Gates of Valhalla

Oh well these might not be as mighty as the legendary gates of Valhalla but still it's a gate to our piece of heaven, Valhalla that is.

Gates of Valhalla

It's been awhile since I updated this diary/blog and to be honest there's not much we've been at with respect to the pool project.
A few weeks of lazy vacation just enjoying the pool/sauna combination.

The most urgent thing to pay attention to was to install the pool cover. A custom made tarp that is supposed to protect the pool from debris when not in use as well as acting as a safety so that careless people don't fall into the pool and drown when we're not home.
I know it's ridiculous but those are the rules...I didn't invent them.

We bought a custom cut tarp with the pool and with it we got 31 pins which are to be drilled and hammered into the deck. The general idea is that the pre-made holes in the tarp are placed over the pins and secured with a hairpin like item.

We pretty soon discarded that concept as the "hairpins" were pretty tough to push into place.

I estimate it would take somewhere close to 40 seconds per pin accumulating to over 20 minutes of job to place the tarp/cover over the pool.

For a person obsessed with performance and efficiency this was just...not good enough.

The replacement was to buy a bunch of rubber straps normally used with tarps. 

The biggest difficulty proved to be to find a hardware store that had that many (31) in stock.

With that out of the way I quickly drilled 31 holes and hammered the pins into them.

Since this is supposed to be a security that is to hold the weight of a drunken adult (or something similar) we of course had to put it to test.
The construction passed the test with flying colors.

Crash test dummy in action

Realising that we had some leftover rebar mesh we made some use of it rather than tossing it.
So we installed a few mesh pieces on the outside of the fence and then planted blackberry plants allowing them to climb the mesh and produce edible crops.

There's now very little left of this project we can do this year.
The plan is to treat the deck with Siio wood protection but that has to wait until next year when the wood has dried properly.
Oh well I'll probably come up with something that needs to be done when I become restless.

Title reference: Gates of Valhalla/Into Glory Ride/Manowar

Paradise City

First on the schedule was to finish the deck.
Pretty satisfied with the result.

Once the deck was finished the light posts were mounted adding that cozy light when darkness falls.
Of course the lights are controlled by a brightness sensor.

No rest for the wicked, off to the next part of the project.
Yeah I know I suffer from a serious case of AMPS (Ants in My Pants Syndrome). I'm not much for sitting down and do nothing.
Anyways stairs needed to be installed at the entrance to the deck.

Stairway to heaven?

Whilst at it we took care of the hole between the deck in front of the sauna and the garage.
Cumbersome as it was to get into the machine room we continued the sauna deck towards the garage.

The keen eyed reader might notice that the boards in front of the sauna look different.
We replaced the old ones with the same type of boards used for the rest of the deck. All in the name of a consistent look and feel.

That concluded the actual deck building phase.
Next on the list is to build a fence around the deck as that is required to protect the pool from kids (or other careless individuals) to drop into the pool.
Don't ask me, I didn't invent the rules.

One part of the fence is to be built using rebar mesh. It looks rather nice when you have plants/flowers climbing up the mesh.

I love my angle grinder

As with everything else in this project it's a lot of measuring and fitting to make the fence look smooth and nice.

The final view is pretty nice if I may say.
We've planted roses next to the rebar mesh letting them grow and spread over the mesh releasing their fragrance over the pool area.
The fence is to keep nosy neighbors for watching when one takes a plunge from the sauna...:)

"Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home" /GnR

I don't know much of the grass but the girls sure are pretty and it starts to look like our own paradise city.

Title reference: Paradise City/Appetite For Destruction/Guns n Roses

Race with the devil

The race has begun to finish the deck before vacation,which in practice means this week.

Progress is slow around the short end of the pool where the stairs are. It's really a tedious job to measure and hand cut each and every board.

But the result is worth it if I may say. I would lie if would say that I'm not proud over the result. 

A piece of craftsmanship and art

Board by board, screw by screw we're getting closer to the finishing line.

Connected the pool lamp and tested it out. Looks pretty cool in the dark.

Be there light

By the end of the week we laid an army of boards using some 1600 screws and a few hundred nails...so far.
The weather this week has been grand, perhaps a bit too grand. The weekend boasted temperatures around and over 30 degrees centigrade. Working in the sun is no play. The pool has proved to be a life saver in these situations.

An all too common view is this, the kids are idling in the pool and me and my father-in-law struggle with the deck.

A little problem did arise as we wanted the lid to the surface skimmer (water outlet) to be aligned with the deck. But it lies some 10cm under the deck. Some hard thinking later this new innovation was made.

I present to you, the bottomless bucket! Some probably think I've lost my wits in the sun.

Bottomless bucket, yet another patentable solution

But by adding a few layers of duct tape (useful for anything) I got the just about the right thickness for the bucket to fit tightly into the surface skimmer. The lid just nicely then fits into the bucket...and voilá you have managed to raise the lid the needed 10cm.

Then finally becoming perfectly aligned with the deck. Pure luck, don't think so.

By the end of Sunday we've managed to get all around the pool. A few square meters are still missing at the far end but that will be finished tomorrow.

It's with some level of pride I look back at what we've built.

Every single board is individually measured and hand cut to fit the pool. 

Talking about cutting, the spoil heap is sort of growing.

heap/stack trace?

Anyways, this weeks endeavours are over. The sauna is heating up, the beer is cold ...think I'll just enjoy the rest of the evening.

Title reference: Race with the devil/Sin after sin/Judas Priest

Bridge to cross

First of this week was to get the pump/machine room all wired up properly.

All wired up

With that out of the way I powered up the heater pump.
Now Murphy's Law proves itself yet again. A few days after having powered up the pump I hear a faint sad sounding beep coming from the machine. The display says "EE2", which according to the manual is due to low pressure in the refrigerant system. Further on the manual states "Contact your dealer". Contacted Miamipool and immediately got the response that this was a fault that needed repair and this would of course fall under warranty for the product. So what do you do, it's nobody's fault but never the less it's extremely annoying.
A repairman is scheduled for early next week to have a look at the heater pump.  
So until then we'll just have to live with the temperature that mother nature decides to provide us with.

Now turning our attention to start laying the deck. As mentioned earlier our plan to re-use the same deck boards on the left side of the pool were foiled due having the move the pool a bit. The boards then became too short to reach all the way to the pool.
So we decided to re-use them on the deck connecting to the house.

The picture below is very typical. Me and my father-in-law are working and the kids are running around, hopping in/out of the water. It's after all keeping some 19/20 degrees celsius without heating.

Playing/workgrounds

We started to lay the deck from the house towards the pool and the sauna. This way we connect the holy triangle house-pool-sauna allowing to walk between these without touching the ground thus not dragging so much muck into the pool.

The deck from the house was extended on the same level taking the step a little further from the house. This gave a neat little area where one can sit and ponder.
Having laid the boards they were all cut into shape in one go to get a clean/neat cut.

For the first time ever one can now get from the house to the sauna without touching the ground.

It really gives a coherent feeling that it all belongs together.

Sunday morning, sun's shining. Looks like this a good day to work.

The view from the house towards the pool is starting to take shape.

Killer view?

Progress with the deck is somewhat slower than normally. There's not a straight angle so everything has to be measured and individually cut. Never the less we make progress.

The sauna is completely connected to the deck. We even managed to place the shower. Of course we have a shower, how could we else call it a waterland? There's a 20l water tank in the shower allowing the sun to warm the water. There's also a tap allowing you to get a proper mix of cold/hot water.

Shower coming up,

The most time consuming job so far has been to cut the boards connecting to the stairs. I'd rather spend a few hours more to do a proper job than to regret it for all the years to come.

Precision cut

Final view for this week. House and sauna are completely connected to the short end of the pool.
The holy triangle is complete....

It's been a very hot Sunday, almost too hot to work but this time around we have a pool to take a quick dip in. Believe I've been in the pool 4 times on the Sunday..so far.
The sauna is now warmed up so I'll treat myself to a sauna both on Saturday and Sunday.
Just because I can and deserve it.

Title reference: Bridge To Cross/1919 Eternal/Black Label Society

Dance in the rain

This past week has been really rainy so we had to turn our attention to other parts of the project that have been dragging behind.
That is connecting the water heater and getting the pump/machine room properly wired up.
The electricity so far has been temporarily taken from a power socket but it needs its own power central.

First off, install the water heater. Decided that two concrete slabs would do as mounting point.
Made holes in the slabs and stuck 10mm bolts from beneath, as simple as that.
The water pipes were already in place so it was a matter of glueing two square angle connections to them with a little piece of PVC pipe and we were set. Power will be taken from the power central in the machine room, cables pulled under the sauna and connected.

Sunday I for the first time directed the water to the heater/pump. Apart from a minor drip leakage from the one of the connections in the bypass it all works like a charm. Tightening the leaking connection with a bit of force and the problem is solved. Now the water is flowing the proper path, even though that the heater is not powered it's at least part of the water flow.

To make things a bit simpler I decided to pre-assemble the power central by mounting everything on a piece of plywood. I can then stick the entire package to the wall and it would be a matter of connecting the in/out-cables when putting things into place.

Apart from the standard fuses there's also a timer to be used to control the water pump. There's no reason to let the pump run 24/7. With our size of pool 10-12h/day would be more than sufficient.
The big block is a DC-converter to power the lamp in the pool.
Also note the small white boxes, they are wirelessly (Nexa compatible) controlled circuit breakers/switches.
This means no cabling needed to control them. You can add a wireless control into almost anything even program them yourself using a computer or a raspberry (vacation project?).
To start with I'll be adding a wireless light sensor to turn on/off the lighting on the deck and then a manual control for the lamp in the pool.

Even though the weather gods took a piss on us we still managed to conjure up a few rain free hours allowing to continue the work with the deck.
We now pretty much have the entire support construction built. We're almost in a position to start to lay the actual decking.

We're keeping our time schedule to have the deck finished before vacation.
Next on the list is to drag out wiring for the lamps in the pool and on the deck.

Title reference: Dance in the rain/Super Collider/Megadeth

Fall of the hammer

Summer is here and vacation is just around the corner.
For some it started this week. Friday was "school's out" for my son so I had to work from home.
A really hot day challenging my motivation to sit indoors and work.
When my son came running in his shorts to take a dip I had to follow example.
This is after all the reason to build the pool. To be able to take a short dip anytime we desire.

I'll have to surrender and acknowledge the fact that all the work and money for the pool really starts to feel worthwhile.

As for the construction work it continues at a sustained pace, no time to slack around here.

The current primary goal is still to build the deck around the pool. The framing really takes time to build since there's virtually no straight edges on the pool requiring everything to be measured and cut by hand.

If you're reading this and you're planning to build a Miamipool (of any model I guess) and think of letting the deck go over the pool frame, then I've got a tip for you.

Since it's not a good idea to let the deck floor boards lie directly on the pool frame you'll need to have something to attach the deck to. After some pondering and measuring it was concluded that laying  a 70x70mm wooden joist on the support struts of the pool frame it would become exactly the height of the pool frame. Still wanting a bit of air between the deck and the pool frame we added thin 10mm laths under the 70mm joists. These laths are typically found on any timber yard used in between the layers of boards in the stacks to let air ventilate. 

70mm joist with a thin lath

Using these 70mm joists one can then build a frame around the pool. It's a bit of work to make the frame follow the outlines of the pool. It becomes a lot of cutting and attaching but it's worth it if you want something to attach the floor boards to.

Not a straight line

During this weekend the neighbourhood has echoed from the fall of the hammer as we cut and assembled piece by piece of the frame.

Half of Saturday was spent coaching some of the kids from "my" squad at KA2IF during a local competition.

Never the less at the end of Sunday we had managed to connect the frame all around the pool and to the deck outside the house as well as the sauna. There's still some "blanks" to fill in but it's starting to take shape. 

Birdseye view

The coming week we should be able to finish the support construction for the deck.

If things don't completely go south of heaven we should be able to finish the deck before vacation.

Title reference: Fall of the hammer/Legacy Of Kings/Hammerfall

Start swimming

This week has been a very short week with respect to any constructional work. Pretty much all week starting from Monday to Saturday has been focused on the best festival in the world. I'm of course talking about Sweden Rock Festival.

Title of this weeks blog is taken from Delain, which by no coincidence happened to perform at the above mentioned venue.

Anyways the week has not been a complete loss for the ongoing project. The chemicals we dropped in last weekend took effect and we suddenly have a crystal clear water.

So I took the first dip, making me the first ever to take a swim in our pool.

The water was a bit nippy, but what the hell it woke me up...:)

Sunday was pretty much the only day we (atleast I) had time to build anything, tired as I was from a week's metal happening. We managed to get the concrete supports put into their place.

The "old" deck is now in shape again. The entire support construction is back in place.

From there we intend to first lay the outer frame and then build the support construction before laying the actual deck. One can now see things taking shape.

At one point we even enlisted our house guest staying for the festival, but honestly I much prefer his skills in the kitchen so we sent him there to prepare some food.

Warmed up the sauna to cleanse myself from a weeks worth of metal banging. For the first time in ages I jumped into water directly from the sauna. It immediately took me be back to all those summers as a kid I've spent in Finland, running from the sauna directly into a lake or the ocean. Thinking back it's probably 20 years since I've experienced that feeling....honestly what a bliss.

Title reference: Start Swimming/April Rain/Delain