Digging a Big Hole Part 1

Things are moving quickly but it's the hurry up and wait phase of the build.  Basically the way to make a gunite pool is to dig a hole about the wall thickness greater than what you want for the pool, 12 inches in this case, install metal rebar and water circulation ports, wait for metal inspection, then shoot the gunite at the metal and smooth the inside.  The wait part is the roughly 28 days it takes to cure before you can apply the finishing materials.  So here we are, at the start of the hole digging phase, but it really gives you a good idea what the pool will look like when finished.

  There hasn't been an excavator this big on the property since the initial house foundation laying so it was exciting to see one again.  We've had smaller ones for some of the landscaping installation in the back yard, but nothing this large.  I was a bit worried about the path it needed to take to get to the back yard as the rear corner of the house barely had the width to accommodate the large machine but the skill of the driver allowed passage with no permanent damage. 

   The reason why we've held off on landscaping development around the side of the house should be apparent now.  Excavators leave a wake of ground destruction behind them when they pass.  We might have lost a few smaller plantings near the front yard and much of the hill leading up to the back yard is compressed and torn up at the same time.  I've written off most of the grass in my back yard for this year and will look forward to rehabilitating it with fresh dirt and seed.  There were some dry spots in the lawn after the first hydroseed application and I wasn't really ever satisfied with the soil amendment so now I'll get the chance to correct those issues.

The first day of digging was mostly occupied with carefully measuring out the perimeter of the pool, adjusting the staking, and painting where the dig will take place.  As mentioned above, the actual dug out area will add about a foot for the thickness of the walls, but the pool decking area that will surround the pool and the retaining wall on the back were taken into account.  Since the pool shape is curvy and organic, the large circles that constitute the pool were determined and center points were staked.  The circles could then be painted in and joined together free hand with additional curves. The excavated dirt was bermed on the back side of the yard to make it all level, since there's a pretty significant drop off that needs to be compensated for.

   The deep end of the pool was dug first  They used a laser level at the designated high spot of the yard as the primary point of reference in combination with the engineering drawings.  The drawings have the pool edge coping stone set a little bit above the level of the rest of the pool, with the pool decking sloping towards the grass.  The orange string line was placed at the top of the pool coping level and pulled level across the pool to the low side so they could roughly see how much excavated dirt to place back there.  As discovered when we built the house, there's a thin layer of top soil followed by all sand.  I'm not sure if the staining seen in the sand layers is from the excavator disturbing the soil as it plunged down to dig or if the nutrients from the soil were working their way down, enriching the sand, but it is interesting to see.  The pool will go from about 3'9" in the shallow to 6' in the deep.  We discussed keeping the pool around four and a half to five feet in the deep end and it's been the trend to have "adult pools" like this.  It allows you to walk around the entirety of the pool without having to tread water, but we specifically wanted a deep part to swim down in.

   Here's the excavated sand approximately at the required height to create a level surface on the back side of the pool.  This specific area will actually be lower in elevation to the pool for a little fire sitting area, but that construction will come in the second half when we build out the pool decking.  I do think that some special attention needs to be paid to the back side of the pool shell in this area since it will be faced with rock, so I'll have to discuss it with Eli.  The berm height is pretty significant and while the engineering drawing shows about a 3 foot drop from the retaining wall, it feels like it will be a little bit more.  The area of the berm near the excavator will actually be a planting bed with no walkway so good soil amendment will be needed here.  There are a two sprinkler heads in the area of the pool that will need to be addressed.  One was intended to be a landscape sprayer and the other was a grass sprayer.  I think all the planting areas can be either fed off of the existing bed sprayer circuit, or tied into the lawn sprayer, but I would probably prefer the former.

   Here's another shot of the soil stratification.  I guess we're lucky to be on sand since we don't have to worry about water drainage issues.  You can see the thing, 2" layer of topsoil laid down when the yard was leveled.  While it might be good enough for grass to grow, it doesn't create a deep root zone to make the grass more drought tolerant.  Since most of the undisturbed yard is like this, I'll have to keep applying top dressing amendments to try to grow that fertile zone deeper.

   That's all the update for now, but more will be coming soon.  There will a 1 day pause in digging for personal reasons, but should resume, and possibly be completed, by the end of the week.  As mentioned earlier in this post, after the digging is completed, drains and some returns are placed.  We currently have the drain, two skimmer boxes, and sun shelf bubbler on site, but I haven't seen any return nozzles, so I'm not sure how that works.  They might just lay a bit of pipe for the concrete wall penetration and later finish it with a surface mounted outlet or something.  A steel rebar cage is installed in the perimeter of the pool, which is formally inspected.  Then the gunite (or shotcrete) is sprayed into the rebar caging and smoothed.

Silt Fence and HOA approval

The city we live in requires silt fence installation for any construction to prevent disturbed soils from eroding into water removal systems and natural waterways.  While the pool will be in the back yard and far away from street water systems, it will be right next to the 25' setback of our lake.  It's important to protect the wetlands from additional soil so a silt fence is installed and inspected by the city before any construction can begin.

 

 

Eli recommended Advanced Field Services for the installation.  They charged a minimum of $600 for any installation which will get you about 400 ft. of silt fence installed.  We had much less than 400 ft, so total cost was their minimum.  We walked through where the fence will be installed and a small crew used a specialized trenching/installation machine to dig a path through the woods to install it.

While they were out, they also installed rough markers where the pool boundaries would be.  Ultimately, these would be moved about six feet to the left, but it gives a good idea where the water itself will be.  There will be about 10 feet of pool deck on the left and front, and a 4 foot wide walking area on the right.  No pool decking will be on the back of the pool, but there will be a large planting bed.  Pool placement needs to take the final pool fence location, the wetlands setback, and retaining wall all into account.

The city approved the silt fence installation and initial staking.  The final design, engineering drawings, and city permit approval were sent to the HOA for final approval.  They responded earlier in the week so everything is set for digging.

Pool Engineering Drawings

Things have really started to move into high gear in these early stages of construction so I'll try to keep up with the updates.  I've seen pool building estimates between 2-6 months and Eli has said that he's looking at finishing the pool near the end of swimming season so maybe it will be possible to take a dip before it gets too cold and we'll have to close it for the winter.  

So far, we've gotten final designs, local permitting, interim HOA approval.  When building the house, we had the foresight to install a breaker panel and gas line in the storage space under the back deck, so all that can be pulled from that location.  Initially, we were hoping to house all the pool filtration and heating equipment under the gazebo area, but looking at the build pictures, it looks like there's only 5 feet to the footer inside and I would need to excavate around 1.5 feet of backfill to reach that depth.  Additionally, the pool filter will need around 6 feet of operating height to for filter servicing.  The final nail in the coffin was the heater clearances.  Since it's a gas operated heater, there are installation codes dictating air make up and spacing requirements, which I don't think we'll meet in that space.  The pool equipment is designed to work in an outdoor environment and most people just stash it on the ugly side of their house, but we don't have an ugly side so placing it will be an issue we'll have to deal with.

Eli obtained the engineering drawings and recently shared them with me.  It contains yard elevations based off the initial plot survey and adds the pool design, showing elevation measurements for the final surfaces. 

As shown, there will be a 1 foot drop from the house to the pool area.  Currently the drop is much higher as measured by my peep sight level tool.  The height differential should be able to be made up by the excavation of the pool itself.  As with the original landscaping design plans, a retaining wall will be required to reach that desired level.  Some of the already implemented retaining walls in the back yard are the same caramel mint stones used around the rest of the house.  We're currently planning on using boulder walls for this part of the landscaping.  We've used boulder walls on other parts of the property, namely near the driveway at the house and entrance. It lends a more natural feel to the location and is a bit less expensive.  The height differential between the top of the wall and bottom, as per the plans, is 2 feet.  I'm not sure if two layers of smaller boulder or if a single layer of large boulders will be used.  Since the pool cap, the border of the pool, which is the highest part of the pool area, is at 1005ft, it looks like the top wall height of 1003ft will allow for a 2 ft sloping drop across the planting area.  The fire pit sitting area will drop about a foot and a 3/4 from the rest of the pool decking so considering step code max height is 8.25 inches, there will probably be two steps down, as supported by the illustration.  The engineering plan has the steps of the height at a very comfortable 0.58 foot, or a little over 6 inches each step.

So in summary, lots of interesting information that informs what kind of work will need to be done to the yard to prep for the pool, and how the look of the yard will change when the pool is installed.  We're going to be having a meeting early next week to finalize the decisions on materials and finishes, and nail down a final quote.  Eli is hoping that we'll get the silt fencing installed early next week and break ground the following week.  Things are moving fast!

Time Skip: Pool Time

    Oh boy, what a year it's been.  What?  Three years have past?  Well I guess most of you know what has been going on globally in the past three years.  Personally, we've been getting by, making a new kid and raising the two we already have, and trying to tackle small projects while saving up for the big one.  The biggest one.  It's time to get that swimming pool built.

   We've always had an eye on installing an in-ground pool since the inception of the house.  The initial landscaping plans created way back in 2015 (almost 10 years ago?!?) had a rectangular pool with a squared off pool decking area surrounding it.

For almost 10 years, we've looked at that empty, partially grassed area in the back yard and imagined a 35'x20' rectangular pool with a shallow sundeck and spa on one side and a fairly large pool deck to house our various loungers and seats.  In the interim years, I've leveled out that space and laid down tarps to put under a small 10' seasonal above ground pool for the kids to play in, seated right next to the large 14' trampoline they got a few years back.  Come and gone were the tales of homeowners flooding pool installers for requests during Covid lockdowns.  Horror stories of multi year waitlists for in-ground pool installations.  Constantly increasing the pool fund to account for skyrocketing inflation.  Staring at that patch of land that no sprinklers will hit because we've always planned for the pristine blue usage of that space.  Now that time has come.  The oasis of the yard.  The destroyer of bank accounts.  The summer maintenance time sink.  The pool.

Since the house was built with ICF, we've always had the notion to make the pool out of ICF and create an equipment bunker to house the pump and heater.  However, it doesn't seem like ICF pools have caught on for pool installers in Michigan because I couldn't find one that recommended it.  In-ground pools can be build a few ways, fiberglass drop in, metal shell with a vinyl liner, or concrete (shotcrete, gunnite).  The price and ease of installation are an inverse relationship and increase in order of the examples provided.  I momentarily entertained the idea of a fiberglass or vinyl liner pool, but fell back on the same default thought we had when we build the house:  This is the final house so build it to last.  That leads us to the last (and most expensive) option: the concrete pool.

The installation of the pool has been the limiting factor in what exterior projects we could tackle since it requires heavy excavation equipment to install.  All that equipment needs a path of destruction to reach the construction spot, and that path is the side of the house closest to the driveway.  So development of that side of the house has been held hostage for all these years by the promise of the pool.  Paver patios on both basement walk-outs, additional retaining walls leading to the back yard, final plantings, all remain in the planning stage due to the destruction the excavators would wreck.  The pool construction was the keystone to completing the rest of the landscaping plan.

I won't bore you with the multiple calls to pool installers, trying to find a palatable budget and time frame and jump right to the good part.  We're having the pool installed by Tango Pools, based out of Rochester.  I will tell you that my search consisted of Googling "Best pool installers near me", reading reviews on Houzz, countless hours of YouTube videos about pools, pool installations, pool maintenance, latest pool technologies, pool automation systems, do's and don'ts, why's and how's.  I'm proud to declare that I'm a pool expert with no practical experience.  After phone and zoom meetings, discussing budget ranges, in person office visits, we're partnering up with Eli, the owner of Tango Pools.  

After the initial phone call and first meet, Eli took a look at our existing, partially implemented landscaping plan for the backyard and decided to completely scrap the rectangular look of the pool area.  He saw the natural surrounds, the organic curves of the existing beds and wondered why the plan included the hard edges of a geometric pool area.  Using the existing landscaping plans, he made a rough overlay sketch to plant the seed of an idea in our heads while also filling them with the various pool finishing surfaces, decking materials and manufacture brochures for pool equipment, lighting, and ideas.  We came away with a very rough budget and installation timeframe.  If we moved quick enough, he could see a late season completion, this year.  From all the horror stories, we were expecting to get on the books for next year or at best, at the end of the season.

Here's the general timeline.  Pay some money, get formal drawings after a site visit.  Pay some more money, get engineering drawings and permits.  Pay a lot in 1/3 increments over the process of the build with the final 1/3 due on completion. Enjoy being a pool owner.  That last part is still an unknown.

As we stand now, we're on the second step.  After an initial payment, Eli sent his partner, Alice, out to the property to take pictures and measurements for the color rendering.  This rendering will be mostly based off the initial rough design since we pretty much liked everything Eli was proposing, but would yet to grounded in formal engineering.  Luckily, we had our previous elevations from when we had the house built.  Unfortunately, Eli found that the original engineering firm no longer existed, as he was hoping he could save some time and money be using them to insert the pool design to the plan on file.  So off to his normal engineering firm the plan went to have them insert the pool.  Meanwhile Alice created the final color renderings of the pool design.

Sharp edges gone!  Pool size increased to roughly 40 ft. along the most unobstructed swim path by 16 ft. in the narrowest part.  A few items of note:

• No spa.  A spa and associated additional equipment would have probably added around $30k-$40K to the overall price and be unusable in the winter time, since the plumbing is all combined.  We're reserving the right to have an above ground hot tub somewhere else in the future.
• The pool depth will be around 3.5 ft. in the shallow to around 6.5 ft in the deep.  We're not going with a true diving depth because of increased insurance cost and increased depth transition change.
• The submerged sundeck is still in the plans, with the addition of a little bubbler.  It will be a nice place to sit semi-submerged or have the little one play in.  Also, having just part of the width populated with steps makes the other part a nice sitting place.
• The swim out steps on the right, in the deep end, will also make a nice place to sit partially submerged.
• The placement of the main pool deck area has the most sun exposure during the majority of the day.
• The green space at the top of the pool will be planted with low ground covering right up to the retaining wall, to partially simulate an infinity edge.
• Besides the lounging area, there will be a space for a table and a slightly lower sitting area for a fire pit.  Will probably just get a portable pit like a solo stove rather than having another permanent fire enjoying device (fireplace in the gazebo).

Here's a different rendering of the pool area.  I think the primary difference between this vision and the actual implementation will be the amount of visibility there will be to the lake.  It's still early spring here but during the summer months, the wetlands fill up with cat tails and other taller vegetation so the pool area should retain some privacy from the lake.

Lots more to talk about, but I think I'll divide it up into individual posts rather than trying to mind dump everything right now.  As a preview, we've gotten interim HOA approval, have final engineering elevation plans, but still have to stake out the location, have City permit approval, need silt fencing installed, and selected hard surface materials.