Now that's a crane
70-tonne Liebherr mobile crane arriving It’s time for step two of moving the pool shell into place (step one being already complete).
How to build a pool
Special delivery
With the pool base compacted, screeded and ready, it’s time to put the shell down.
The pool site itself is in the back garden and there’s no access for a crane so we’ll be lifting it over the house from the street.
How to build a pool
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.
How to build a pool
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
How to build a pool
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.
How to build a pool
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.
How to build a pool
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.
How to build a pool
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…
How to build a pool
Collapse!
It was always likely that the unpropped excavated wall at the rear of the pool deck would collapse if it got significantly wet.
How to build a pool
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.
How to build a pool
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.
How to build a pool
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 The large black square is the existing rainwater tank slab and all elevations are relative to it (i.
How to build a pool