16 July 2024 Finishing Up my OB Pool

[Newdude]

I'm pumped!

Nah, that's a few weeks away still. But you're one leap for mankind closer to it.

I'll have to double check the archives but we are probably looking at a record here, pushing 600 posts before the first shovel hits the dirt. Talk about well planned.

 

[setsailsoon]

Nah, that's a few weeks away still. But you're one leap for mankind closer to it.

I'll have to double check the archives but we are probably looking at a record here, pushing 600 posts before the first shovel hits the dirt. Talk about well planned.

Well sort of... don't forget most of the posts were a 3800 sq ft OB house. But yes I certainly planned to do this build over a year ago. Life kind of got in the way!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Well sort of... don't forget most of the posts were a 3800 sq ft OB house. But yes I certainly planned to do this build over a year ago. Life kind of got in the way!

The way we look at it is that this entire Thread is a POOL build thread and you just happen to get an O/B house done along the way … like the proverbial supermodel standing in front of the Formula One race car in the auto magazine - no one is looking at the car ….

 

[Newdude]

+1 you couldn't place the pool without the house.

 

[setsailsoon]

12 Feb Update:
As I start dusting off the schedule I'm looking at equipment. There are two drivers. First, anything that is on or close to critical path. This includes:

• Pool fittings - most purchased by the plumber but I still need to make sure they get ordered.
• LED lights and associated fittings

Second equipment purchase list is driven by difficult to find, or long lead, or special sales. Several items in this group:

• Main Pump. The 5 hp pentair pump has spotty availability. Their W Palm distributor told me it's often hard for them to get. And even Polytec sometimes shows it on back order.
• Circupool swg. Used to be they always had the $10 upgrade to next larger size on sale. Now it seems to be on and off. Current $10 deal expires this week so I'll get it ordered today
• Controls. Since my base case for this is Raspberry Pi implementation that's well-documented on this site it's not really on the critical path. But I need to get up to speed on this and @Katodude has graciously offered to help me out I need a few items so I can build a mock up on the work bench and make sure I don't have to do a lot of fiddling around during startup of the pool. This is a great activity while I'm waiting for the gunite to cure so the parts have been ordered. In case I have problems with this I'm installing electrical hardware that allows me to drop in an Intellicenter easily if needed.
• Water treating. My nasty Florida well water is going to require a whole house RO system. Right now I have a mixed bed cationic/anionic resin after several steps of sulfur removal. All this is followed by a special triple bed polishing filter. Output is pristine except it has a tiny amount of tannin's that only shows up in toilet bowls after a couple weeks. But I'm using a boatload of salt - required by anionic resin and I promised Robin (wife) I'd get rid of this when I built the pool. I need water to cure the concrete down here since it's very well documented that water soaking improves concrete strength by 40-50%. Doesn't need to be fully treated and in fact for the house used untreated but I might as well get started on this project since it's not trivial in and of itself.

Bottom line with all this is that I'll be $40-$50K pregnant with this job in first couple weeks.

Chris

 

[JoyfulNoise]

• Water treating. My nasty Florida well water is going to require a whole house RO system. Right now I have a mixed bed cationic/anionic resin after several steps of sulfur removal. All this is followed by a special triple bed polishing filter. Output is pristine except it has a tiny amount of tannin's that only shows up in toilet bowls after a couple weeks. But I'm using a boatload of salt - required by anionic resin and I promised Robin (wife) I'd get rid of this when I built the pool. I need water to cure the concrete down here since it's very well documented that water soaking improves concrete strength by 40-50%. Doesn't need to be fully treated and in fact for the house used untreated but I might as well get started on this project since it's not trivial in and of itself.

I would be very wary using RO water to fill a pool. It is very aggressive. You might want to consider setting up a dual system where you provision resin treated water to the pool and only use RO inside the house. I realize you have multiple issues with your water (iron, sulfur, tannins) but RO water costs a lot of make and it’s not the best for a plaster pool surface.

If you did go full RO, then I’d suggest you add a post-membrane remineralizing cartridge to whatever water is going out to the pool. Remineralizing the RO water adds enough Ca/Mg to make the water a lot less aggressive. You might also do that for the house as well because fully demineralized water can be quite damaging to hot water heaters over time.

 

[setsailsoon]

12 Feb Update: Risk Management

Project management best practices for all projects require a risk management component for successful execution. There are several ways to approach this and they all work well. What doesn't work well is ignoring this vital component that can impact results with very negative consequences. You start by identifying all risks and categorizing them according to impact and probability. If you think of a graph with impact on horizontal axis and probability on the vertical axis, the ones I'm focusing on are where they have very high impact and/or high probability. Then you objectively and consciously decide to accept or mitigate and how to do this. So here's my list so far (needs to be updated every two weeks or so):

• Delays in finding subs. I'll accept this risk other than not starting 'till I have all identified and committed that are hard to find.
• Known unknown cost items. These are items that happen and you know they will happen but just don't know where. Contingency is added based on experience. Usually after detailed design is done 10% should be sufficient. After conceptual but before detailed design 20-30% is appropriate. This is why we usually don't fully commit to the project until detailed design is complete. At this point all material quantities are known so you can reduce to 10%.
• Unknown or hidden conditions. Examples are large unknown obstacles underground and in my case higher than normal water intrusion because my pool depth is 7' that's going to require 81/2' max depth. Previous borings indicate water table is about 5' below the top pool edge. I've priced in two well-points with pumps for the construction phase. Mitigations are more well points and reducing pool depth. Cost could be couple thousand more for well points and/or net ~zero for reducing depth. Interestingly many home owners seem to want to find a way to put this risk on the builder. If they'll do this it comes at an extraordinary cost. Basic rule of risk management is never try to transfer a risk to a party that has no way to manage it. If you can do this you end up paying worst case which rarely happens.
• Another risk I have is proximity to large load bearing footers that could damage house structure. I'll flash the soil in this area with gunite to mitigate at a cost of ~$3000.
• Permitting delays. HOA and county building permit are approved. Inspection delays are minimal if I have adequate QA during the build. My experience on the house build is very good with local inspectors. Never took more than 24 hrs to schedule.
• Black swan events like Covid... I'll accept this risk and delay project if needed.
• Funding. In place and arranged HELOC commitment for unexpected costs if needed.
• Weather. Schedule critical weather sensitive parts and try to complete during Florida "dry season".
• Late changes. Biggest risk here is personal preferences of my wife. She did extraordinarily well on the house and has fully bought in to the design (stake holder management!)

There are a lot more details but I think this gets the concept across and may help other OB's get started. I hope this is helpful.

Chris

 

[setsailsoon]

I would be very wary using RO water to fill a pool. It is very aggressive. You might want to consider setting up a dual system where you provision resin treated water to the pool and only use RO inside the house. I realize you have multiple issues with your water (iron, sulfur, tannins) but RO water costs a lot of make and it’s not the best for a plaster pool surface.

If you did go full RO, then I’d suggest you add a post-membrane remineralizing cartridge to whatever water is going out to the pool. Remineralizing the RO water adds enough Ca/Mg to make the water a lot less aggressive. You might also do that for the house as well because fully demineralized water can be quite damaging to hot water heaters over time.

Great point Matt. In chemical plants we use this technology to supply high pressure, super-heated steam boiler feed water. It is extremely corrosive and usually requires expensive alloy piping. I'm planning to remineralize exactly as you describe. I have no experience in this operation other than it seems to work pretty well for my condensing hot water heaters. If there are any additional best practices you can provide I'd appreciate it much. Don't know how I would get this pool up and running without you and other TFP experts. Thank you all!

Chris

PS I'm very interested in using CO2 ph control. Any advice here?

 

[JamesW]

PS I'm very interested in using CO2 ph control. Any advice here?

CO2 can be very useful because it does not change the TA.

There are several commercial setups that have the correct equipment for injection.

You still want to use good practices like keeping the pH as high as possible and the TA as low as possible, especially if you get a lot of aeration from the infinity edges.

So, I would still use muriatic acid if the TA is over 60 to bring the TA down and use CO2 for pH control.

I would probably try to keep the pH at about 7.9 to 8.0 and the TA at about 60 ppm.

 

[setsailsoon]

CO2 can be very useful because it does not change the TA.

There are several commercial setups that have the correct equipment for injection.

You still want to use good practices like keeping the pH as high as possible and the TA as low as possible, especially if you get a lot of aeration from the infinity edges.

So, I would still use muriatic acid if the TA is over 60 to bring the TA down and use CO2 for pH control.

I would probably try to keep the pH at about 7.9 to 8.0 and the TA at about 60 ppm.

James.

Glad to hear this and great advice and thanks. I'm guessing this will be a little like swg. Always keep a jug of chlorine and acid if needed. My previous pool I kept pH at about 78 with TA around 55. Took a long time for my pool to stabilize but after two years it seemed to get much easier. Last time I checked it seemed like CO2 was cost comparable to acid if I eat the up front costs. Any preference on brands?

Chris

 

[JamesW]

Any preference on brands?

I don't know the different brands very well.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Before you get too far down the road on CO2, check prices, availability and refilling costs. In some areas, CO2 is cheap. In other areas, it's hard to find a supplier. Some places allow you to buy your own bottles and they will refill them and other places will only refill bottles that they sell to you. You may find a reliable supplier with a good price point or you may find it difficult to locate a reliable supply. That will be the biggest deteminant.

Other than the safety concerns of not having muriatic acid around the house, CO2 injection isn't any better than MA additions. There's nothing CO2 can do that MA can't do and CO2 doesn't affect TA which may or may not be an issue. Usually you will need to add acid to your pool to get the TA where you want it and then inject CO2 to dial in the pH ... is the savings on not having to add as much MA worth the cost and hassle of injecting CO2 ?? That a subjective call only you can make.

 

[setsailsoon]

12 Feb Update:

Looks like we're gonna be a couple days delayed. Equipment is committed through this Friday. So we start Monday. Another good news item is I got a few minor but important changes agreed on the forming and steel contract. So we're now under contract to start. Also, I found another gunite supplier. Have seen their trucks around for several years and heard of them but never had them on my pre-qual list. Went by to inspect their operation, certifications and they passed with flying colors. Two of the forming contractors I quoted prefer this outfit and one only warrants the work if this company supplies the gunite. They will be quoting the job tomorrow. One thing I really liked is they like to have their gunite foreman visit the site as steel is completing to be sure there's no surprises. This is a best practice for mega projects and they call it interface management. At this level the call it making sure there's no surprises. Either way I like that they offered this without me having to ask!

Chris

 

[AQUA~HOLICS]

Equipment is committed through this Friday. So we start Monday.

811? 2 full business days in advance of digging to advise of intent to dig.

 

[setsailsoon]

811? 2 full business days in advance of digging to advise of intent to dig.

Thanks, already done.

 

[setsailsoon]

13 Feb 2024

Folks,

Making final decisions on a few things including lights. We're committed to standard 1.5" nicheless but brand and model is a real quandary. Last experience was several years ago and nobody seems to make a light that really addresses the real heat issue that causes electronics to fail way before the LED. Today I found a company on Polytec's website that claims to address it with a separate connector that allows the bulb to be replaced separately. I remember Jandy had this feature at one time and it didn't work (for me at least), S. R. Smith has a light called Treo and another one called Treomicro. Any experience with them? @ajw22 Allen, I think I found an old post where you suggested cmp brand. Any feedback from the owner on them?

Chris

 

[Newdude]

Thanks, already done.

Were there any rear yard utilities or septic for the build ? You're in a unique position being so hands on from day 1.

I doubt there's lines of any kind with the lake back there, but last time they may have not marked the whole back yard being comfortable that the house footprint was far enough away, and now the pool/patio isn't. So it's always best to call each project in to CYA.

 

[setsailsoon]

Were there any rear yard utilities or septic for the build ? You're in a unique position being so hands on from day 1.

I doubt there's lines of any kind with the lake back there, but last time they may have not marked the whole back yard being comfortable that the house footprint was far enough away, and now the pool/patio isn't. So it's always best to call each project in to CYA.

No, but we had them check anyway. It's weird the way this development was done but septic is in front yard and wells in the back. Never seen it done this way but every house on this street is like that. First thing I did on this job was core samples and drill two wells. No unexpected findings for 15' down in 6 total coring holes just pretty uniform sand/organic (~85%) mix that compacts very easily. Did find a thin rock or shale area about -55' with the wells. No known issues anyway. Still prepared for unknowns if they happen though!

 

[ajw22]

Chris, on pool lights…

CMP has been acquired by Fluidra, parent of Jandy. And Jandy now has a new line of Hydrocool pool lights that look like the CMP lights.

We have not heard any bad things about the CMP lights and @Srqpoolguy posted that he is replacing failed Pentair lights with the Jandy P- series lights that are compatible with Pentair automation.

Pentair Globrite replacement option

Hello. My name is Justin and I Am a certified pool contractor down in Sarasota florida and also handle warranty work for several large companies (pentair and Hayward). It has come to my attention the pentair globrite lights have a huge failure rate. The housings all crack in the same spot...

www.troublefreepool.com

The problem in using CMP or Jandy lights is obtaining them as an owner. Fluidra, Jandy, and CMP all seem to not allow their products on retail channels.

If you can find a source for the lights they seems like the best being sold today.

 

[setsailsoon]

Chris, on pool lights…

CMP has been acquired by Fluidra, parent of Jandy. And Jandy now has a new line of Hydrocool pool lights that look like the CMP lights.

We have not heard any bad things about the CMP lights and @Srqpoolguy posted that he is replacing failed Pentair lights with the Jandy P- series lights that are compatible with Pentair automation.

Pentair Globrite replacement option

Hello. My name is Justin and I Am a certified pool contractor down in Sarasota florida and also handle warranty work for several large companies (pentair and Hayward). It has come to my attention the pentair globrite lights have a huge failure rate. The housings all crack in the same spot...

www.troublefreepool.com

The problem in using CMP or Jandy lights is obtaining them as an owner. Fluidra, Jandy, and CMP all seem to not allow their products on retail channels.

If you can find a source for the lights they seems like the best being sold today.

Very helpful Alan. Yep, dealing the "we're ditching the internet" mantra for OB or DIY can be challenging. Worst case I'll have my electrical sub order them.

Thanks for the reply!

Chris