While watching the pool start to take shape, I became curious exactly what goes on in this phase. Rather than disrupt the guys, I did a little research of my own. I actually found this link on poolnerd's site pretty informative. Warning, it is long and highly technical, but really clarified to me what goes on during the creation of an "expansion joint" and what keeps the pool in place and the deck from moving and/or cracking.
Here is where they left us yesterday (Day 11). As you can see, the plumbing is stubbed and the steel is going up. Our pool builder uses 60 grade rebar on 9" centers. Most of the other builders we talked to use 40 grade on 12" centers. I'm not sure of the functional difference this makes, but I feel fairly confident that more substantial steel placed in a tighter grid is a worthwhile feature. The picture on the right shows the plumbing trench. 15 pipes to and from the pool. Pretty impressive. They filled it all in with sand so they can get the bobcat in and out of the yard.
The negative edge wall is starting to take place, with the basin (with play pool/tanning ledge) and spa on the back side of that wall. This picture is looking "through" the negative edge, with the basin behind it. We really liked the idea our pool builders came up with in the design phase to place the spa in the infinity edge basin and create an area there. One of our requirements was to make use of our existing "under deck" space and the current plan puts an outdoor kitchen/bar and future bathroom in that space. This area will be on the negative edge side of the pool, so it made sense to utilize this space. Our thoughts are it will be a great gathering area and make a nice visual area with the water features from the negative edge wall and negative edge spa. Our next door neighbors have a similar area that they do not use. However, it is on the opposite end of the pool from where they normally congregate. As a result of talking to them, we had a little bit of doubt. Now that it's starting to become a reality, I feel good about that decision.
In our discussion with the pool builder the other day, they suggested putting natural stone in the shallow part of the NE basin instead of plaster. We're more than likely going with Midnight Blue DiamondBrite for plaster, and it looks best in deeper areas. It is very "BLUE" and doesn't look it's best in super shallow water such as our basin. The two areas are completely separate, so this sounds like a cool idea. When I saw the Midnight Blue plaster in one of our PB's pools, I knew instantly that I wanted it! It was the color I had in my mind. Of course, after deciding that, I learned that it is the one DiamondBrite color that is an upcharge.
Tomorrow should wrap up the steel and plumbing...and then we'll wait for Shotcrete. We're scheduled for a week from today, so unless something changes, we'll most likely be idle for awhile.
Nothing too exciting to report today. The past few days have been "ahead of schedule" waiting for shotcrete (gunite), meaning the crews have been sparse and have been wrapping up loose ends. The last few days involved re-doing the stairs as some of the workers mis-measured. Good thing our PB spends a good amount of time on site! They completed the plumbing of the pool, water sheers, equipment pad, and finally, the spa. Watching them heat up and bend the PVC pipe is quite a sight. Probably one of those things best left unseen. I have a hard time believing the pipes aren't compromised by heating them up to the point of being practically liquefied and then bending them. I'm assured that they are sound. They put a bonding wire across all of the steel to keep the pool from getting 
electrified and put in some drainage pipes to keep the water flowing away from the pool. The main decking area and stairs are going to get poured with the pool on Tuesday. The last picture shows a view from the bottom of the pool on the back side of the negative edge. To get a good idea of the layout, the tree at the top is at 0 feet, with a retaining wall to the next level, approximately 2 feet lower. Go down another 2 feet to the main decking area and then 3 feet down to the negative edge basin.
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