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