Making a bed
As with the concrete footings, the pool shell can’t sit on bare earth.
Popular base materials include sand, small screenings (i.
Swimming pool construction project
Turtles all the way down
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand Mathew 7:26 And yet sand is a popular base material under foundations :P
Swimming pool construction project
Pipes rerouted and repaired!
We finally had the plumber here today to repair and reroute the pipes that were “discovered” during the excavation. Because they connect to the public utility, we’re not permitted to repair the pipes ourselves, but we can (and did) prepare the trenches for the new route, so it was just a matter of laying the pipe and cementing a few connections.
Swimming pool construction project
How to avoid your pool turning into a boat
There are many drainage aspects to this project.: A plethora of drainage locations
Long drain behind the upper retaining wall to prevent water placing pressure behind the wall.
Swimming pool construction project
Building the time lapse video
Before embarking on this construction project, I setup a camera to take a single photo every 10 minutes during the entire process.
Swimming pool construction project
Finalizing the excavation
With several backbreaking days of pick and shovel work behind me, I think I can finally call the excavation complete. Things went mostly according to plan, with the exception of a possible miscalculation of the pool wall to wall width…
Swimming pool construction project
Collapse!
It was always likely that the unpropped excavated wall at the rear of the pool deck would collapse if it got significantly wet.
Swimming pool construction project
Excavation (mostly) complete!
Mostly. There is still plenty of shovel work remaining to get the footing trenches exact, and there’s a substantial amount of manual digging to do in the areas pipes were discovered during the dig, but the rough (read machine) excavation is complete.
Swimming pool construction project
Digging time!
I’ve just completed two full days excavating and the site is taking shape.
1.7 tonne excavator
Removing the existing vegetation prior to full excavation.
Swimming pool construction project
Excavation preparations
Alrighty, it’s excavation time. To prepare for the dig I made the dig plan below:
Dig plan showing the elevation of each area to be excavated
Swimming pool construction project
Demolition
Before we can begin building the pool, a certain amount of destruction is required. Specifically, we need to:
Demolish the red brick paving above the pool area.
Swimming pool construction project
Building an automated water level maintainer for my green wall to prevent another fish apocalypse
Building an automatic water manager for a vertical garden wall.
Water-level Maintainer