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Day101 - She reigns.
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Day 101 - We're happy that the pool and hot tub are complete. Just wish it were winterized so we could use the hot tub. |
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Day 101 - Spent at least 2 weeks brushing the pool down. It was time-consuming, but should be worth the trouble in the spring when we get to feel the results. |
Day 112 - Our first use of the hot tub today Friday, November 12, 2010. It's been 82 days of waiting to get to this point. |
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Day 112 - The steam prevented a good picture from coming
out. It was approximately 32 degrees out when we got in. It was approximately
100 degrees within.
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Day 113 - Someone's out working in that garage. |
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Day 114 - Lana suggested buying a net for our pool prior
to getting our pool cover. I said it wouldn't make a difference. As
you can see the amount of leaves remaining in November on the trees,
it was the BEST investment you could make if you don't yet have a pool
cover and you don't have your pool winterized. It was about $100 and
worked REALLY GREAT. Thanks Lana.
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Day 114 - There are a lot of remaining items to do around here and the pictures will come in slowly between now and Spring, but we hope to debut the entire pool sometime in late Spring. I know it will take a few years to get it right and not sure the projects will ever stop. One item that I'm really interested in doing is placing a pizza oven near where the stack of blocks are in this picture. I'm very intrigued in attempting to build an outside pizza oven. |
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Day 114 - This is a familiar picture for about a month.
We had to take the net off about every other day to clean up. We couldn't
use an automatic cleaner for one month due to curing time.
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Day 141 - OKAY, 101 days from the time they began and the pool cover is almost on. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? If you guessed that they're installing the cover in the snow, ABSOLUTELY. I wish people could tell the truth a little. Instead of indicating that the pool will most likely be done in 45 days, perhaps indicate that it takes from 45 to possibly 3 times that long depending on our schedule. It will be winter time when we have it complete most likely. |
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Day 141 - I now have to wait till spring time to see the quality of workmanship. They didn't use the cable that was provided for around the hot tub, but the manufacturer indicated that sometimes it's not required. They did miss one hole. Instead of getting them out, I purchased more hardware myself. I'll finish it. My confidence level has really dwindled throughout this project. That's a shame. |
Day 141- Tough to watch for me, but it seems to be holding
up well. Time will heal these frustrations experienced through this
project.
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Day 141 - A view from the top of the driveway. |
Day 141 - Draining the water for winterization. This
will be the last year this can happen. We've got 2 houses being constructed
on this property adjacent to our property. I'll be builing a wall at
the same level as the floor of the house and running drainage pipe to
the front yard and will have to come up with some way to dissipate the
large quantity of water when draining/backwashing the pool. Got to be
constructive with that.
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Day 141 - They're using an external pump. I'll simply
use the backwash cycle when I DO the winterizing next year. They won't
be back to do our winterizing.
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Day 141 - I'd like to comment further, but my good side says to leave it alone and accept the fact that we have a really nice pool and a great opportunity to hang out in our wonderful backyard. |
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At this point, there will be a lot of work to be done in the Spring time, but it's really getting cold here in December. Time to enjoy the hot tub for the remaining part of the Winter. I've got plenty of ideas for the winter time. We'll keep you posted. I've been very impressed with our Natural Gas 400,000 BTU heater. We're averaging about $75 month in gas costs to keep the hot tub heated at 70 degrees with cover only on the hot tub. I expected probably twice that cost in heating. It appears to be well insulated for a concrete pool and can handle that cost for the 4 months of winter. We averaged about 20 degree nights in December when our bill was $75. |
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Day 141 - Throwing winterization chemicals in the pool.
After that's done, running the vacuum through all the different pipework.
Seems like a pretty simple task. One thing they didn't do is run antifreeze
in the pipes. Only within the skimmer cavity. I might opt to put it
within the pipes and then build a valve to blow it out the back of the
Pool house. Um, projects when I'm bored next summer.
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Some thoughts after going through this construction scenario. If I had done it over again, I would sub-contract out the entire pool process. I would probably use pool builder to dig the entire foundation and construct the pool prior to gunnite process. From there, I would be happy to find other vendors. The one item that wasn't shown in any of the photographs was the caulking job around the pool. I won't be able to confirm till this summer, but I think it was done pretty poorly. I'll have to post some pictures when it gets warmer to see some opinions on the work. |
