So this happened

[Newdude]

OK so I road tested the patio pitch with a hose. A bit extreme but the puddle doesn't lie. Or actually, unfortunately, the puddle did lie there.

Over all it mostly works. Close to the pool the downhill from the house overpowers the downhill from the pool and it gets pushed behind the liner track.





Is there a way to seal the liner track to the shell so that any water that gets down there has to go over the liner ? Construction adhesive maybe ? Or does the coping mortar effectively seal it ?

Or is such little water going to make it under the stones that I'm overthinking it ?

 

[wireform]

I'd rather rectify the problem a good bit back from the pool with some sort of strip drain all across. Now's the time to figure it out before the pavers as what's happening now is not a situation you can control only to introduce dirty water to a healthy pool.

 

[Newdude]

I sent a bunch of pics to the patio guy and both he and the cement guy are coming to check it out. Then he called so we could go over it.

Will see what they come up with.

In case I miss the pow wow.

 

[JamesW]

You’re having to do way too much of everyone else’s jobs.

It’s disappointing that you can’t just trust the supposedly professional people to get things right without always checking their work and pointing out the problems.

 

[Newdude]

You’re having to do way too much of everyone else’s jobs.

We met beforehand and stood in the spot to go over the plans. He got it. The cement guy is great and he got it too. It's just a hair off and hopefully it won't take much to correct.

While painting up the part that drains into the pool, the long center arrow is the high spot and it looks like it breaks enough to either side but it just needs a smidge more.

 

[ajw22]

What is at the bottom of this window well?

 

[dleonard1122]

In case you end up wanting an easy solution for water running towards the pool/pooling near it.

Adjustable Height Paver Drain - Decorative Concrete Forming Systems and Deck Drains for Swimming Pools | Stegmeier LLC | 817-467-9028

The Adjustable Height Paver Drain is a dual-elevation PVC deck drain system used for the installation of paver decks. This unique design features a top cap that can be lapped past the joints for rigidity as well as a tray built into the base to set the pavers on.

www.stegmeier.com

I was looking at this earlier today and am heavily considering it for my build. Looks super simple to use with pavers. I know NDS has popular channel drains as well, but they require some additional support such as edge restraint or in your case, mortaring in which would be difficult. This Stegmeier version just uses the weight of the adjacent pavers to hold it down which I thought was pretty neat.

 

[Newdude]

What is at the bottom of this window well

Really sandy fill dirt that's around the foundation. It drains well for its own fair share of water but certainly not for lots of extra water.

 

[ajw22]

Really sandy fill dirt that's around the foundation. It drains well for its own fair share of water but certainly not for lots of extra water.

I would be cautious directing runoff water from the deck into the window well.

I found the bottom of those wells can get filled with dirt over time and slow the draining. We have had some storms with large amounts of rain in a short time. If the well cannot handle the runoff the water level climbs in the well and water leaks through the window. I don’t know how much of a mess you can have with water coming in through the window.

I have had that happen and needed to go outside in the middle of big storms to drop my sump pump into a window well to pump it out and stop the water over the window.

 

[Newdude]

I would be cautious directing runoff water from the deck into the window well.

That's why they are going to raise the slab to get the water out. I'm not sure how yet, maybe they just add more cement on top, but it will be pitched away.

I found the bottom of those wells can get filled with dirt over time and slow the draining

Huge +1 here. Just before the build started they were at grade and I wanted to see if I could raise them or they were bolted to the foundation. They weren't attached and I raised them about a foot, but I had to dig them completely out. Doing so exchanged the silted / gummed up dirt inside the well with fresh loose sandy stuff.

We had all sorts of drainage problems at the old place and I don't know if I'll ever shake the feeling of looking at all that kind of stuff. It will get post hole dug and exchanged every few years.

 

[wireform]

You would never want to purposely add water to footing drains in general so the window well is there for the window and whatever precip ends up going down.

 

[Newdude]

You would never want to purposely add water to footing drains

Yup. Patio guy was 100% sure they'd be able to get the water away from the house and out of the drain.

The solution for the pool side remains to be seen, If one exists. I went outside before with the deck drains posted above in mind, and because of the stairs ( which have been my kryptonite at every stage ) the drain would have to be set about 6 feet from the pool. It would solve some of the runoff but still leave a good amount if it. The blue line isn't to scale, it's drawn for example.

 

[wireform]

You may want to redo say 6 feet from the pool backwards and slope that also to the strip drain to water can never make it to the pool.

 

[dleonard1122]

because of the stairs ( which have been my kryptonite at every stage ) the drain would have to be set about 6 feet from the pool

Now I am curious.. why?

 

[Newdude]

Now I am curious.. why?

Because the blue line is the high spot (give or take) and the drain would have to zig zag around the stairs. Pitching that through the zigs might work, or it might create a new pitch issue.

And anesthetics. Lol.

 

[dleonard1122]

Ah, I see. I was envisioning just running it before the coping of the first step on the stairs, and then parallel with the pool across. It should be like 3' or so behind the pool (or however much your steps stick out into the patio. Getting the drain to slope one direction would be tough with where your high spot is, so yeah that might be an issue. Can you open the drain on both ends to drain off either side of the patio?

 

[dleonard1122]

Here's what I was thinking. Run the channel drain where the black line is, draining off to either side. Then, build up the red areas to slope back away from the pool and back to the channel drain.

 

[Newdude]

Here's what I was thinking. Run the channel drain where the black line is, draining off to either side.

That's what I scoped out in my head. The black line is about 6 ft back from the pool and raising the pool edge enough then messes up the coping height of the sides of the pool, which would then need to be tapered also.

The sides currently slope down to meet the patio at the blue X's, so solving one issue creates another.

 

[dleonard1122]

Yeah that's going to be tough. I'm interested to see what the concrete guy recommends.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but to me this points at a benefit of using a gravel base beneath pavers. At this stage it would have been much easier to tweak the slopes to get them how you want. Much harder to grind out concrete. I hope it ends up working out for you.

 

[Newdude]

So changing gears a little. My main concern is not the runoff into the pool. It's the runoff behind the liner. The liner track is secured with masonry screws against the imperfect shell. All of the hose water in that area last night went right under the liner track and behind the liner. It blistered the liner on its way down and until I get in there, I'm not sure it made its way out yet.

If this was a regular occurrence, I'd be worried about my sand hopper angles and/or floor washing out. Or in a big storm, the liner floating.

How much water will get under the patio stones to have nowhere else to go ?

Does the overwhelming majority of it runoff the top ?

Does the polymeric sand help keep the water over and not under ?

Should I run a bead of construction adhesive along the liner track seam so that any water that finds its way down there can't get behind the liner?

I appreciate all thoughts as always. Y'alls have made this FAR more keep-Dude-out-of-jail-y.