeves on the sides of the pool instead of in the pool. My thought was the less holes in the pool the better. I also thought pressure from a breeze on the umbrella could eventually lead to hairline cracks. Am I being paranoid and should just put a sleeve on the sun shelf or am I being more logical now?

Also, the PB has a normal plumbing package and a "construction grade" package. the construction grade is larger PVC like 2" instead of 1 1/2" or something like that. Would that be worth the $1500 upgrade? Might also be a higher schedule rating of PVC.

 

[NorCalX]

I agree with your umbrella sleeve concern

i was originally planning to place it in the sun shelf but have been convinced to drill a hole in my accent boulders instead. a nice cantilevered umbrella then provides coverage i need

 

[Phx_Jay]

That looks great. I wasn't thinking about the boulders but now I am. I was thinking of putting the sleeves in the coping around the pool.

 

[jatkinson]

Smart design. I'm a fan of smaller pools. They heat nice and fast and you will use it more. I would seriously consider solar full time and a natural gas heater if you have ng. The cost to actually heat that in the middle of winter will be low. Flip it on in the morning, swim in 88degreee water at dinner time. Cover it up and shut it down until next time. Can't wait to watch the build!

 

[Phx_Jay]

So we made some changes and here is the final design. The equipment stayed about the same. We decided to make the pool a little larger by adding a 2nd Baja step on the opposite end and added about 2 feet in the middle. The entry Baja step is 8" and the deep end Baja step is 12". We did a couple bubblers but other then that we kept is pretty simple. I have to let them know if there are any final changes to the design. Any suggestions?

 

[kimkats]

That really finished it off! Good job on adding that!

 

[Phx_Jay]

So waiting for permits and HOA approval now....so I'm working on the things I can get started.

Hopefully in a sign of things to come, I got lucky yesterday with saving my rock in the backyard. I had started moving it manually and it was going to be a lot of work. I noticed they were grading a front yard of a new house a few houses down from mine. They had a 4' bobcat so when they were done and about to put it on the trailer I asked if they would be interested in helping me with the rock for a little cash. It only took the guy about 15 minutes to scrape all the rock to the sides of the yard and out of the way of the construction area. It saved me hours of back breaking work so I am pretty happy. I sorta figured out how they installed the drips in the backyard and I'm not going to have to rip everything out. I should be able to use most of the lines that are already there. I just removed the lines where the pool is going. That will save me a lot of time when it come to re-landscaping around the pool. I just need to hit the hardware store to buy some caps and I'll have that ready to go tomorrow.

The plumber also came out and said he could easily stub out from the inside of the house to where the pool equipment is going to be for the auto-top off. I am pretty lucky that there is a bathroom on the other side of the wall from the pool equipment. He is also going to install the soft water system I ordered. I was going to do that myself but he is giving me a great deal and said he has done a lot so I'm confident it will be a much better job then if I had done it. I cleaned the garage and made room for the new water softener. Been a busy couple of days but I'm making progress.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I would suggest if you feel you want boulders, play around with the placement a little more.

The way your design has them now they look very un-natural and too "matchy-matchy" in their lay out from one side to the other.

Just a suggestion

Maddie

 

[Phx_Jay]

Thanks Maddie! There will be boulders around the pool just above the water line but there will also be a lot of boulders in the yard. Hopefully I can be here when they place the boulders so they don't look so match-matchy. I would surround the entire pool just with boulders but it doesn't seem worth the money when I can put boulders in on my own for far less cost after the pool is build. That is why we don't have decking around a lot of the pool....so we can do some different types of desert landscape. My dream pool has always been one where its like an oasis that would be sitting in the middle of the desert. I like that feel a little better then the resort feel but I enjoy both.

 

[kimkats]

SCORE!!! That was some money well spent! Talk about working with your wallet instead of your back, shoulder, arms, etc! 15 mins compared to 15 days LOL

Water lines-good job finding and figuring that out. Now think about where the plumbing and electric lines will be going-from the pad and around the pool. With that in mind relook at the plans. Will the big machines drive over the line and maybe crush them? I just want you to be really ready for what will be happening.

Kim

 

[Phx_Jay]

We got off to a rough start but at least we are finally moving along. PB applied for the permits and the city said the home builder never got a permit for my block wall. At first the builder tried to argue about it but they eventually filed for the permit. Then they told me I was going to have to go down and pick it up from the city, and then get the wall inspected. Luckily the PB offered to take care of that so I didn't have to keep fighting with the home builder.

They got started on the pool the first super handed the job off to a second super since he was already building a pool around the corner. The new super seems like a good guy and has been in the business for a long time. He correct the diagram of the pool in the yard right away after the pool was drawn a little short. Then the dig started....for about 30 minutes until they hit granite about 18" down. Turns out my back yard is pretty solid granite...so of course it has been a very hard dig. We had to negotiate the hard dig price and it took them 3 days to dig. They are about done. I'll post the final dig pictures tonight when I get home. Is there anything I should be aware of with the plumbing on such rocky ground? The plumber for my house said I should make sure they put a bed a sand down for any pipes. Both supers said they didn't think it was a good idea to hook my pool auto-top off to my soft water system but I'm moving forward with that anyway. Any tips for this next step would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Arizonarob]

Jay, something to think about as far as your boulders are concerned. You should have the ones you want to use on site before they start doing the concrete and decking work. Ideally you want them to be incorporated into your decking/bond beam, so that way they don’t look like they are just “placed” there.

I have them around my pool as well, but the rolled bond beam and cool decking are poured around them to make them look more natural.
Just a thought.

 

[NorCalX]

Both supers said they didn't think it was a good idea to hook my pool auto-top off to my soft water system but I'm moving forward with that anyway

I have a water softener and got similar advice and push back

Here is what I was told and I found somewhat convincing

Most residential soft water systems do not have the capacity to handle pool fill requests. If there is ANY type of leak or issue your auto-fill will easily exhaust your soft water supply. If the water supply is exhausted the pool level can drop below the skimmer and you start sucking air etc. into your equipment. The fact all of this is happening automatically means you probably won't be aware of it until the obvious failure stage has been reached (you happen to notice the pool level is extremely low as you walk by).

Furthermore, you are adding an extreme amount of wear/tear to the water softener in this manner. One source estimates a 400 sqft pool requires 19k gallons a year to replace evaporation

Finally...when your water softener system fails it might discharge into your pool. I have a salt based water softener and the resin tank recently died and started to go into the plumbing. I caught it early and shut my system down....but imagine the damage it could do to all of your pool equipment if you don't notice it.

An alternative I was told was to tap the softwater system and manually control the soft water input to the pool when you feel the need to correct (you would need to temporarily override your auto fill as well). You could even use a long hose from inside the house to accomplish this. For example when you know your soft water tank is full you can do a long fill then stop....wait for it to recharge and repeat as needed.

Lots of fear based decision making there but if you plan/engineer for the failure points it makes things better

 

[kimkats]

SIGH.........why?? Why did the home builder have to be like that?? Good job PB for stepping up and taking care of it for you!

Sorry to hear about the hard dig but you were kind of thinking it might happen so..............what a pool? Jack hammer it out! OUCH on the wallet and ears though.

I will see if @Dirk will step in to help with soft water system. He did is really neat and with much thought.

Kim

 

[Don_TLR]

That's the bad part when the big excavator just makes dust when trying to dig, we hit caliche luckily just at the bottom, but it was solid..

 

[Phx_Jay]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Rob....I am having 8 put around the pool in the bond beam. The sales guy said he designs it so that they do additional steel and concrete where the boulders are going to go. They will be above the waterline since this is going to be a salt water. I have some large boulders that gothic put into the back yard during the original landscaping. The excavators were nice enough to move them over to where the concrete pad is going to be. I'll be placing those so that they are in the decking for a more natural look as well. I then have a lot of boulders to place in the yard and some to fill the gabion cages I'm going to use to hide the pool equipment.

Thanks for the info NorCal...I'm going to do more research today.

It was a hit to the wallet KimKats but I'm trying to stay positive. I'm sure it isnt' something I will even thing about a couple years from now. Hopefully no more surprise cost increases.

Your Pool is looking great Don....glad it wasn't a hard dig all the way through like mine. I'm just hoping having the sides be rock isn't going to be a problem down the road like cracks in the shell or something.