Fletch - That's right, I remember you not having a screen on your pool!! I'm glad you like it w/o the screen. If I remember correctly, you also have a spa and are only heating it with a heat pump, correct? How is that working? I'm a little nervous about heat up time of the spa come winter, but I will just plan ahead. :) We don't have gas in our community and I didn't want a propane tank.

Jparkfire - Don't get me wrong, screens have their place, but I really don't need one. Also, before getting a screen, look into misquito misting systems. From what I've been told they work like a charm and are normally half the price of the screen cost. I'm having one installed come March because summer nights can get a little buggy. It's not really misquitos, it's more those annoying nats. I'll let you know how I like mine once I get it in.

Right now the subcontractor brought 4 guys with them and they are banging out the plumbing and rebar. The pool is almost done being rebarred and the sunshelf and main drains are plumbed. Returns and spa still have to be plumbed as well as rebaring the spa. I'll post pictures tonight.

Ok, so the guys were taking a lunch break so I got some quick pictures in. More to come tonight.

Great News, We passed inspection today! :) I should have more pictures up later today. Tomorrow is Gunite followed by pre-grade for the patio, plumbing and tile. The construction manager said he would give me a better time line tomorrow.

Leepoffaith it is looking great. Congrats on passing your inspection. By the way I wish we did not have to have the screen for our pool however the bugs are really bad as we back up to a preserve and a retention pond.

And Fletch58, Even with the screen the pool was 86 degrees this past weekend but it was in the 90's in Jacksonville. Also I have sectioned off the pool on the shallow end and have the ability to heat it like a spa. I get 1degree increase every 7 mins. I calculated it cost me about $4.50 to heat it up to 95 degrees. We tested it out 2 weekend ago and I do believe it will be a great addition for the winter time.

Ok, so we had Gunite done on Tuesday. Overall the crew did a great job. The spill way is great, the sunshelf is good, the stairs were formed very well and they consulted me before installing the lights which I appreciated. My only concern is a few of my jets in the hot tub are low (4"). It seems like if someone sits by these they are going to get an instant enema!! I'm working with the PB right now to remedy that problem. I'm very happy I stuck with the 6x8 spa. There is plenty of room in it for 6-8 people. Anything larger then that would have been overkill. Either today or tomorrow they are supposed to be coming to strip the forms and pre-grade. Then plumbing and tile. I'm shooting for my first swim day to be on or before Saturday, November 14th. Below are some pictures. As always, comments are welcomed!

Leepoffaith I do not see a light in the spa. Is this intentional????

You don't put a light in the spa so you can do secret things there. She is probably going to do secret things. CIA stuff and the such.

Leap,
Your getting there.
Minor steel oops on the spa, or is that how they do it down there.

Your last picture is the spa egg shaped or is it an optical illusion.

lol, I love the secret things in the spa comment. Yes, very secret things.... ;-) There is a light in the spa, it is on the wall opposite from the rock waterfall.

As for the steel, they are going to cut it out. I'm not sure why they kept it in there, but they did. I'm not sure about egg shaped? It's oval 6x8.

Leep, I love your spa and I'm happy for you that yours is 6' wide. That would have made ours so much better. I think ours is 5 by 8. The 8' is fine, the 5' makes it a tad cozy. I see what you're saying about the jets being low. But, I'd recommend that you keep at least some of them low to get the lower back area if you can. I think ours are all super high but I still need to check for you when I get back in town. I really like the sun deck and how the steps come off of it from one side - its a great size. Comment about the egg shape: I think you'll be happy with that for space reasons. Ours is more like a kidney bean so it narrows down a little on one side. Perfect oval (or egg) give you more footprint size. I like it.

Brew - Thank you very much for your compliments!! I've sat in the spa several times and it looks like the 6x8 will be great. I'm not going to move all the jets, only 2 of them that are very low. The rest will stay where they are. I can't wait for the pool to be done! Monday is pre-grade for the deck followed by plumbing.

Lee,looking really good! It`s obvious you did your homework
and will get a super pool.Found a good PB,beautiful design.
I`m envious of the space in your back yard,although we are
on a lake, we needed a shoe horn to get ours in.
We are also in Fla.On our first pool we went with the cage
pool was surrounded by tall trees(plenty leaves abd debries
to fall in) We moved to Vero and new development built new pool.It is sort of raised towards lake in back,I planted
beautiful,clean palms on both sides, from the house the pool
looks like it`s right on the water.The pool is much more enjoyable sans screen,stays more warmer.

Enjoying the progress of your build.Not too sure about the
high colonic feature of your spa though.lol....

JR

JR,

Thank you for your nice comments!! I am having a meeting with the construction manager today and will be having the colonic jets fixed! Turns out that only 1 of my jets is 7". All the rest are basically at 5.5 or 5" and then 2 are around 4". Fixing them probably isn't going to be easy, but they should have done it right the first time! The company I'm working with is very good so I have no worries. I'm very confident they will fix their mistake.

We really went back and forth about not having a screen. We wanted a large pool with nice landscaping and we just couldn't afford the large pool, nice landscaping and a screen, so we opted to get rid of the screen. Bugs really aren't bad by us and we plan on installing a bug system next March anyways. There is something very nice about having an open air pool integrated into your landscape and we are looking forward to having the only one in our community!

More pictures should be posted tonight or tomorrow after the pre-grade is done.

I'm cracking up at your colonics comment above! I posted our spa jet heights on your Need help quick thread. (10, 9, 7, 7, 6, 6. Please post pictures. I would love to see how they resolve your jet issue.

Leap,
The egg shape comment wasnt a dig, the 3D drawing looks round. You dont know how many "round" spas I see that look like eggs. Oval works.

Unfortunatly the only way to fix spa jets is with a big jack hammer.

Ok, so I was out of town for a few days which is why I was not able to update, but I do have a lot of updates!! First, while I was out they came and jackhammered a good portion of my spa out to move the jets up to my desired height. You can see pictures of that below. I'm soooooo happy and thankful that my PB did this for me without any problems. They are actually jackhammering more as I type this because I guess the holes aren't big enough. Re-piping will take place today as well as the firebrick for the fireplace. Tomorrow will consist of reshooting the spa and Wednesday is tile!

While I was out they also finished up the pool and spa piping to the equipment pad so I don't have any pictures of that, but I did take a picture of my equipment area. The PB was nice enough to pipe my top pool returns and lower pool returns on different valves so I can shut off the bottom ones if I don't need them. They also need to come out and put an actuator on the bubbler, but they will take care of that later. I will try and update tomorrow with more pictures.

OMG...looks like you had some giant gunite-eating gopher invade the backyard...the holes in that spa made me crack up this morning! You can see more clearly how low those "colonic" jets are....and so proud of your PB for fixing this for you. Kudos to you both for working out this problem...you'll be so much happier with the spa. OK...now we know you CAN jackhammer the @#$% out of a spa and fix it before the interior finish goes in, you just have to be willing.

Wow! Double wow! Your spa is going to be great!

Thems are tough termites lady!

Just Kidding;

Scott

Spa will be super,especially with the hint of "secret things"and no more threats of diarerra induced jets.
(pardon my vulgarity,I couldn`t resist)

My concern is, is that your finished equipment pad?It`s kind of tiny,will you have enough room for your heat pump,
filter,SWG and all your stuff?
Also,I`m curious what kind of pump?(make and HP)

Your back yard gona be awsome...JR

Good catch JR! The pad will at least need to be pulled to about 3 feet from the wall to ensure air flow. The air carries the "cooled" air exhaust out and away from the heat pump.

Scott

Jrgina,

The pad does look small, but that particular pad is only for the pump and the filter. The filter just got here this morning and in all honesty, it's going to be a very close fit. The DE60 Jandy filter is flippin' huge! The pump that is currently hooked up is the Jandy 2 HP E-Pump Variable Speed which will run both my pool and spa. There is a completely seperate pad for my Heat Pump which should be arriving today. I should have more pictures later today with everything hooked up.

Spa is now finished and the jet placement is 10 times better. The plumbers are now rerouting the Hartford Loops because they put them right next to my deck which looked horrid, so they are putting them next to my fence so they are out of the way. They are also hooking up the DE filter and finishing any other plumbing that needs to be done.

The rock guy should be out sometime today to make my firepit. He has already laid it out, he just has to make it which shouldn't take too long. Electrical guys will also be out today to do all the electrical, hook up the control system, deliver the heat pump and hook that up. Tomorrow will be tile guys followed by the rock guy for our spillway. We are moving right along!!

Congrats LEEP on the progress. sounds like you had excellent results from your PB. i think that speaks volumes for him in regards to the quick results. can't wait to see additional pictures as you get closer to swimming!

Ok, I have more updates! The electrical guys did the initial electrical layout 2 days ago. They were waiting to hook up with heat pump, Aqualink and Pump until the heat pump was set and hooked up. Today the plumbers came and set the heat pump and hooked it up to the plumbing. It's only about 6" away from the wall, but I read the manual and that is the required distance. I also talked to my PB and he was confidiant that it was far enough away from the house for proper airflow. As you will see in the pictures, the firepit is about 1/3 of the way done. They have the base poured and the first layer of bricks laid out. That should be done by tomorrow and then the tile people would be out here sometime next week as well as the electrical people to finish up the electrical.

We had an issue with the coping that we had picked out. Although the company advertised making a 12" double bullnosed coping, they don't have molds for it and would not make it. This would leave us with unmatched coping on top of the spa and firepit. Because of this my PB upgraded me to a nicer pre-cast coping for free and everything will be the same. The only problem is that the pool coping won't be here until a week from Monday and the Spa coping takes another week after that, so basically next week will be tile and then waiting for the pool coping to come in. Once that is in that we can get the decking done, then the spa and firepit coping, then the interior finish, ect.

Also, some of you may notice that there is no salt generator in my plumbing. I asked about this and my PB said that they don't install them until 30 days after the interior finish because they have had customers turn them on even though they tell them not to and then their warranty is voided. Made sense to me.

The heat pump is too close to the house! It needs breathing room to function. It must have two feet on all sides.

The way it's sitting now, it will lose at least 25% of it's ability to pull heat from the ambient air.

Scott

Poolguy,

I appreicate your opinion, but it conflicts with Jandy's own manual. Minimum clearance for opperation is 6" and recommended for servicability is 12".

Where are you getting your information from?

From every other manufacturers trainings that I have attended( 5 so far).

How is the side against the house supposed to get fresh air going across the heat exchanger on that side? I can't! It will pull more air from the unblocked sides., leaving a large portion of the exchanger starved of fresh air.

Remember, a heat pump is a central air conditioner running backwards, put in it's simplest terms and not unlike a window or through the wall unit except bigger. If you had one of these, you wouldn't block their air flow, right?

Expect algae and mold to form there too. There will be plenty of condensate. Give these conditions shade and see what happens.

Scott

Scott,

Thanks for the information. The reason I was asking is because I kinda agreed with you, I just wanted some reasoning behind asking my PB to move it. :) Thanks!

You had me wondering about our heat pump, its not installed yet but plumbing looks close to the house so I looked up the owners manual for our heat pump. It states 24" on all sides of the heat pump. I know its not the same brand but they must work the same.

Here is a link that might be useful: Owners manual see pg 5

By and large, they do. But bear in mind, some are BMWs and Porches, others are Kia's.

Scott

Leepoffaith My heat siphon manual states 24" at a minium however I installed it at 16" away from the house. I believe it works well however we have only used it about 6 times. Also is there a reason you do not have Jandy valves? I noticed the other ball valves.

I will be having the heat pump moved away from the house. It looks like Hayward, Pentair and Heat Siphon say 24 but Aquacal, Jandy and Gulf Stream say 12. Since I'm having it moved I think I'm just going to move it 16" or 24" away, it depends on how it will look. 24" is pretty far away and might not look right.

As for the valves, I'm pretty sure they are Jandy. They look just like the valves on Jandy's website.

Electricians just finished hooking up the Computer system, actuators and all that fun stuff. I'll take another picture tomorrow and update later :)

Leeooffaith, my mistake. They are Jandy ball valves. I had my PB put in the neverlube valves just because it seemed easier to turn off and on. My valves are actually made by Pentair and they look like the Jandy. I love them because I adjust them individually for each water feature and for the pool vac.

My Heat Syphon is also only 16 in from wall with no problems.I installed it myself,centered on a 4x7 slab/pad
my PB left when I told them I was getting a HP in future.

Don`t think a little less than 24" will hurt.

But the overall size on your pad/pads (your first picture)
got my attention.Your PB just bought a couple 2x2 squares
instead of pouring a decient size pad.Although tight he was
able to get everything in,but left no room to set your beer
can down when you clean your filter.

Didn`t fully buy in to the SWG going in later tale.

Sorry for the "nit picking",other than them being stingy
with the equipment pad,your pool is coming along great!
I`m envious,It will be SUPER!

JR...

I think human nature is a wonderful thing. Do you notice that when people do the wrong thing how quick they are to defend their actions? This heat pump placement issue is a prime example. "manual states 24" at a minimum however I installed it at 16" away from the house". (please no offence intended) The way heat pumps work is More circulation is better. The value of this website is that there are a lot of experienced experts giving prime advice to us poor homeowners. I love to hear it. And it's free. And I think I would be pretty dumb not to listen to it. Now I have a question. Is the placement of the heat pump better on the West side of the house or the east side. I can't put it on the south side. Any opinion? Thanks

So I actually called Jandy about this heat pump issue since I want to make sure it opperates correctly. They recommended 12" away from the house. I'm going to set it 16" away which gives me 4" over their recommendation.

As for the pad size, I did notice that they are small, but I really don't care about that. As long as the equipment fits, I really don't care what size the pad is. I have a DE filter which will have a hose that I roll out and turn a valve to clean. When it comes to cleaning the grids I'm going to hire someone since I really don't want to get into that.

I hope that everyone on the board understands that I appreicate everyones opinion! My philosophy is, the more information the better. The board members have helped me in many many ways with my pool and I am forever grateful. Although I might not take someones advice, it doesn't mean that I don't appreicate it. I take everyone's advice, add it to information that I already have and come up with what I think will be best for me.

Not sure about the pump plumbing. Shouldn't there be at least 8-12" of straight run into the pump after a direction change to ensure a smooth flow? As it's plumbed now, I imagine there is going to be a lot of turbulent water entering the pump. On the exit side, I thought it's also good practice to have a length of straight run before a direction change?

Had they simply rotated the Jandy valve before the pump 90-deg, so that the output port pointed down, they could have eliminated a extra 90 deg bend. When I installed my ePump, Jandy suggested using 2.5-inch pipe from the last valve to the pump. Since the Jandy valve and the ePump quick-connect support this, it was an easy change.

"Not sure about the pump plumbing. Shouldn't there be at least 8-12" of straight run into the pump after a direction change to ensure a smooth flow?"

It used to be 2X the pipe diameter, then 3X, then 4X pretty soon it will be 20X. This is a standard rule to pump engineering that has been applied to pool pumps.

I feel that on a pump with a strainer basket it has very little effect on it. You want laminar flow going into the eye of the impeller, but the strainer changes the point where the eye of the impeller is locate. I also feel the a ball valve can be placed right on the suction if the pump, since they have very little affect on the turbulence of the water.

We have many tight mechanical rooms that don't allow us to follow this rule, and I can't say I have ever noticed the difference in pump output, noise, or longevity.

I am personally more concerned with the fact that the suction piping goes above the pump. This makes it very difficult to prime the pump, because air will get trapped in the pipe that is above the pump.

Racket - Thanks for the tips. I was reading the install manual on the epump and I found this "To help prevent difficulty in priming, install the suction pipe without high points (above inlet of pump - inverted "U"s, commonly referred to in plumbing as an airlock) that can trap air." I'm thinking that means what you said about having it higher then the suction inlet on the pump. I am going to bring this up to my PB. Thanks! :)

Hey Board Members!!

So, I apologize for not updating regularly since Oct 30th. I went out of town for a week, had family in for Thanksgiving and time kinda got away from me. Anyways, to cut to the chase, we are up and running and I could not be happier. Everything turned out fantastic and the pool is everything we wanted it to be and more! Instead of posting lots of photos, I took a video with my iPhone and posted it on You Tube. The link is at the bottom of this post.

If anyone has any questions about anything, please let me know. I have also listed a few things that I thought people might be interested in.

1. So far a Heat Pump for heating both the pool and spa have worked fantastic. Yes, the spa takes at least 1 hour to heat up from 80 even in 75 degree weather, but I'm OK with that. Recently the pool was sitting at 69 because we turned off the heater and we were able to heat the spa up to 100 in about 3 hours in 55 degree weather. Yes, this is a long time, BUT I work from home and can plan ahead. I'm just glad I didn't have to install and fill a propane tank!

2. Blue Granite Pebblesheen is beautiful!!! It's the purest blue you could imagine. No green what so ever and we love it. However, we also got Shimmering Sea... athough pretty we don't think it was worth the extra cost.

3. 8x6 spa has PLENTY of leg room. If you are debating on spa size, 8x6 is perfect. You can fit 6-8 easily and 2-4 people have a ton of room while in it. I don't see anyone needing anything larger.

4. A variable speed pump is a great thing to have especially with water features and energy savings. I love the fact that I can raise and lower the speed by the PDA and I can set my waterfall speed exactly where I want it to be.

Here is a link that might be useful: Leepoffaith's Pool Video

Your spa dimensions, 8x6, is that interior measure or exterior?

Lee,

Looks good!!! I would like for you to send me some pics for my website if at all possible.

nasabe,

Spa dimensions are almost inside.

Leepoffaith,

Beautiful!

Scott

Nosabe,

Those are inside dimensions, basically water's edge to water's edge.

One other note, the reason I'm explaining everything was because this video was oringally made for my family back in Illinois and Wisconsin :)

Appreciated the video. Your thread/build has been very helpful to me.

Nice video. It looks like you have a real nice recreation area. I like the adition of the fire pit. Cozy.

Leepofaith, your pool looks great. No big deal with heating up the spa just about enough time to have a cocktail :), last time we heated up our spa conversion from the pool it took 7mins to get a 1 degree rise......The wife loves the firepit. She has been behind me to get one to put on the paver deck outside our screen and I told her too many bugs to enjoy it there and I do not want it inside the screened in portion of our pool deck.

Lee -

I keep looking but don't see which PB you chose. We are also in Tampa and are beginning to meet with pool builders. Right now we're looking at Landmark and Tri County plus maybe Patio Pools. I'd love to know which one you chose, why and how you liked them. You can email me at windlassie@hotmail.com if you don't want to post here (I also can't figure out how to email you from this site.)

Thanks!

Stacy

Hi leepoffaith,
I know this is an old thread but I'm doing a remodel and had a question about your spa. You have six jets, right? Are you happy with them after they were moved? And are you happy with the single pump? I am getting a lot of pressure to use two pumps (no matter how many jets), and I want more jets...
Thanks!

Hello leepoffaith,

I know it's been years since you created this thread but I'm in the same situation with after gunite the spa jets being in wrong location. Getting push back from our project manager and we're now requesting a meeting with owner of the company. I would like to know if you had any issues with your pool or spa after areas of the spa were cut out and fix and your pool was completed. Would be grateful for any feedback you could share.