Gunite Shooting Part 2 (Done)

   Despite the random power outage, the gunite crew finished shooting the pool today, complete with sun shelf, stairs, and swim out stairs.  All the equipment is gone from the property, but there remains a sand pile next to the driveway and some additional material in the back yard.  To prevent the gunite from curing too quickly, instructions are to water the pool three times a day for three days, then 2 times a day, then 1 time a day for no more than 10 days.  Online instructions say to water it for at least 2 weeks and you can't over water it, so depending on the weather, I'll probably keep hitting it for 2 weeks.  I think we're going to be waiting at least 3-4 weeks for the pool to harden before we see any more progress so updates will slow down a bit.

   Here's a look at the finished gunite shell from the deep end.  The bottom of the walls are slightly curved into the bottom.  There's a nice bevel that leads into the skimmer boxes, which sit flush with the top of the concrete.  The top of the wall has a fairly crisp corner on which the coping stone will sit.  You can see the difference in color between what was shot the first day and what was completed on the second, but I think that's more from the moisture content.  I don't believe the watered the first day shooting today so I lightly watered it.

   Here's what the finished sun shelf looks like.  As indicated by the initial design, there are three steps up and a fourth for the sun shelf.  Keep in mind that there's still a coping stone that will sit up on the edge of the pool, and you don't want the step out of the sun shelf to be too great.  The depth of the water will be about half way up the skimmer box, which makes it around 4-6 inches deep on the shelf.  I think it's enough to sit with or without furniture in that area.  I think the two lower pipes in the wall are for LED lights and the middle, higher one is for the water return, but I'll have to look back in pictures to confirm as any markings on the pipes have been obscured.

   Another shot of the sun shelf and steps.  The bottom step feels a little bit higher than the top two, but I think it's intentional.  I think the steps will have the Pebbletech plaster applied to the top, with edging and faces getting tile.  I think the greater height of the lowest step, which is a very minor difference, will be made up with the plaster coat on the bottom of the pool.  Each wall penetration is beveled around the pipe, probably to either allow for more plaster around the fittings, or to allow for clearance for the fittings themselves.  All of this will be smoothed out by the plaster coat.  The sun shelf will be a really nice place to sit and relax if you don't want to go fully in the pool.

   Here's a look at the swim out stairs.  The water level will be about half way up on the wall above the top step so both steps will be submerged.  This will allow someone to swim and easily sit on the bottom step, then hang out, or get out without having to climb a ladder.  I think a secondary egress point is required in a pool design and this satisfies the need very well.  It's not specifically in the deepest part of the pool, but it's pretty close and off to the side of the longest swim path in the pool.  Great place to take a rest while swimming laps for exercise.  The bottom step doesn't quite completely fill out the convex curve of the pool, but it's really close.

   Here's what the swim out steps look like from above.  I believe these steps will also get a tile border, and you can see why that's important.  From above, and especially when these steps will be submerged, the two steps would blend together without a tile border.  The step sits between the two skimmer boxes, so I'm hoping that any floating debris will be picked up by one of those two instead of whirlpooling in this area.  The pool deck here will only be a 4 foot path with planting beds to the boulder retaining wall.  That path won't connect to the main pool deck area going counter clockwise around the pool so you'll have to walk clockwise around the pool to get to the main deck.  I'm hoping that won't be too much of an annoyance and I guess if you really want to, you can walk on the pool coping stone.

   The skimmer boxes are completely embedded in concrete and mostly covered.  There's a square top and lid that will sit on this and interface with the surrounding patio pavers so all the concrete here will be hidden under the pool decking.  There was some short pieces of rebar sitting in the area that I believe were installed when they shot the gunite around the skimmer box, but I didn't get to see the process.  I'm not sure if there's a standard or optimal angle for the gunite around the skimmer opening but as far as I understand it, the skimmer simply makes a low pressure suction to pull in debris that's floating by the orifice.  We do have oak trees around the pool and in the fall, they drop acorns, which I don't believe float, so we'll need to clear out the bottom of the pool.  I don't think the main drain can fit an acorn, nor do I think I would want to keep emptying the pump basket to remove them.  The pump basket will need to be emptied once or twice a week anyways so it looks like a weekend/Wednesday type of situation for cleaning out skimmer and pump baskets.

   Last picture is a pool side shot of the skimmer opening.  I've read that optimal water level is 1/3 to half way up the opening and with the coping stone that sits on top, the water level will probably be around 5 or 6 inches from the top of the coping stone.  Normally, the plaster layer is around 1/2 inch thick and it looks like the gunite leaves just about that much space to the actual skimmer orifice so water should flow smoothly.  The coping stones are about 8 inches wide, so I'm guessing there's a longer coping stone that can bridge the gap across the skimmer opening because it would seem dangerous to have a seam in the stone over an unsupported space.

   That's it for today.  I think I'll be able to put together a post about pool finishing materials while the pool shell hardens, but I'll otherwise be out of topics to discuss until the finishing time comes.

Gunite Shooting Part 1

   Wasting no time, Joe and his crew came today for the first of two or three gunite shoots for the pool shell.  Late last week, they dropped off equipment and left a few trucks in prep for the shoot this week.  We had the skid-steer, gunite mixer/shooter, and some kind of generator or air compressor sitting on the pullout of the driveway over the weekend.  The skid-steer moved the machines to the back yard to be closer to the pool site.

   Here's the shooting in operation.  The machine in the middle would take bags of concrete in one hopper and the skid-steer would race to the front yard where they dumped the sand and bring up a bucket to dump it into the main hopper.  The corkscrew lift would mix the two and water connected via hose would add moisture.  The mix would dump into another hopper at the end of the lift and from there it would run out the large diameter hose to be shot at the pool.  The bags of concrete on the left are labeled "Saint Mary's Cement Type IL Portland limestone cement".  The internet says that IL Portland cement uses more limestone content than normal Portland cement.  The bags on the larger stake are labeled "Onecem type IL Portland Cement" so they're both IL cement, which is supposed to have a lower carbon footprint than normal Portland Cement.  I'm sure there are other cement-based science differences for IL Portland cement, but it's probably not relevant to this pool.

   Here's another look at the equipment used for gunite shooting.  You can see the large Doosan 750 portable air compressor in the background near the house.  It has a large hose that connects to the gunite mixer, but I think it's just for the actual shooting of the material.  The gunite mixer itself has a gas powered engine to power the mixer and lift.

   Here's a shot of the pool from the deep end at the end of day 1.  The gunite was shot up most of the side of the pool, with the remaining portion to be completed the following day.  That second day shoot will require a little more accuracy since it will entrap all the stubs and skimmer boxes.  The left side of the pool saw some erosion behind the metal so they slipped a piece of the plywood behind the metal to reduce the amount of extra gunite needed to fill the void.  Since there's a water return penetration at the space, it will eventually be excavated for plumbing access and backfilled, so I'm not worried about the ground integrity when it's all done.  Also, this curve will feature a small planting bed so the soil will need to be amended anyways.

   Here's a shot of the deep end with the Eclipse pool drain installed.  There are disposable caps on the round and center section which are used to block material and protect the drain.  These caps will stay in place until pool start up.  As predicted, the whole drain pipe channel was shot with gunite, encasing the pool drain pipe.  The gunite was troweled for shape but it's not a super smooth surface, which will come later from the plaster finish.

   The skimmer box areas saw forms placed around the whole assembly, using the wood structure installed by Eli as a guide.  It looks like the entire skimmer box will be encased in gunite, but the finished paver surface will sit on top of this concrete block.  The preinstalled drain pipe from the skimmer still exist the rear of the box form and is currently buried. 

   Some excess gunite was shot in the swim out step area, but the steps themselves haven't been formed yet.  The underlying shell needs a little bit of hardening before those are shot and formed.  I spoke briefly with Joe before they started work in the morning.  He requested the color plans so he could use them as reference, and said that the shoot will pretty much adhere to the plans.  The plans call for two steps, and while there's no code for riser height, he said he likes to make them about 8-10 inches in height, so there will be two swim out steps.

   Just like the swim out steps, the sun shelf hasn't been shot yet.  The bubbler remains uninstalled, but it looks like they left a notch in the gunite they did shoot to allow for pipe passage.  The plans call for three steps coming off the sun shelf, with the sun shelf itself being about 8 inches deep.  Joe said that the depth of the sun shelf will be dependent upon the coping stone because you don't want to have a really high step coming out of the pool.  Typically, sun shelfs are 8-10 inches deep and loungers that sit in sun shelfs can be 2.5 inches thick, leaving 6 inches of your siting area in water with your legs and most of your torso out of the water.  So three steps plus the sun shelf at 8 inches per step puts us at 40 inches, which is 3 feet 4 inches for the beginning of the shallow end of the pool.

   One of the skimmer boxes was installed at height and the other remains to be installed.  You can see how they cut the rebar around the box, and this one still needs the rest of the box forms installed.  The stub pipes were placed a bit below the water level and were cut through the form to be jammed into the dirt.  Eli said the gunite shoot should be take a few days to complete and afterwards, we would need to water the pool every day to control the speed of drying.  Online instructions state that the gunite should be watered at least 3 times a day for at least 14 days, especially if the weather gets hot.  The gunite should absorb much of the water sprayed on it and help with the curing.  Since concrete curing is exothermic, spraying water keeps it cool and prevents cracking.  I might need to get a sprinkler on a timer to handle the mid-day watering since I can't work from home every day for the next few weeks.

   Here's the thickness of the pool being shot.  It looks like the metal structure sits a couple inches below the gunite shell and there will be another half inch of plaster on top of that.  When I was leaving for work in the morning today, the crew was already on site prepping for shooting so I'll get to see how much progress they'll make today.  It's a little more precise for the rest of the pool and there's still some prep to be completed for the skimmer and bubbler, but if they move as fast as they did yesterday, it almost seems like they could complete it on the second day.

  Unfortunately, the driveway took some damage from all the heavy machinery.  It was a little expected and in general pool installation circles, there's not much that can be done about it.  It generally falls under the home owners responsibility to repair so I'll have to cut this part out and patch it, either during the 28 days it takes for the gunite to cure, or after everything is completed.  Pool deck installation will require more heavy materials to be moved and probably some machinery, especially for the boulder wall installation so I might just let this sit until the fall after everything is installed and the weather is cooler again.  Remember, the driveway was never really finished with a final top coat because we knew we would have heavy machinery driving back there for the pool and all the other remaining landscaping installations.  Even after the pool area is completed, we'll still need some retaining wall and steps installed leading to the back yard, two paver patios for each basement walkout, and a deck that goes around the garage.  I'll patch this area so it doesn't crumble more, but when everything is finally done, we'll probably get the driveway resurfaced and completed.

   That's it for this update, but I'm certain there will be another coming soon that will show the completion or near completion of the pool shell.  Afterwards, there will probably be a lull while the shell hardens, but it will pick up again for the final plumbing and finishing of the pool.

Plumbing Placement

   Eli showed up today to lay out plumbing locations for the main drain, return, bubbler, and sub locations for the LED lights.  The main drain was located in place and a length of rigid PVC was connected since it would be entrapped by the concrete when it's shot for the pool shell.  The returns and LED lights were marked on the pool forms and just consist of enclosed pipes filled with gravel for weight.  They'll be jammed into the sand at their designated locations to provide pass through for their respective functions.  Since the bubbler will be in the sunshelf, it's just laid near the location of installation.  The skimmer boxes were again marked on the wood forms as well as placed at the desired locations, while having their orifices blocked to prevent ingress of concrete during the pour.

   Here's a picture of the deep end of the pool.  The long PVC pipes leaning up on the wood forms are the stubs for returns and LED lights.  The trench on the right side of the picture is the main drain line coming up from the deep end.  You can also see the skimmer box on the right side of the picture.  The PVC with the 45 degree pipe isn't marked for anything, so I believe it's extra.

   Here's where the main drain pipe comes up from the main drain.  The pipe stub comes up to the ground level, but I'm not sure if it will ultimately stay that depth (height?) or if it will be cut off at a lower depth before the pipe run is attached and run to the pump manifold intake.

   Here's the main drain in place with the drain pipe attached.  There's a 45 degree fitting that looks to sit in the concrete shell which I hope won't cause any issues to the strength in that location.  When the pool is completed, there will be a surface matched cover that covers the drain.  You can see that the pipe being used for a pass through stub is labeled "LED lights"  It doesn't mark at what depth the lights will be placed at, so I'm guessing there's a standard depth for such things.  After the pool shell is shot, the ground where these stubs are will need to be excavated to access the dirt side for whatever they're passing through.  They're probably just sleeves for the lights, but I'm not sure if the returns will use the actual PVC as a connection, or if the PVC stub is oversided to allow passage of the actual return pipe.

Some additional wood was installed around the skimmer box locations.  The top and the pool opening have been closed off to prevent concrete incursion, but a single 2 inch drain pipe has been attached.  There's an additional cover that goes on the top of the skimmer box, which will sit at the level of the pool deck so height placement is very important for this item.  The skimmer boxes also determine the height of the water in the pool since you don't want the water level too high above the opening.  Generally the pool water level should be about half way up the skimmer box opening, so getting this placement needs to take the final height of the coping stone into account.  Probably the most important detail of the initial pour process.

   Here's a look at the plumbing coming off the skimmer box.  Both skimmer boxes will be placed on the lake side of the pool and the return jets will circulate the water clockwise to promote flow into the boxes.  We have a lot of trees around the yard, so hopefully this will help keep the pool free of leaves.

   Here's the placement location of the second skimmer box.  Both skimmers are in concave parts of the pool to help with the trapping of surface objects.  I think the wood forms will need to be cut away here before the concrete is shot, but that will be done by the gunite crew.  Again, additional wood supports were installed in this location and I believe it to just be supports, not forms for the skimmer box.  The skimmer box will mostly be immobilized in the pool shell and I don't think they'll use any concrete on the outside of the shell to lock in the rest of the box, but I'm not sure about that.

   Here's a shot from the shallow end, showing the path of the main drain plumbing and the two skimmer box locations.  The PVC pipes placed on the rebar are for the returns, 4 in total.

   At first I was a little confused about the height the main drain plumbing takes to get out the pool.  When the gunite is shot, that whole channel will be filled in, so it looks like the drain pipe will level off at the or near the height of the water.  I thought you would want the pipe at a deeper depth so the pump wouldn't experience any head loss on the drain side.  After reading a bit online about plumbing design, it looks like you don't want the main drain suction dictated by the depth of the pool.  By raising the drain line up to near the water level of the pool, you're making sure that only the pump is dictating the suction strength at the drain, and water pressure or siphon.

   Here's the bubbler plumbing.  There are two PVC lines connected to the bubbler.  The larger 2 inch line is the water return and the smaller gray conduit is for electrical lines since the bubbler also contains an LED light.  Eli mentioned that there are a few different openings for the bubbler that dictate the height of the water fountain.  He also said that the bubbler will be able to flow water out the sides a bit to keep the sun shelf water circulating and clear of debris.

   Here's a last look of the pool with the PVC stubs and metal in place before they come and shoot the gunite.  I think the gunite shoot is a 2 step process; 1 shoot for the rough shell and a second shoot for the final shape and sun shelf/swim steps install.  The shell needs to be hardened a bit for the later two items, but I don't know the timing of the two shoots.  After that will be the long wait while the shell cures strong enough for final surface treatments.