Another day with perfect weather for working on the mortar joints and tile for the pool. Progress is moving along quickly with all the coping stones seeing their joints recut and mortared. The water line tile also saw prep work around the perimeter of the pool with some tile already being attached. Eli estimates just one more day to finish off the water line and step border tiles, then it will be on to the retaining wall construction.
The coping stones were all mortared down to the bonding beam and the gaps were recut to create even spacing. The joints were then mortared to complete the coping stone surround.
Here's a shot of the finished coping stones, before any water line tile prep was installed. The top of the coping stones will set the level of everything else in the back yard; paver patio, retaining wall, and yard slope.
They mortared the gap under the skimmer box to set the height according to the coping stone. The paver patio will be laid on this big block of concrete surrounding the skimmer box, and will go right up to the skimmer box access port.
A single ceramic tile was laid across the skimmer box opening in the pool to create a bridge for the coping stones. The "nice" side of the tile is placed down and the coping stones are mortared to the bonding side of the tile. Eventually, there will be a flapper door across the skimmer opening to help trap the floating debris.
The electrician came and got a peek at the sub panel in the under-deck storage space that will be used to connect the pool equipment. His main task for the day was to attach the copper bonding wire to the lengths of rebar that still remained long. These rebar are electrically connected to the rest of the rebar cage so the entire pool is grounded together.
A long length of copper wire was left, that will be tied to the rest of the electrical system to create a common ground. This way, if there's any current leak from the lights in the pool, it will all ground out together.
The prep for the water line tile involves driving in these wooden shims to establish level, and padding out the surface of the pool to bring up the depth of the thin waterline tile. The tiles are only 1/4" thick so when combined with the surface prep and thinset, will bring the thickness up around 1/2", which is about the thickness of the rest of the surface plaster.
This update spans 2 days of work, before the rain came in for the weekend and ended the work day. They did manage to squeeze in all the water line tile installation around the pool edge. Additional furring strips were installed to create a ledge on which the tiles could sit. On Monday, they'll return to grout the tile gaps and lay the small border tiles on all the horizontal edges around the pool. This will be on the sunshelf and every step.
Here's a shot of the pool at the end of the third day. All coping has been set and grouted, and all tile has been set. Work will resume the next week and should see the completion of the tile installation.
The next steps will be a delicate balance of hard landscaping installation in the form of the boulder wall, and trenching for water returns and pool electrical. Since the boulder trains can't make it up the driveway without destroying it, Eli says we'll need to lay sand down in the street and drop the rocks there. They'll be shuttled up to the house by the wheeled Bobcat, then moved to the back yard with the tracked Bobcat. I'm not sure if the mini excavator is up to the task of setting the stones, but we'll work in a counter clockwise direction towards where the pool pad will be installed.
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