Let's build some pools!

TJT said:

I thought you had a townhouse style home?

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Yes, my last home was a 3 story townhome that I finally sold/escaped in 2018 after spending a year having the back ripped down to the studs and re-sheathed. It was an epic disaster-- total new construction hack job that was a ticking time bomb from the day it hit market. Housewrap was tucked behind flashing leading to water intrusion into walls, and each unit had an above living area patio with no moisture barrier besides some lapped rubber sheets under the cement. The day that shithole was fully repaired I couldn't put it on the market fast enough. There are supposedly a ton of "leaky stucco condos" built around that time in Uptown/Ross, and just as many pending lawsuits.

The new place I bought in 2018 has no leaks thankfully, and the only major issue was having to redo the siding already.. I'll tell you one thing though, I will never buy new construction again. Even absent quality issues, you spend way too much time having to deal with shit a previous owner would have already dealt with, like retarded Mexican conceived power outlet locations.

TheBeagle said:

I do love a good construction horror story.

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Do you get any New Construction pool jobs, or is that something they only stick in custom builds these days? And if you do new construction, is there like a "Builder's Special" package that is designed to look like a 300K luxury pool but really is nothing more than a disguised pond liner rigged to cave in 1 day post warranty?

TheBeagle said:

I'm not quite sure I understand the question bro. I only do new construction, custom builds. We have another builder on staff that does renovations but we don't have any kind of pre-fabbed packages. Every project is designed from the ground up to fit the customer's needs and budget.

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No sorry, I meant a new home. Like a home builder approaches you do to 10 new pools for ten new homes he's building.

TheBeagle said:

Day 4 - Gunite

I didn't get any pics of the guys shooting the gunite since it was a busy day and I wasn't able to get over there until late. I'll get pics of the setup at my next one hopefully.

Basically you have a compressor truck with rolls of 6" hose and feeder trucks with the material. Gunite is strictly sand and portland cement. It doesn't contain any aggregate which is what separates it from concrete. This allows the sand and cement to be pumped through a hose dry. A water hose is attached and as the dry mix leaves the nozzle it is mixed with the water and voila, you have a damp, sticky cementatious product that can be built up vertically without forms and cut into whatever shape you want.

Here's the end product. We went from the original dig to gunite in 8 days. Should be starting tile and coping in the next day or two.
View attachment 476707

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Why is there so much plumbing going into the pool? I think I see eight pipes coming through the cement, and that seems excessive for a pool that size. What's going on there?

TheBeagle said:

Five returns, which is standard on every pool. One cleaner line, also standard. The other two or three pipes will be the nicheless lights.

*Every pool also gets an auto fill/overflow. So every single pool we do will have 7 pipes in the walls minimum. When we get ready for plaster they are cut off and have the fittings installed.

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Thank you. I was not aware of all that. Interesting!

He's lying, the 3rd extra pipe is the enema attachment