This is where I spray yellow paint all over your back lawn and you ask me to move it ten times so that we get so confused that we end up digging the hole in the wrong place.
Stage 2: The dig
We roll up with a 5 ton digger, scrape off all the yellow paint and find rock. We use mini tippers because they can access dump sites that the big trucks can’t. Problem is that they are only good for doing wheel spins after it’s been raining. It’s always a good idea to have the client remove any trees from within the pool area, unless it is a swamp cypress or paper bark gum as they grow very well in water and would certainly add some interest.
Stage 3: Form the steel cage
Take approx 120 @ 9.0m long steel bars and bend them to fit the big hole that we have just dug. Or ask the excavator operator to drag them uphill for about 20m and you end up with the same thing. Tie them all together and fingers crossed it doesn’t rain before the walls collapse.
Stage 4: Pre plumb the pool
Take a few lengths of class 9 p.v.c pipe and glue half of the joints just to be sure that the leaking salt water takes effect 6 months before the warranty expires on the pool shell. Make sure that the lights are all at different heights so that you get an uneven illumination at night and put the skimmer box in crooked to piss off the tiler and make sure that the return line is where you planned to put the entry step to the pool
Stage 5: The Inspection
We tell the structural engineer to come and inspect the pool the day after we have sprayed the concrete.
Stage 6: Spray the concrete
Order the concrete and pump for a 7.00am start and fingers crossed that they arrive before lunchtime the next day. Chances are that if they do arrive on time then the concrete will be too sloppy, too dry or too lumpy to work with. Ask the Sprayer to put all of the concrete into one corner for a laugh. If he refuses then remind him that he did on the last job and the shell collapsed.
Stage 7: Tile the coping
Order the tiles about one month before you need them and be prepared to be told that the shipment still hasn’t cleared customs. When they do arrive you count them and find that there are twice as many pieces as you ordered although the correct number were dispatched. Ring the supplier and tell them that two halves do not equal one whole.
Stage 8: Install pool equipment
The plumber said that he would be there today, what he should have said was ‘one day’.
The concrete slab is only big enough for the sand filter and there’s no room for the pumps.
Stage 9: Install the pool fence
Big fuckin’ headache getting this stuff certified, I always try to get the client to do their own and tell them that they can save some money. It’s a great way to stall finishing the pool on time and you tell them that they are holding YOU up.
Stage 10: Certifiers Inspection
This is when the Certifier tells us that the boundary fence isn’t high enough, the pool fence is too close to the water, there isn’t enough area for resuscitation, the fence isn’t splash proof, the vertical timbers are too far apart, the horizontal timbers are too close together and he doesn’t care who gets sued so long as it isn’t him.
Stage 11: Pool interior
If it’s Quartzon you choose then expect calcium deposits to make it look blotchy and dull. If you decide to go with pebblecrete then don’t complain when you get cuts and scratches.
If you fully tile your pool then don’t whinge that you can’t afford a holiday for the next 10 years.
Stage 12: Fill the pool
Choice of two ways to fill your pool; either put a hose pipe in for a couple of days or get water trucks to carry it in but whatever you do, don’t turn off the tap at night because it is noisy like the owner of this pool did…………..he now has a lovely plimsole line half way up the wall.
Stage 13: Get Wet and have fun
Stage 14: Maintenance
Pretend that you’re back at school in the chemistry class, you’re learning all about pH control, salinity, phosphorous and trace element content, chlorine sanitisation, cyanuric acid, sodium bicarbonate, and how to manually brush a pool.
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