Pool Progress

We're on about day 90 since pool digging started, so I thought I'd post a progress update.  The yard is still in a fairly unpleasant state - but that's pretty much what we expected (although we didn't expect it for quite this long), there have been delays caused by Christmas, permit issues, rain, and other stuff that I don't understand.

Anyway, here's the pool, it's been tiled and had the coping put on - the sticky up bit you can see is the skimmer.


This is the wall that caused all kinds of delays with permits.  This will be filled in and then concreted on the top.

Given the rain, the pool is filling up with water. The light has been attached to the wire (on the right) and left in it's box in the middle, for about 2 months now.

These pipes will go to the roof, where the solar panels heat the water.

This is the filter and pump and stuff, with the trenches that have the pipes in them.  Hopefully they'll be filled one day.

They've finished building the wall, but there are a lot of bricks and things still lying around.  I'm not sure if they're going to serve a purpose, or if they'll take them away.

Here's another shot of the wall.

And some more wall.

Close up of the light.

This is the wall that was demolished to let the digger in,a nd which has now been rebuilt.  The new wall is a lot sturdier than the old wall, but it's a tiny bit wider, and so the garage door scrapes on it when it's opened.

The other side of the wall doesn't look so good at the moment.

Pool, day 6 (18)

After the rebar was put in, we had a lull of 10 days, while stuff was ordered. But it duly arrived, and then people came to put the equipment into place, and do the plumbing and wiring.

Here's the pool, with some pipes and stuff in it.



This is what they always call 'the equipment'. Because it's just a filter / chlorinator, there's no heater, and it's much smaller than normal. The pool will be a salt water pool, which I don't really understand. The chlorine is attached to sodium which makes it salty - so it still has chlorine to kill the beasts that you don't want, but it's not all nasty and chloriney. And the water feels different too.



This bit is called the skimmer, it's where the stuff that floats on the top gets trapped and filtered out.



And here's the light. I still don't see how we will change the bulb.


The inspector (from the council) came yesterday to, inspect. He seemed happy with everything, except the fences, which he said weren't high enough, because they had to be five feet high - but they are five feet high, which confused me. The gates need fixing - they need to close and latch automatically - we knew about that.

We need to get pool alarms for the doors from the house fitted. I looked online at Amazon, and a couple of people mentioned in reviews that these alarms were approved by their council. That made me a bit nervous, so I went to a pool supply store, and bought them there, for $80 each. The alarms have to be high enough that a child can't turn them off - when you open the door, you have 7 seconds to press the button, and then 14 more seconds to get through the door and close it (at least, that's my understanding). You should not be able to remove the alarms without using tools - so no tape or velcro to attach them to the door. I had quite a hard time finding all those rules - the LA County website was pretty useless, but eventually I found the Los Angeles Design and Construction of Swimming Pools Regulations.

It's not obligatory, but we're also going to get a pool alarm, which will go off if anything large falls into the pool (like a dog or a child).

Day 4

Day 4 of pool construction. Not much happening today - partly 'cos it's been raining for the last couple of days, and the hole is now full of muddy water, so all they did was empty it. Oh, and they brought some metal bars.



We got a 9 page document from Mr Carlos Pools, telling us what we are supposed to do and not do while they're building the pool. It might have been more helpful if we'd had this when we started, 'cos it says things like "The plans and inspection card willbe placed in a plastic envelope ... DO NOT MOVE, REMOVE or DISTURB ANY OF THE CONTENTS. Leave the envelope and its contents exactly where left." I mean, why would we do that?

"DO NOT ALLOW DOGS TO RUN LOOSE AFTER THE EXCAVATION OF THE POOL ...". Oops. I picked up the poop, so maybe they won't know.

"KEEP CHILDREN AND PETS AWAY FROM THE EXCAVATED POOL, ... PARTICULARLY THE EDGES." Well, as long as they don't watch the video. Anyway, no one fell in, so that's OK.

Today, which is day 5 of work, but day 8 since they started, they're putting the steel reinforcing bars in.