One Day Metal Install

There were a few days of inactivity in progress in the pool in which all the big snapping and painted turtles from the lake came up on dry land to dig nests and lay eggs.  I had to rescue a few of the snappers from the pool after they went in between the gaps of the concrete pool and couldn't climb out.  The installers came back on Memorial day and put in a half day of work to finish installing all the metal rebar for the pool shell.  5 guys worked in tandem to install and tie all the straight pieces of rebar together to conform to the curves of the pool and prep it for plumbing and finally gunite shooting.  I'm surprised how quickly it all went in but it's in.

   Here's a shot of the pool from the deep end.  There still a little bit of erosion on the sides of the pool but it doesn't look like it was an impediment to the installation of the metal.  I watched them throughout the day from a distance and let them do their thing.  The cage ties into the ground in a few places, but the bulk of the grid is placed roughly 6-8 inches from the excavated walls.  The top edge is formed with a piece of rebar bent with a single 90 degree bend.

   Here's a closer look at how the top of the bond beam is reinforced.  There are two courses of rebar that ring the pool edge and are connected to the bent rebar of the wall.  All rebar is tied together in the standard fashion with thin wire.  In a few places around the pool, there's one piece of rebar that forms the wall, then makes another sweeping curve upward.  I'm not sure what these pieces are for yet, but I'm guessing they'll be used to tie into something related to the pool deck.  However, since we're making a paver pool deck, there won't be a concrete base to tie into, so I'm really not sure what they're for.

   Here's a shot of that piece of rebar that comes up the wall and remains long.  The installers put various cans on top of the rebar to act as a warning marker so you don't impale yourself on it.  They make plastic orange caps for this, but there are only a handful of these around the pool so it's not really worth using them.  I haven't counted the frequency, but every so often, there's also a piece of rebar that penetrates through the wood form and ties into the rest of the metal.  This is probably just to stabilize the top of the metal forms since there's no earth to tie into at that height.  Eli confirmed that the concrete walls will be shot at 12 inches thick so by my rough calculations, the metal will sit around 1-2 inches from the surface of the final wall.  On top of this will be the plaster coat which is usually around half an inch thick.

   The sun shelf and swim out step will be shot with solid gunite and no metal structure inside.  I've researched this and found that, while it would be ideal to have metal in the structures, it's not necessary.  The reinforced pool shell will be "holding" the shelf and step so reinforcement isn't required.  I'm not sure if steps will be formed while the gunite is being shot, or if they'll shoot the sun shelf then put up forms for the steps, but I'm guessing it will be formed by hand.

   Here's a look at the pool from the sun shelf.  As per the plans, there will be a sunken sitting area on the left where the convex curve of the pool shell is.  At first I was confused about how this would be formed, but now I can see that the wood forms will actually be forming the exterior wall of the pool at this place.  The elevation change to the sunken sitting area will only be about a foot and a half at most, and the exterior of the pool shell in this place will be faced with stone, adding a few inches of thickness, but it might make a nice shelf to sit on, in addition to whatever seating we have down there.  

   The rebar is being held off the gravel base by these paver stones.  They're used to keep the rebar in the middle of the concrete pour and will probably remain during the shooting process.  They're concrete pavers so I don't think there's a detrimental effect to keeping them as part of the pour.  While there are formal plastic or metal devices that can be installed to keep the rebar, often called bottom mat, placed in the concrete, some times clay bricks are used to save money.  It's thought that the clay material could have a detrimental effect since they can absorb ground water and swell at a different rate as the concrete, causing it to crack.  Since the bricks used in this instance are concrete, I'm fairly comfortable with their placement.

   That's all the update for this post.  Next up will be plumbing fixture installation, which will happen tomorrow.  This will include main drain and the two skimmer placements, bubbler, and all plumbing associated with those items that will be under the pool.  I imagine that this will require some modification or adjustment of the rebar so we'll see how that goes.  Also return jets should probably be roughed in and since the plumbing for drain and bubbler require placement of pipes under the concrete, we'll have to come up with a final placement for the equipment pool pad.  I'm still leaning on having it installed on the backside of the retaining wall, but I'm not sure if that will cause complications with the install of the wall itself.  I think the plumbing could be buried and stubbed off near the pad and the stones of the wall could be installed carefully, but it would be a delicate operation.  I'm not sure if the pad will be shot at the same time as the pool shell, but it would be an opportunistic time.

Digging a Big Hole Complete

   The excavation machines are gone and my driveway is once again clear so I'm calling the digging portion of the pool done.  The forms all look installed with the exception of a gap here or there, which should be inconsequential.  I think the next steps should be plumbing stubs into the pool, metal framework, inspection, then gunite application.

   Here's a shot of the entire pool from the lawn side.  They had some sheets of the fiberboard left, but you can see how much height needed to be adjusted for due to the drop in grade towards the water.  There's an optical illusion where it looks like it's increasing in height on the lake side, but it's all level.

   Here's the deep end of the pool.  There was minimal wall erosion, but it did collapse a little in some places.  Not enough to cause any worry, and it the collapsed sand was removed.  The pool shell will be shot between 10-12 inches so any slight irregularities on the excavation will be absorbed by this thickness.  It's apparent now that the bond beam will not cantilever out behind the pool forms, so that means that it will have to be shot to the thickness of the coping stone.  All diagrams I've seen show the coping stone fully sitting on the bond beam.  I'll have to take exact measurements of the coping stone that we've decided on, but I think the overall depth is 12 inches, but you have to subtract any overhand and the bullnose edge, making the shell thickness probably around 10 inches.  The pool shell should be at least 6 inches thick to be structurally sound, depending on the surrounding substrate, so 10 inches will be a good thickness.

   Here's a look a the final curve from the deep end of the pool.  The concave curve at the bottom of the picture is actually the swim out shelf so it kind of divides the deep end from the shallow end.  The convex curve at the middle looks a little sharp, but I think that's just the angle at which I took the picture.   The grade difference allows plenty of room for the skimmer box and return jets to be roughed in on this side, but it seems like those things will need to be shovel excavated in on the lawn side or something.  Those provisions need to be made before metal work and gunite, so I'm thinking that's the next step in the process.

   I tried to get a shot of the established final level marked on the rebar vs. the height of the form.  Since this string is a little above the grade of the yard on the grass side, I think it's marking the height of the coping stone, since that's also what's marked on the engineering drawings.  If this is true, then I'm not sure how they'll be able to eyeball the top of the bond beam when shooting the concrete.  Maybe this is indicating top of the bond beam, so the coping stone will add a couple inches on top of this.

   This is the path of destruction that the heavy machines made getting to the back yard.  It was mostly undeveloped, but we'll need to get the hill re-graded at the end of all the construction.  Eventually there will be stone steps installed here since the grade change is too great to allow just a hill, but that's not included in the scope of the pool project.  It will probably be a smaller project for next year, as we work to implement the various landscaping areas going towards the front of the house.  It's interesting that the ground on the hill was completely torn up and compressed while the ground near the walk out doors were largely untouched.  Even five years after the initial construction, that's the difference between graded fill and original soil.  The sprinkler system is largely intact with only one or two sprinkler heads on the rear lawn circuit being destroyed/removed.  I had to turn this circuit off on the Rachio or a ton of water would be pumping out into the yard.  Those should probably be restored once we have the pool paver patio installed, but the heads will need to be configured since there won't be as much lawn to water.  Also, any plantings in the beds around the pool should probably be tied into the other bed watering circuits rather than using the lawn watering circuit.

   Here's the pile of sand that was left ungraded after the excavators were driven away.  It's either there to fix the grade in the end, or provide extra fill for backfilling after the pool is shot.  Even if it's not all used in the immediate area, there are plenty of places along the edge of the driveway that I've been meaning to bolster with fill.

   Here's the pile of gravel that was left too.  It's a pretty significant amount and I'm not sure what it's going to be used for.  The center drain will probably see some gravel removed to accommodate the large box and plumbing.  Maybe some will be used to fill the swim out shelf and sun deck so it's not just made of concrete?

   Here's a full shot of the pool from the perspective of the main pool deck area.  This was taken in the early morning so it's mostly shaded.  The sun starts to hit the pool near mid day and the pool deck area remains in the sun for most of the rest of the day.   We do have a lot of trees around the yard, so hopefully the tree debris will be manageable with the dual skimmers and frequent removal.  Usually a pool is required to have two main drains, as per the Virginia Graeme Baker Act (VGBA), which might not be applicable to residential pools.  Essentially, the VGBA was created after Virginia Graeme Baker, who died after sustaining a pool-suction drain injury.  Requirement of having 2 main drains helps mitigate this since at no time will both drains be completely covered, reducing the likelihood of drowning due to drain suction.  The pool drain we're using is certified to be clog free and comply with VGBA.

   Last shot of the sun shelf and shallow end.  I'll have to take a closer look in person, but this picture makes the walls look like they're slightly tapered towards the bottom.  The pools I've swam in do have a curve at the bottom of the wall where it meets the floor of the pool, but I don't think they're tapered.  Also, just because the walls of the excavation are tapered, it doesn't mean the internal walls of the pool shell will be, but it does mean that the wall thickness will be less towards the bottom.  

   That's it for now.  I haven't received any communication on when the plumbing and metal work will go in and there currently isn't anyone working on the site.  It's a holiday weekend, so hopefully any work will be done before it, otherwise work will pick up again next week.  There's a 4 week concrete cure time that we'll have to contend with before the final finishing of the pool and summer is just starting to ramp up with recent temperatures in the mid to high 80s (~30C).  We're not expecting to be completed until the end of the swim season, but it would still be nice to take a dip when the weather is warm.

Digging a Big Hole part 3

Into the second week of work on the pool and prepping for the gunite.  With the stakes installed over the weekend, today's work was centered around installing the upper edge forms and the wood used to hold them in place.  Since the grade on the lake side of the pool is below what the final grade will be, forms are needed to make up the height so the gunite has something to be sprayed against.  The form also sets the final upper edge shape and height of the pool.  The top edge of a pool shell is usually much thicker and is formally called the bond beam.  It's tied into the rebar of the pool wall and is usually as wide, or slightly wider than the pool coping stone.  Currently the forms are at the setback of the excavation so I don't know how the bond beam will be constructed until the metal starts to go in.

Probably about 80 percent of the forms were installed on the first day, but as you can see in the picture above, the lake side of the pool needs more height added.  The yard side of the pool is just above the current grade and about a coping stone higher than the string on the metal stakes.  The forms are made of a thin fiberboard material that can bend easily.  Somewhere in the curved forms, the skimmer boxes will be placed, or at least bucks for the skimmer boxes.  There will be 2 skimmers, but the exact location is unknown to me right now.

   Here's the reinforcing installed at the junction of the deep end and the swim out steps.  I think Eli mentioned that he likes to shoot walls thick, so maybe the bond beam at the top will be the same thickness as the walls.  A good amount of backfill will be needed on the lake side of the pool, but also consider that some of that fill space will be occupied by base gravel and paver thickness for the paver pool deck.

   Here you can also see the height differential between initial grade and what is expected to be final grade. Just like on the lawn side of the pool, the curved forms here sit a little above final grade, but not by much.  The rest of the space will be filled with the fiberboard sheets, cut to height.

   This last shot is from the shallow end of the pool.  The form supports still need to be installed in this location and I'm looking forward to seeing where the height of the pool will be here.  I think the sun shelf should be around 9-16 inches deep.  In water loungers often come with varying risers so you can sit in as much or as little water as you want.  The sun shelf will have steps coming off the right side so you'll be able to sit on the left side with your legs deeper in the water.  It will also make a great place for the youngest member of our family to play until they learn to swim properly.  There will be a little Jandy bubbler in the middle of the sun shelf.  They have a little light in them and push water into a short bubbling fountain, but not so high as to be intrusive.  The height can be controlled with a ball valve and shouldn't add too much aeration.  Often times people will install pools with a waterfall feature that churns the water enough to start affecting pool chemistry.

   That's it for today, but I expect I'll have another update pretty quickly with the rest of the pool forms installed.  No definite timeline on this phase of the installation, but I think all the prep work will take about a week, so just a few days left.

Digging a Big Hole Part 2

I have a double header update since things are moving pretty quickly with the prep for gunite.  They finished digging out the perimeter and rough depth of the pool and moved in some gravel for the base.  Some forms are needed at the top lip of the pool on which the pool coping stone will sit.  I'm not sure how all this will tie into the earthen berms on the back side of the pool since that is supposed to be the top level, but I'm guessing all will be revealed when they start to install the metal.

Here's the final shape of the pool.  We had to move the swim out shelf in the deep end a bit more towards the middle of the pool because of the lack of distance for a path and approximation of the trees.  I would have like to have kept the swim out shelf in the deepest part, but I'm not willing to lose the white oaks we have on the perimeter.  The swim out shelf is that bump out on the left of the picture above.  I'm guessing the shelf itself, like the sun shelf, will be completely created out of the gunite and metal framework, rather than retaining some of the earth.

Here's the view of the pool from the shallow end, and what will eventually be the main part of the pool deck.  The distance from the rod to one of the rods on the far end of the pool should be around 40 feet, which will be a pretty good distance for straight line swimming exercise.  If you look closely, each metal rebar rod has a small piece of orange string tied to it, indicating final grade height.  The string on the yard side of the pool is just a coping stone height off the grass, which gives a good indication on how much of an elevation drop there is on the lake side of the pool.

Big pile of gravel brought up from the front of the house for the base of the pool.  As mention before, the ground on the side of the house going to the front is completely torn up and now this pile of stone is sitting in the grass, but it will all be okay.  This area will be torn up anyways when the pool paver decking is installed.  I will have to rehabilitate the rest of the grass when it's all installed, but those are worries and work for another day.

End of the next day.  The beginning of the framing is installed.  There will be a flexible 1x4 that will join all these stakes together to act as a form for the concrete.  Much of the gravel has been leveled in the pool, but a good amount remains.  I was under the impression that the plumbing should be installed before the gravel base, but it's probably not too much work to install the main drain.  The only other plumbing item that will be installed on the bottom of the pool will be a small bubbler in the sunshelf.  Skimmer boxes and return lines also need to be plumbed before rebar installation, and I'm not sure if they're just going to trench those items in to their locations in the pool to the pump/heater location (which is still in flux). 

   Viewing the shallow end and sunshelf from the lake side of the pool.  This area will mostly just be a low planted bed when completed.  You can see the string height on the rebar stake, but also the form stakes themselves are much higher on this side of the pool vs the yard side.  I'm thinking that when the form is completed, it will be much higher on this side of the pool, which will then have to be back-filled against.  I think there will be a skimmer and at least one return on this wall somewhere, so I'm wondering if the height of the pool shell will allow the plumbing rough in without having to bury the pipes.

   Another shot of the pool from the shallow end with the gravel base installed and pool form stakes in.  Thinking about it now, when the pool shell is shot and hardened, I'm thinking that some of the earthen berm will be pulled towards the pool to backfill.  Some of the excavated soil was moved and spread in the front of the house so I'm thinking that's not recoverable, else they would have just kept the pile in the back.  For the completion of the project, additional gravel fill will be needed to level the base for the paver pool deck, which will make up a good amount of fill bulk, so it's a pretty tricky calculation to determine how much excavated soil to remove from the dig site for future use.

   That's it for now.  I'm not sure if more form work, plumbing, or metal work will come next, but I'm sure it will come quickly.
 

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.