First some specs:
- In-ground gunite pool with 18" raised bond beam and spa 18" above the deck.
- Approx 670 sq ft. Maybe 25,000 or 30,000 gallons. Not really sure yet.
- Beach entry.
- Spa will have cascading ledger-stone waterfall.
- Not sure what finish I'm going to use, but will probably be a pebble product.
- Going to use mostly Jandy equipment:
- 400K natural gas heater
- 580sq ft cartridge filter
- 2HP variable speed ePump for filtration
- 3HP Stealth pump for spa jets
- 2HP Stealth water feature booster pump
- Jandy Aqualink RS controls and switches
- Aquapure SW chlorination system (I have mixed feelings on this due to city water waste ordinance)
- Not sure about lights yet. Pool has 2, spa has 1. I'll do colored LED in the spa, but I may not want purple pool water.
- Plumbing stuff:
- 3 2.5 inch suction runs across pool and spa. 2 skimmers.
- 4 returns in pool via 2" pipe reduced to 1.5" pipe at inlets.
- 2 returns in spa via single 2" pipe.

Excavation started about a week ago.

Really liked the steel guy we used. So far I've received the "oh man" reaction from everyone who as looked at my engineering plans. Apparently I chose the engineer who designs pools to withstand a meteor impact.

Not too satisfied with the plumber. His work is OK, but I ended up redoing his return plumbing. I couldn't get him back out to make the changes I wanted before gunite day. I ended up redoing his work myself... and it's hot outside these days.

Gunite day was today; 95 tons worth. And it was hot. I felt sorry for this crew... but you end up paying a lot of money for most of the guys to stand around all day while one guy does all the work. They all rush in to smooth things out, but I hope the person doing the spraying gets paid more than the others :).

It's looking a lot more like a battleship than I had planned, or perhaps Squidward's house. Hopefully flagstone coping and ledger-stone walls will add some appeal.

My masonry guy will be forming the rest of this week and I'll hopefully have a big shipment of stone and boulders come in on Monday to keep things moving along. The goal now is to finish the job before I run out of money. I shouldn't have let my wife talk me into this.

Thanks all...

I live in your town and were wondering if you were doing this yourself or what builder you are using. Your yard seems huge. Are you in Old Meadows or Lynn Ranch? We don't have a huge yard but we were thinking of putting a pool in sometime next year. We prefer to do things ourselves but not real sure when it comes to a pool. TIA

I'm in Conejo Oaks. There is more info on my build in the troublefreepool.com construction forum... I realized after trying to contribute to this forum that it's kind of tedious to post pictures here.

I'm doing this pool myself... that is, I'm subbing it out myself, but unlike the info you'd get from many owner builders I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. This isn't for the feint of heart and you don't save an incredible amount of money. But if you're construction oriented, go for it.

During the initial learning process I did run across 2 builders in our area that I'd recommend. I received enough positive feedback about them to trust their ability to deliver a quality pool. If you'd like... "private message" me in that other forum and I'll give you more detailed info.

Your pool is looking great. Can't wait to see the final product. I agree about it not being easy to build yourself. DH works far away so he doesn't have the time to devote to checking the progress, but ours would be on a much smaller/simpler scale than yours so we're not sure what we'll do yet. Thanks for the feedback!