The main part of the new area is covered with 6″ x 12″ travertine pavers.  The crushed stone is 1″ decomposed granite.  The areas of crushed stone will eventually hold planters (to hide the pool equipment) and trees and shrubs at the far end of the pool to gain some privacy and shade back again

Almost finished pool

Well, this week marked the last stage of the pool project (at least for the pool guys anyway)

All 27,000 +/- gallons of water are in, initial startup has been accomplished and now it’s “brush and backflush” for the next few days while the new surface cures and the remainder of the excess lime and cement that weren’t removed by the acid wash are removed by the filtration system.

Of course, now I have to put the hardscape back around the deck.  Luckily, we have that all american four day weekend called “Thanksgiving” coming up – perfect time to get that accomplished.

The pictures represent two frames from the timelapse video that I’m assembling of the project.  It’s working well so far and as soon as I decide on the best way to post it or a piece of it, it’ll be available to view in all its speedy glory.

I’m playing around with some different image capture utilities in order to make a time lapse movie of the process. I have a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 hanging up outside the house to capture the action.  We’ll see how it goes.  The apps that make time lapse easy don’t utilize the full resolution of the camera, so the process may end up being a bit more manual than I had been hoping.

What’s funny to me so far is how everything that was under the water is actually in a different place than I thought it was when the pool was full – amazing the power of parallax error.  I’m also very impressed with the little tiny sump pump that the contractors dropped off yesterday.  I’ve only had it running so far for about six hours and the water level is down well more than half way.  When I first saw the pump, I figured it would take all weekend for that thing to drain the water, but it looks like it’ll be empty by tonight.  Finding a handy old RV drain over in the side yard helped too – now I don’t have to flood the yard with highly chlorinated pool water and put my trees in even more distress than they’ve be experiencing because of the leak.

So, the plunge – so to speak – is about to be taken. I’m in the process of completing an agreement with Shasta Pools to remodel the see-ment pond and bring it up to 21st century specs.

I was looking at adding a spa at the same time, but doing that would literally double the cost of the work and almost triple the timeline due to permitting and a bunch of work I’d have to get done on the house itself (like relocating the electrical service entrance) before digging could start.

I figured that the extra $$ would better be put toward the roof, the kitchen, the garage, the new bathrooms and other things.  Instead of a spa, I’ll put in a nice landscape water feature later on.

I’d love to delay this, but one has to accept that a swimming pool is a major asset on the property and that I can’t let fall in to disrepair, lest it become far, far more expensive to fix later on.  This pool is what sold the house to me and it’ll be a center piece for the next owner as well somewhere down the road.  It’s a great old, BIG pool that was built back in 1971.  They don’t make ‘em like this one anymore, so it’s a really nice thing to have in the back yard … especially on our 110+ summer days!

So now this project has officially entered “design-build” territory where construction work will be underway while design elements are still being worked out.

This is going to be fun!!

Rendering by Architect W. Brent Armstrong

Well, OK, I guess water leaking underground doesn’t actually go “drip…”

I have discovered one of those things in life that you always knew was a possible issue, but perhaps weren’t planning to have to deal with – or at least hoping that it’d be a while.

My new-to-me house here in Phoenix has a really nice, large, swimming pool in the back yard. It’s vintage 1971 and has held up really well over the years, having had one facelift back in 1989 according to the files.

It also developed a leak back in 1997 which was repaired.

The pool also has an in-floor popup cleaning system. 9 popup cleaning heads which keep the whole pool looking really nice in between weekly cleanings. Well, when one has plastic pipes buried under concrete 7 feet down under the weight of over 27,000 gallons of water …..

The pool has developed a new leak. The last one was fairly easy – it was located in one of the skimmers at deck level. No big deal – cut out the old skimmers, install new ones, good to go. This time, the leak has been traced to some place under the pool – in the cleaning pipe circuit at the deep end. A repair means completely draining all 27,000+ gallons, then jackhammering up the concrete, repairing the pipe, putting the concrete back and on and on.

The pool will be part of the house renovation. So, as part of that, its time to just flat abandon the in-floor cleaning system. Plastic pipe buried under there now for nearly 40 years – well, it’s probably the better part of valor to just eliminate it.

So now the conundrum is – shut down that one cleaning line, patch over the outlets and deal with it in a couple of years or get the whole pool project done first, before tackling the house? Somewhere along the way, the money has to be spent anyway, so my inclination at this time is to get the whole pool project done at once some time before next summer. It’s the single largest project in the mix that’s “all pro” as far as the labor and such needed to get it done. Many parts of the house (wall framing, demolition, plumbing rough, etc.) I can handle myself – I can’t tear down and re-gunite a swimming pool myself!!

I keep reminding myself that this renovation is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.