SeanB.'s Pool Build

[26theone]

Not to talk you out of waiting until Spring but the majority of pool companies will offer great incentives for new constuction (I just saw a flyer for a 20% off new construction) during this time of year. Obviously, their season is on the downward slide, but given our warmer climate, allows them to continue building into the winter months. Good luck and keep us posted.

Hmm. 20% discount..that is significant. I will have to think about that. It seems most builds in the area take 30-45 days or so. Does that sound about right?

Curious how many feet of access did your builder need for bobcat access for excavation? I may have an issue there. I would prefer not to tear up any of my neighbors sod during the build.

[SeanB.]

It will depend, but they'll probably want about 8'.

[divnkd101]

Hmm. 20% discount..that is significant. I will have to think about that. It seems most builds in the area take 30-45 days or so. Does that sound about right?

Curious how many feet of access did your builder need for bobcat access for excavation? I may have an issue there. I would prefer not to tear up any of my neighbors sod during the build.

This time of year, 30-45 days is a good place to start. As Sean said, 8-10 feet would be ideal for the excavation portion. I won't post a pick on Sean's thread but here is a link where you can see the shot I took of our excavation lane. It is 10 feet from house wall to fence.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...ruction002.jpg

[No Need]

Pool and backyard look Great! 6 Weeks for everything? If so, that was fast.

[SeanB.]

Pool and backyard look Great! 6 Weeks for everything? If so, that was fast.

Thanks. Yah, it was pretty close to 6 weeks. We hit them at the tail end of the busy season or it would have gone a little quicker I think, but they did as promised.

The rest of the sod went in yesterday and the mastic was done today. I think we will be doing pool school on Monday when we will get to start up the swcg and that should be the last thing. Now I just need to get a rack to hold the brush/net and a deck box for any other pool supplies/toys.

[SeanB.]

I promise I'll post a "complete" picture soon. The sod is all in and the new plants are even blooming/growing a little. We haven't had a real cold snap yet.

We had lots of family in for Thanksgiving and heated the pool and spa for the day. It was great! The kids had a blast and most importantly, my wife was happy because she was able to cook in peace without a herd of kids running through the house all day.

I cleaned the filter for the first time yesterday. It took me about an hour total to take it apart, clean all for cartridges and put it back together - should go a little faster next time. The pressure increase wasn't that high but the pool school guy said to do it about a week after the salt went in (I waited about two). I wanted to wait until after the holiday just in case I ran into any problems.

We have lots of construction going on around us still so there was LOTS of brown dirt (mud) washed out. The pressure didn't really drop much though when I put them back in so I'm sure they will last for quite a while before needing cleaning again. The directions said to just use the normal garden hose pressure, which I did and it got out a fair amount of dirt. The color was still pretty brown though, so I put on my pressure tip and hit them again. Wow! There was A LOT more dirt in there. You really do need to use some pressure to get the dirt out.

Final picture coming soon! BTW, I noticed how many views this thread has had. Thanks to everyone for your input and comments. I think I was much more content with the build because of what I had learned AND seen on this site and knew what to expect. I'm glad to be able to share our experience as well.

Sean

[No Need]

Hey Sean,
Still waiting for your final pics.........

[SeanB.]

Hey Sean,
Still waiting for your final pics.........

Sorry this took so long. I kept waiting for one thing or another but finally got around to taking a final picture today.

So, without further adieu, here it is:




HA HA! I wish. This is one of our favorite hotels. We try to go every summer and make good use of the pool while we are there

Here is our completed pool and landscaping. The main difference here is that we added some more patio furniture and, of course, the sod is in.




One other follow up detail, and one of the reasons I waited to post my final picture, was we had to have a little deck repair done.

If you look back at my pictures, you'll see the deck going from the house to the pool was in very long sections. They were the standard 8ft wide but were up to 18 feet long. Consequently, we started to have some cracking across several sections. Cracked concrete is not at all uncommon here on the gulf coast and we expected some over time, but certainly not this early.

Now, I'm not going to claim that the repair happened on my time frame (construction of any kind rarely does), but I am very pleased with the way things turned out. My builder ended up putting in a control (expansion) joint that runs horizontally all the way across the deck between the house and pool. On the longest section, along the right if you are facing the backyard, I had them put in an additional joint. These should prevent, or control, future cracks.

I'm sorry I don't have pictures for this part, but the guys did a fantastic job. After cutting the control joints, they began by filling all the cracks and joint with an epoxy resin. Then the actual joints (plastic) were put in. Then they put down a base coat, then the texture, then they came back the next day and repainted. The nice thing about this was they repainted the entire deck. The color was the same, but they wanted to make sure it was a "perfect" match.

So even though we didn't have a flawless build, I was very impressed by the fact that they made it right. Just about anyone will give good service before they have been paid, but when they come back months after the check has cleared, that's when you know you made a good choice.

Just for grins, our salesman from Richard's sent me a picture of our computer generated drawing of the pool to compare to the finished product. I remember the sleazy guy from Blue Haven told us not to be sold by the competitors fancy computer drawings, but after looking back at this, I'd have to say it's a pretty darn accurate representation of what we got. One more reason to ignore the line of bull from Blue Haven - IMO.





If we make any significant changes later, I'll be sure to update. Other than that, we are just going to be enjoying the pool. We have had it heated all week for Spring Break and the kids have had a blast. I'm afraid of the next gas bill, but it's cheaper than a trip anyway.

Later.

[No Need]

Pool looks Great against the landscaping. Enjoy.

[SeanB.]

As many of you know, Ben (the admin of this site) is MIA. While we all hope he comes back and maintains this site, it doesn't look hopefull. Meanwhile, new members can not join and ask questions and get the full benefit of the site and this has been the case since August of last year. A site which can't take new members is doomed to dwindle and fail.

Long story short, I decided to start a new forum where hopefully the knowledge and particiapation of this site can continue on with a new "backyard living" sort of flair. If you would care to visit, it is www.troublefreepool.com

See you there.