Pool Project - A Week at a Pop - 09/07/2016 - 09/14/2016

With this week, the project reaches about mid-September. And, it's become easier to see that progress is being made. Just like in a remodeling project, everything under the drywall is hidden from view, everything under the ground line or under a layer of concrete is pretty much hidden from view - even though it comprises about a hundred and seventy-five yards of rock, gravel, steel, and concrete. Very little of that will ever be visible to the naked eye.

Steel Frameworks Being Assembled

Some of the steel is in this shape, which will help define the columns and bracing around the pool

Steel in Position on the Backside

Here's some of those same bits of steel, each connected to a 'bed spring' of steel buried under a foot or so of rock and concrete. All this is on top of about four-and-a-half feet of rock.

Working in Close Quarters

Some of it necessitated working in close quarters. The guys have gone to great lengths to preserve as much of the Ereca palms as they could. I don't think we've lost any, although there were a couple of them that had to be relocated, but they're still doing fine, just somewhere else in the yard.

Remember, each five-gallon bucket full of wet concrete weighs around one-hundred-ten pounds. They passed these back and forth to help fill the excavation on the back side. Not to mention the tons of rock that they've already moved there.

Getting Column Forms Ready

Once all that is done, then the guys had to jockey heavy wooden forms into place in order for them to cast the columns. Nothing is ever easy. Remember, too, that this is September, one of the hottest months of the year, with commensurately high humidity levels. Truly abominable working conditions at times.

Deck Lumber Piled Up

I think I forgot to include this (or similar) photo earlier. It's all the treated lumber from our wooden deck. It's pretty much been spoken for, but I've held off distributing it, as I've said the constructioneers have first call for whatever their needs are for forms, etc.

In Position and Ready for Pour

Here's one of the forms ready for a pour of concrete. At this stage, the concrete will only go up to almost the top edge of the pool. After that at some time, additional steel will be tied to the stubs and then more forms, will run it up to around nine or ten feet.

Fastening Forms to the Structure

Of course each form has to be secured to something so that it doesn't move out of position during the pour. Endher is fastening the form and additional bracing to fulfill that purpose.

Positioning Rocks For Pump House

At the Pump house side of things, It's one of the last areas to be worked. Here, lots of rock is still being placed. The water looks overwhelming, but that's only because the guys dug down to firm rock/marl, in order to place three to five feet of rock. Because of that, the water pools in those low places until the rocks diplace it. The water is being channeled to go down the ditch through the patio to the canal.

First Pour On Top of Rocks

Once sufficient rock is in place then they start getting things ready to prepare a footing for the pump house. Here you can see the rock bed is pretty much done and a first bit of concrete is in place next to the pool, also helping to stabilize some of the piping for the pool.

Beginning the Pour

Here, they're beginning to set the forms and begin the pour for the footing of the pump house. Roughly the same shape as the first one, but about twice the floor space. Plus, all the valving and the pumps themselves will be elevated up off the floor, since us old fart folks just can't bend over as easily as we used to.

Bracing Columns Ready For Next Phase

I mentioned the stubs of the columns. Here is a good view of those. The lower part that you see here is fulfilling two purposes, one, the bracing to help secure the pool from any future shifting, and two, to become part of the column for the roof.

Removing Diamond-Brite Cap

Part of the project involved reworking the Diamond-Brite coating on the pool, and restoring the chain around the perimeter. Here, the cap of Diamond-Brite is being removed.

Cutting New Skimmer Opening

This last photo for the week shows the plumbers cutting a new opening for the skimmer. You can also see the footing coming along for the pump house.

Pool House Expansion Project, Days Twenty-Three, 24/10/15

Here we are at another day of the Pool House Expansion Project.

Day Twenty-Three - 24 October, 2015

One of the daily tasks the crew does is a general sweepdown of the whole construction area. Otherwise, the concrete debris would become overpowering in short order.

A Clean House is a Happy House

 Several columns and lintels have gone up. All of them will be tied in to the chain, the ring, or the belt-beam, whatever you want to call it, hopefully, making it a unitized structure of sorts.

Another Column Form Up

 Just a shot down the south walkway, which is the narrow walkway. The west and east walkways are both six-foot wide, while the south walkway is only four-foot wide. It was simply a cost-cutting measure that lopped off a few square feet thus lowering the cost a bit.

South (Narrow) Walkway Very Crowded

 Here's an overhead hot of the west outer wall. It's almost ready to receive the wooden forms for the chain.

West Outside Wall Almost Complete

 This is the lintel form for the office, on the right, going under the lintel from there takes you into the living room.

Office Doorway Lintel Is Ready

 Cutting up some wood for a form. Concrete houses use up much more wood than you would think for forms and supports, etc. Most of it is taken out after the concrete cures, and can be reused for other projects and stuff.

Surprising How Much Wood A Concrete House Needs

 Here's a view of the outside, south wall, showing the screen openings. We're planning to use shadecloth, like what we used on the pool awning and in the garden awning. Gina and Keith used it for their whole veranda on their house and like it well, so we're going to give it a go ourselves.

Outside, South Wall

 This view is looking from the southwest corner along the western outer wall, also showing the screen openings.

Outside West Wall

There's many more photos than appear in each posting. You can see all the photos of the construction project on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/0wVc3s. There will be new photos added each day of the project.   

Pool House Expansion Project, Day Eight - 29/09/15

This cave-in, which occurred adjacent to the 2nd gate and driveway, required some prompt action.

Day Eight - 29 September, 2015

The guys were expecting several deliveries of sand, gravel, large rocks and cement. None of it light (in weight) stuff. In the picture below, it's been cleaned and readied for a small load of rock to fill it. After it's filled, Carlos (our caretaker) will cover it with marl and after a while, you wouldn't know there was ever a cave-in there.

Cave-In Being Remedied

Before the trenches can be filled with concrete, steel rebar must be added.

Cutting Rebar to Length

Along with cutting the rebar to length, there's a need for smaller diameter rebar (like 1/4" stuff) that is bent and formed to make a sort of collar for the rebar that helps give it some 3-dimensional qualities, like in the rebar columns. Here's Omar forming up a bunch of those for just that use.

Omar Bending 1/4" Rebar As Frames For Heavier Rebar in Columns, etc.

The rebar part of the project moved right along, as you can see from the photo below. And already the vertical pieces for the columns are set, making use of Omar's frames.

Rebar is Already in the Trenches

The shot below gives you a little bigger perspective of the whole project. if you're wondering why the rebar runs up so high for the columns, keep in mind that our ceilings in the new part are going to be 9-foot 6-inches. Nice and high. They appear more so right now since the floor level hasn't been cast yet.

Big Picture of the Vertical Rebar Pieces

One thing I had never seen before is the use of concrete standoffs to raise the rebar in trenches up to the mid-point of the pour. Oh, sure, everyone uses bits of concrete block to use as standoffs, as well as whatever other material may be on hand.

This is the first time that I've seen purpose-built standoffs. These even come with a length of tie-wire molded into the standoff, in order for it to be married to the rebar, so there is little danger of the rebar becoming misplaced during the pour. Pretty cool idea.

Deeohgee Inspecting the Concrete Standoffs

One of the tasks that's very important from our perspective, is keeping a handle on the spending for a project, especially something that's fairly major - at least as far as our bank account is concerned. Dianna loves doing this, and dove right in. She set up a notebook, and has everything organized. Tracking invoices, receipts, and estimates, is right up her alley. I'm so glad she likes doing that, and she's good at it too.

Dianna, Reverting to Her Past Life, Keeping the Books

Of course, we've found another small cave-in. It's right next to the round one that we patched up already. This one's a lot smaller. As work progresses, any leftover concrete the guys have, goes into the hole. For now, that seems to be sufficient. We've had heavy trucks run over it with no problem, so it seems to be under control. We are keeping an eye on it. Just one of the hazards of living on a limestone coast. We're lucky in that none of the cave-in activity around here seems to be on a par with the really scary stuff like up in Florida.

Another Small Cave-In. This One is About One-Foot Across

One of the real treats whenever we have a construction project is that the breakfast man,  'FatBwai' (Fat Boy in standard English) shows up and sells hot dogs, tamales, hamburgers, patties, all the good breakfast stuff to the workers. He doesn't have everything every day, but the menu varies a lot. He also sells bags of juice and some bottles of juice too. The mornings he doesn't show up, the workers all complain that FatBwai is starving them.

FatBwai Bringing Sustenance to the Troops

If you'd like to see more photos of our project as it moves along, check out this link. Click on https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/GwZ9si to see the complete album of the Pool House Addtion Construction. It'll get added to daily.

The Columns

The columns. Some folks have asked about them since the only thing that appeared in the blog till now was this photo showing columns at the end of the garden - and no detail. So, here's the story of the columns.

The Column Appears

They started off as plain old concrete columns that were destined to become a stair railing for the garden area. Carlos asked Dianna if she wanted a stone veneer applied just like back in the patio area. Dianna said yes, that it was a good idea and would help to unify everything.

I had wanted some sort of metal railing for the stairs. We had this piece of pipe left over from some project or other, so Carlos quickly incorporated it into the columns.

Hand Rail From the Side

I'm not sure that leaving the upper end exposed was the coolest thought we had about the project, especially since getting a cap for it seems to be somewhat problematical, but, it does give it that little original flair (sounds better than saying that we screwed up, right?).

Hand Rail - Back View

From looking up at the columns and rail, here's the next one looking down on the thing. Still need to find a cap for the end. I'll locate one sooner or later. It's not really a problem, just slowly solved, that's all.

Hand Rail - Looking Down

Of course, from this angle, we could call it a deck gun... "Swab out that barrel sailor! Load it and make sure your slow-match is burning brightly. On the up-roll... FIRE!"

Works As A Cannon Too