Unusual delay from excavation to gunite?

[klduncan]

Excavation was 9/18-19. Rebar quickly followed and we had a torrential rain on 9/21-22. Everything was completely flooded and then pumped out over the next few days. It's been dry since last Wednesday. They propped up the rebar that was sunk into the mud from the first rain and now we're still waiting on rough plumbing. Forecast calls for dry weather through Friday. Is it unreasonable to be frustrated that our pool can't seem to get to gunite before this next rain given that we've had a week of dry weather? The project manager came out today and told my husband that we're looking at gunite perhaps next week. Normally I wouldn't push but we're looking at several more days of rain next Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I don't like the idea of a muddy excavation twice.

I work as a school administrator for a living. I get what it feels like to have people get frustrated and become unreasonable. I don't want to overreact and become "that guy" but I also don't want another muddy delay that makes me wonder if this whole thing isn't compromised by all the rain in the open hole.

Thoughts?

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Backyard_Lap_Pool]

The pool builder I worked with made it a point to flash coat the hole on any pool that wasn’t going to be through gunite within a day or two after excavation - for hole stability.

It doesn’t take much rain in our soil conditions for things to start caving in. On a lot of his projects, he also installed in-floor cleaning systems and would long pipe everything (full and complete plumbing to the pad) which tended to extend things to a week or more from excavation to gunite.

We flashed our pool even though we didn’t do in-floor system and we only short piped it - just because the other rebar and plumbing prep took a solid week due to the size of the hole. At the very least the extra $1k added a little peace of mind and took some of the stress out of trades taking longer to get things right before gunite.

When the hole is properly flashed, it can theoretically fill up to the brim with water and still maintain hole integrity. (After watching the guys struggle to bust apart the flashing with a 10# sledge hammer to get the main drains in, I believe it.)

 

[Dirk]

I work as a school administrator for a living. I get what it feels like to have people get frustrated and become unreasonable. I don't want to overreact and become "that guy" but I also don't want another muddy delay that makes me wonder if this whole thing isn't compromised by all the rain in the open hole.

Thoughts?

Thanks for your feedback.

Your contractor is likely running multiple job sites. He's shuffling now to accommodate everyone, as they have all been impacted by the rain. He's looking to rejuggle sub-contractors' schedules against customer needs. Not fun. So it is reasonable to be aware of the challenges he's likely facing, for which he is only partially to blame. He fills his schedule to maximize profit, instead of allowing for, or at least not adequately allowing for, these types of delays. When that occurs, he has to count on the "kindness and cooperation" of his clients to get things back on track.

That being said, he might lean towards getting the biggest complainer off his back. Or he just might show a little extra love to the one that reciprocates. In either case, unfortunately, doing nothing, saying nothing, could very likely push you to the end of the line. He's not likely using a first-come-first-served system.

So to take cuts, your choice might be to kill him with kindness, or become his worst nightmare! You get the idea. Start with some very polite, daily phone calls. "Hi, just checking in. When do you expect to return to work?" type conversations. If he says "In x days/weeks." then don't wait x days/weeks to call again. Find an excuse to call sooner, as in "Hi, just checking in. Are we still on schedule for x, as you mentioned? Just trying to make my plans around that day? Any chance you might get out sooner?" Etc. Sweet as pie, with a none-too-subtle undertone that you are gunna be on his case.

Any or all of those MOs could backfire, of course, and I'm projecting. Any client that doesn't hound me takes a back seat to the one that does. It doesn't mean I don't want to give great service to all my clients, but sometimes I just can't, so I have to decide on the fly who's going to be the least upset. I assume someone that isn't bugging me is OK with waiting a little longer...

 

[CraigW]

I was just trying to figure out how to bug my pool builder without seeming like a jerk to see what's up and saw this.

Regarding your issue, we were excavated on Aug 23, plumbing Aug 24, rebar around Aug 28 but no gunite until 9/11. Very frustrating, but sounds to be nothing out of the ordinary, especially based on what you're seeing. My frustration now is they started back filling and grading and then stopped due to rain. It finally dried out now after 2 weeks, and we haven't seen anyone other than a couple of guys who pumped 2 feet of water out of the shell. It's dry now finally, and they don't seem to be showing up to do anything.

Seems maybe we both need to take Dirk's tact and find an excuse to contact our builders!

 

[sktn77a]

Nope, absolutely typical. But that doesn't make it right!

 

[klduncan]

Thanks guys for all of your responses. I appreciate hearing about everyone's experiences.

Dirk, I get what you mean and it makes sense. I firmly believe in the kill 'em with kindness approach. I appreciate everyone telling me when it's normal to wait so I don't become overbearing.

As luck would have it, we were on the recipient of rough plumbing today. WOO HOO!! I spoke with our project manager and he let me know that they are working with the goal of getting inspected and possibly gunite before the next round of rain. Gunite is going to be sooooo awesome!

- - - Updated - - -

I remember reading your build thread and the clean up after Harvey. Your pool is pretty amazing!!