Yet another Texas pool build!

[ummgood]

Holy moly. Oh to be that guys friend. Lol

I am sure he is pretty fun. They said he is in his late 20's.

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Oh on another note my PB is telling me that they have never done the concrete finish that is on the concrete portion of my deck near the house. I guess it is not something normally done in Texas so I am the guinea pig. This makes me nervous but they said they would do it right even if it required more than one pass. I can't imagine having to remove and start over but oh well. The sales manager said he is super excited to take pictures of my pool because it has so many things their company hasn't done yet. ACK! I will be the first for Belgard coping, first for the sand finished concrete, first for blue surf. Talk about making me nervous. They do really high end pools so I know their attention to detail is good but it makes me nervous none-the-less.

 

[amandahein3]

Late 20s?!

If you're the guinea pig see about a price decrease! Lol

 

[kimkats]

What a fun date you had with your girlfriend! YES on the deal for the coping.

He found stuff to fix that you did not even notice?????? WOW that is wonderful to hear!

Remind me again what you are having done on the patio?

Kim

 

[ummgood]

What a fun date you had with your girlfriend! YES on the deal for the coping.

He found stuff to fix that you did not even notice?????? WOW that is wonderful to hear!

Remind me again what you are having done on the patio?

Kim

I have two deck materials. From the house out is concrete. The concrete has several steps down to belgard pavers. The concrete is supposed to be a TopCast #3 sand finish. It is almost like exposed aggregate but more sandy. They said they have never done it before. I don't think at this point they'll give me a discount because they are making way less than they should on my pool. I am happy as long as it comes out as expected.

 

[ummgood]

My build is starting to proceed but I am super discouraged by the work being done. I feel like the subs my PB is using are substandard and probably don't know what they are doing. I am just frustrated and done at this point. I wish I could go back in time and never build a pool. I completely went off on my PB and that isn't me. I feel terrible but I am just so frustrated I don't know what to do. The person in charge of building my pool is frustrated with the quality too. At this point if they keep having to redo everything I don't now when we'll be getting done at this point. I am just not even encourage to take any pictures anymore. I honestly don't even want to look at the pool anymore.

 

[SuzfromTexas]

Ummgood: Since my pool plaster and fill, I am just now catching up on threads. I feel like I've let down a good friend by being absent. But I hope you know we are all here for you, and most of us have felt the same way you are feeling tonight.

As someone told me about getting older.... it holds true here as well. "Building a pool ain't for sissies!!!" I had to reach out tonight, because I was just having similar thoughts to yours. And my pool is finished! If I had known how hard it was to build a pool and now to survive the first few weeks of the new pool, well, I never would have done it! My only answer is that there is a reason we are building pools - we are meant to and in the long run, we will be happy. Boy, that better be the end result!!!!

I was thrilled this morning when I spent an hour and a half exercising and playing in the pool. I thought, 'This is heaven!' But tonight, I can barely move, and I feel like I will never get better. Maybe you are a little like me in that I run out of energy by the end of a busy day, and with the loss of energy, discouragement and despair slip in far too easily. So, I hope like me, you will wake up feeling better after some rest.

Hats off to you and others who build a pool while working. I don't see how anyone does that! Give yourself credit for all the great things you ARE accomplishing with your pool. It may not feel like it tonight, but you are doing an amazing job. I believe your pool is going to be fabulous! I love the design and ALL the materials you have chosen.

Letting go of expectations of perfection is difficult, especially if you are an engineer or something similar. Things must be exact in that field. So maybe this is your exercise in letting go a little of that. And from what I've read, you HAVE done a lot of letting go. Bravo!!! Give yourself credit. When I'm tired and the old perfectionistic ways creep in, I try (not always successful) to keep my focus on the main goal. For me, fun and family time. And something to fill the void of lost travel dreams. Now my son and I will travel out our back door! When you hear your kids laughing and squealing with joy, and when you and your wife can sit relaxing together and share watching the kids' joy, well.... No grout or time issues will seem important. I promise.

Lean on friends and family. TFP people KNOW what you're going through. Hold on a little bit longer! We're with you!!!
Hugs,
Suz.

 

[Floridanative123]

Hang in there ummgood. For what it is worth, we are using a very reputable builder with good subs and I have still had my moments of wishing I could re-fill the concrete hole in the ground. The process is taxing and messy as well as time consuming (especially for the detail oriented person). If your PB cannot find subs to successfully accomplish some of the items on your list, you may be able to get the company to offer a nice premium alternative just to be able to get on with things. Sooner (or later) you will get through it if you persevere and keep on top the PB to do it right and this process will be a frustrating memory that will fade with time as you enjoy your pool.

 

[kimkats]

ummmmmmgood I have a sad for you That is just not right.

So what I THINK hear you saying is the PB is using subs he has not used before so does know their work and it is biting him and you in the butt with work having to be redone.

Time for him rethink who he is using. I wish I could be there to watch over them for you.

Kim

 

[Jannylee53]

I feel your pain. I felt this way so many times!!! But as Suz said once it's finished, it's well worth it. You just have to embrace the small imperfections. No one else will notice. It's a place to enjoy and entertain friends and family. I've got my first round of company coming in a couple of weeks so hang in there! But yes, I have definitely questioned my sanity a few times throughout this process, "What was I thinking?" If you look back over most of these threads, we've all been disappointed, disillusioned but we were all determined to see it through to the end.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kimkats]

You know what is funny (weird funny) is that we looked for 6 LONG years for this slice of heaven I call home. About 3 weeks after buying it and working to get it liveable I REALLY questioned why we did it! We still had the old house and were living there and coming to this house EVERY night after work and the whole weekend to clean, paint, fix, etc.

It ended up taking us 3 MONTHS to get this house where and how we wanted it to move in. It also took us 3 months to sell the old house so think 2 mortgage payments! OUCH!

BUT in the end..................oh it is SO worth it!!!!!!! Getting there........yeah there was pain but we just paid off the mortgage on this house!

HOLD on and drink an adult beverage or two and know it will end and be so worth it.

Just come here and tell us-----------vent it all out here. We can take it and help shoulder some of the frustration!

BIG HUGS!!!!!!!!!

Kim

 

[ummgood]

Thanks everyone. Suz I hope once your SWG is online the pool is much easier for you. That is why I picked a SWG myself.

I just had a meeting with my girlfriend. He is so nice and he is really discouraged too. He picked up my pool in the middle of the build and we are still finding things that were verbally sold to me that I didn't truly understand and wasn't in the construction plans. Now that we are getting to the stages that make those mistakes apparent I am noticing that things I was sold are not coming out how they were explained to me when I signed the contract. These things were impossible for me to see ahead of time and now that the finish aspects of my pool are being done I am realizing that it is impossible too do what I wanted.

This is what happened yesterday. My pool is supposed to have boulders that sink into the tile line around the edge of the pool. I asked all the PB's I got quotes from to do this because I really love the look. I specifically asked for this look and the boulders are on my plan and the boulders are listed in my contract. What isn't on my construction plan or in the contract is the fact the bond beam should have had notches so the boulders could sit down in the water line. I am not being told what I wan't isn't possible. That it wasn't sold to me. My girlfriend didn't realize it until we spoke today when I told him the boulders were just sitting on the bond beam and not sunk like I wanted. I figured they would notch out the boulders and they would straddle the bond beam and then they would tile and apply coping up to the edge of the boulders.

In addition my girlfriend was tapping all the stonework on my bond beam and half of them are not set. Plus they are not level with the tile they rake back pretty significantly which I didn't notice. So now the construction manager is scheduled to come out with the owner of the tile company so we can work that out. I plan on explaining the boulder situation. At this point I might get rid of all the boulders because they look like an afterthought to me at this point. I feel like giving up and figuring that the pool I paid for isn't going to happen but hey I'll have a big container in the back yard right???

I think my girlfriend really wants to do things right but unfortunately things like the boulders cannot be done the way I was sold. I wanted a natural looking pool with the rocks integrated etc... Now I am not getting the pool I purchased and it doesn't look like even what I wanted is possible. That is why I am upset.

 

[amandahein3]

Can you post a pic of the rocks yours wanting and how they are supposed to look? I having trouble seeing it in my head

 

[ummgood]

This is Sunbaby's pool. See how the boulders are below the coping? I.E. the water line tile butts up to the boulders because there is no water line tile there?

That is what I wanted with my boulders. I wanted them by the water line.

First mistake is they mounted the wrong rocks on the pool. The smaller ones were supposed to be accents around on my decking by the stairs etc...

You'll see though my rocks don't even cover the bond beam. They should be bigger than the beam and sitting over the side. Now I was told this had to be planned for in the actual pool wall. I didn't know that. I thought maybe they notched the rock in such a way it overhung the side of the pool. I do know I asked the designer to do it this way. He said they would and I specifically asked if they would trim the tile so it looks like it molds to the rock. We had a very detailed explanation about this. Then when my girlfriend came I kept asking why they were not putting the boulders before the tile. he said they could fix it after they were set so I didn't think anything of it. Turns out it wasn't an issue in his mind because they didn't know what I really wanted because it was never communicated by the sales guy to the construction manager.


Not to mention they have been having problems with the subs. The subs say they'll be here to work but then they show up either super late in the day and only work a couple hours or they show up in the morning, the manager leaves and they lay around the lawn for an hour, then they work for maybe another hour and go to lunch. Then they never come back. I have yet to have a crew be here more than say 2 or 3 hours at a time except for the steel and shotcrete crews. Our pool isn't moving at all and it is because it is impossible to complete anything if you are only working an hour or two AND everything you do is so messed up that they have to redo it.

The construction manager came out with my girlfriend and they are going to make the tile guy come back out and remove all the stonework done so far on the pool and redo the whole thing. It is really bad the more I look at it. Some of the stones are set back so far you can see the back of the stone next to it and even get a pencil in there. Then some of the stones are not even set and you can push on them and they move. There are also about 6 or 7 cracked stones as well. Then the entire thing isn't perpendicular to the tile.

The construction manager said this is not how they do pools and they will fix it. I am fine with that but my wife is really upset because they aren't working and I am not confident in the quality of my pool anymore. I know the company really wants a good reputation and has high expectations but they are incapable of getting the quality of work out of their subs they expect AND what they sold me. I have lost almost half of my grass in my back yard (it is huge and 4x the size of the size of my pool and decking) because they are taking so long and my irrigation system is half down. I am trying to keep on it but frankly it is too much grass to keep alive with a hose sprinkler after I get off work. I have 11 sprinkler zones and 4 of the ones with the long throw sprinklers are down. If they would have kept to the timeline they promised me (I know I know) the end of the pool should have been mid June. Here we are in August and we have to rip off all the finish work already done and start over at the gunite stage again.

Oh and I told them they are building me a Walmart quality pool on a Nordstrom budget.

 

[amandahein3]

****. I hate that you're going through this. Is think kinda what you want? This pool is one my builder did and the water laps up on the rocks. It's a neat area

 

[ummgood]

Yeah kinda. I just wanted the rocks sunk below the coping and dipping into the tile line. I definitely don't have as much rock on my pool as that but the rocks I do have I wanted them to look like the pool was built around them instead of them just being placed on the top of the pool beam.

 

[ozdiver]

Kinda like the rock under my waterfall.

http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/93076-New-Build-Spring-TX

 

[Helen203]

ummgood, I feel for you, and hopefully today is better. Remember that you can let your grass go dormant and start watering later. Here up "north" (its all relative, I am "southern" to folks from NY and MA), our grass goes dormant in Nov/Dec and looks like cr*p until the spring rains hit.

fwiw, I would ditch the boulders on the coping, and you can tuck the rocks into the slope transitions around your patios!

 

[Sunbaby]

I HATE that you are dealing with this. I definitely prefer the look of the rocks set below the waterline - HOWEVER - unless I had researched the way I did - I seriously doubt I would have EVER noticed someone's pool that had rocks added after the fact. I would bet you a $100 bucks and drinks on 6th street that no one will ever come over and be like - wait - now wait a second, aren't those rocks supposed to be below the waterline???? It is only us crazy researchers/builders that will notice. Here is a pic of a really nicely done one. I think if you have them do much larger rocks - it could be amazing.

 

[kimkats]

I HATE that you are dealing with this. I definitely prefer the look of the rocks set below the waterline - HOWEVER - unless I had researched the way I did - I seriously doubt I would have EVER noticed someone's pool that had rocks added after the fact. I would bet you a $100 bucks and drinks on 6th street that no one will ever come over and be like - wait - now wait a second, aren't those rocks supposed to be below the waterline???? It is only us crazy researchers/builders that will notice. Here is a pic of a really nicely done one. I think if you have them do much larger rocks - it could be amazing. View attachment 41252

Ummmmmmmgood look at this one! THAT would so wonderful. Print this out and show it to your girlfriend. "THIS is what I want, ordered AND paid for!

Just think about this..............if they took out a section of the coping they COULD put the rocks there! Where there is a will, there is a way!

We have your back. I only wish we could be there in person to gang up on those darn subs and make them work!

Maybe..........tell that you are going to write up a contract that states that they have until ??date to finish the pool or you will start taking money away.

I would also start taking pics of the workers doing nothing and send it to the bosses.

HUGS!

Kim

 

[SuzfromTexas]

I agree! The PB needs to know about the subs. I had the same issue with the deck/landscaping subs. Two hour lunches that began about an hour or hour and a half after they arrived. Then they worked about 2 more hours after the lunch/siesta. My son even told me how he found cigarette butts around his cigar smoking swing/chair behind the garage (Nick only smokes cigars). We knew which guy it was, because only one of that crew smoked. For me though, I wasn't in a hurry or else I would have said something. Finally, the owner figured it out on the FOURTH week. He stayed from morning til night for two days making sure no one ate or slept until the job was finished. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I thought it sort of served the owner right for not checking on the crews until the 4th week.

But I know you have a timeline which has been extended way too far. So let the owner know!

I also felt like through most of my pool build I was getting the third and fourth string subs on my jobs. I had Paris to compare with since we had the same builder. It was very disheartening, and I finally started saying a few things (yes, I really did for those of you who don't believe I would!).

I feel for you because you have a family to keep happy. I'm pretty much on my own, since my son is so easy going that I didn't have any external pressure.

I think the picture Wendy and Kim posted is gorgeous!!! Both types of looks are great, but I have weird ideas about creepy crawlies that often make no sense. I realize this about me and have come to find it amusing. So..... for me, if I did the natural stone look, I would have to have the same as the above photo. In the weird world of Suz's brain...... it seems more risky with creepy crawlies ending up in the pool when the stones are below or touching the waterline. Yes, I realize this is irrational, but that's what makes me so endearing, right?!!!! So maybe now that I've planted that little seed in your mind, you will be very grateful to have the different stone build. Or not. And I know none of this makes you feel better, but I HAVE to try. (but the strange thinking just shared above is quite true, not a fabrication to make you feel better)

The other thing I love about the picture above is it reminds me of Lake Travis when I was a child and young woman. During those years, the level of Lake Travis was such that many of the cliffs edged down toward the water hanging maybe a foot above the water line. In many places, the stone walls hung out over the water's edge by a foot or more creating cave-like areas. I always loved that. I guess it's all in what kicks in your memory of enjoyment.

If I could do anything, I would..... in a heartbeat.
Hugs,
Suz.