Day 10: Starting to Take Form
The absence of recent posts is a result of little exciting activity (continued excavation) combined with the fact that I was out of town for a week and La Wiferino wasn't interested in updating. And frankly, there wasn't much progress made in that time. Very groundhog day!
We made it through the rain delays and all told, 8 days were spent excavating. What a process. Good thing, we didn't have some crazy "rock clause" which I've heard about. Now that we're done with that chapter, we're actually starting to see some progress!
Day 10 (actual working days, it's been 3 weeks since we started), things are actually starting to take shape. The gravel "french drain" is about 12 inches deep and should keep the water in the rock moving under the pool versus trying to go through it and essentially popping the pool out of the ground. Sounds pretty scary, but our pool builder assures us that this is common in this part of the world. Five guys showed up this morning (Saturday) and have been getting after it all day "bagging". The picture below shows our dog helping out. She loves all the excitement going on in her backyard! It's pretty amazing how much fill and rock is still left. Even more amazing is that our PB says the excavator took too much away and they're going to need more.
While I consider myself to be pretty good at getting the vision from the 2D drawings, as things are starting to come together, I realize just how many details I've missed. I joked with my pool builder that this is why I have my job and he has his. At this point, I can't even imagine doing an "owner build" and trying to manage the process myself. I feel like our project is way too complex and that would quickly get out of control. I never considered going that route, although several people did suggest it. In fact, as we watch this project evolve, it really makes us glad we made the choice of pool builders we did. We talked to MANY companies and the majority of them wanted to build what would essentially be an out of ground pool. Our goal was to take advantage of our view, yet work within the confines of the terrain and natural lay of the land. Very few pool builders were able to deliver on this vision, and as I watch this slowly unravel, I can see why. I must say, I'm glad we're not going to end up with a huge structure in our backyard with massive walls on the backside. Some companies said there was no way to do it without have 8-foot walls on the back of the pool! I know we're not talking about some engineered bridge or high-rise, but the scope of this "little" project never ceases to amaze me.
We're now in the forming stage. They will continue bagging the negative edge walls and spa and then they will do the steel and plumbing. We are scheduled for Shotcrete in a week, so this is the meat and potatoes of the build. They're also going to pour the main deck and turndown on that day so that everything stays solid through the process. I'm anxious to get to that point, as things will really be clear. It's amazing how hard it is to articulate how this pool is actually going to end up looking to people. We have multiple levels and this is far from a standard design.
So far, we've been very happy with our yet to be named pool builders. Despite the length of time we've been at it(relatively long for where we are), the factors were out of their control. They've been communicative about everything. They also took our change request in stride and didn't miss a beat.
We made it through the rain delays and all told, 8 days were spent excavating. What a process. Good thing, we didn't have some crazy "rock clause" which I've heard about. Now that we're done with that chapter, we're actually starting to see some progress!
Day 10 (actual working days, it's been 3 weeks since we started), things are actually starting to take shape. The gravel "french drain" is about 12 inches deep and should keep the water in the rock moving under the pool versus trying to go through it and essentially popping the pool out of the ground. Sounds pretty scary, but our pool builder assures us that this is common in this part of the world. Five guys showed up this morning (Saturday) and have been getting after it all day "bagging". The picture below shows our dog helping out. She loves all the excitement going on in her backyard! It's pretty amazing how much fill and rock is still left. Even more amazing is that our PB says the excavator took too much away and they're going to need more.
While I consider myself to be pretty good at getting the vision from the 2D drawings, as things are starting to come together, I realize just how many details I've missed. I joked with my pool builder that this is why I have my job and he has his. At this point, I can't even imagine doing an "owner build" and trying to manage the process myself. I feel like our project is way too complex and that would quickly get out of control. I never considered going that route, although several people did suggest it. In fact, as we watch this project evolve, it really makes us glad we made the choice of pool builders we did. We talked to MANY companies and the majority of them wanted to build what would essentially be an out of ground pool. Our goal was to take advantage of our view, yet work within the confines of the terrain and natural lay of the land. Very few pool builders were able to deliver on this vision, and as I watch this slowly unravel, I can see why. I must say, I'm glad we're not going to end up with a huge structure in our backyard with massive walls on the backside. Some companies said there was no way to do it without have 8-foot walls on the back of the pool! I know we're not talking about some engineered bridge or high-rise, but the scope of this "little" project never ceases to amaze me.
We're now in the forming stage. They will continue bagging the negative edge walls and spa and then they will do the steel and plumbing. We are scheduled for Shotcrete in a week, so this is the meat and potatoes of the build. They're also going to pour the main deck and turndown on that day so that everything stays solid through the process. I'm anxious to get to that point, as things will really be clear. It's amazing how hard it is to articulate how this pool is actually going to end up looking to people. We have multiple levels and this is far from a standard design.So far, we've been very happy with our yet to be named pool builders. Despite the length of time we've been at it(relatively long for where we are), the factors were out of their control. They've been communicative about everything. They also took our change request in stride and didn't miss a beat.
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