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

Chemical Warfare

Yesterday we managed to put together the entire machine room but the PVC glue must allowed to harden for at least 12 hours before it gets into contact with water. 

So we couldn't test run anything yesterday. No clue whether the pump works or there will be fountains squirting out of each pipe connection.

To be quite honest this had me so worried that I woke up before four this morning and couldn't get to sleep again. So it became a rather early morning today.

When I popped out this morning the pool had taken on a green/brownish color, mostly looking like a duck/frog pond.

Frog pond

It was really about time to get the pump/filter up and running. There was a coating of sand and muck all over the pool bottom. Most of it since the time when we refilled. The fine grained stone flour/sand flies around in the wind. We have started to lay ground cloth to stop the sand from flying around. It's also there to stop anything from growing once we get cranking with building the wooden deck.

To help the pump a bit I loosened the cap where you inspect/clean the filter and backfilled the pump directly with a garden hose. This way I got rid of all the air trapped in the pipe from the outlet of the pool to the inlet of the pump. When starting the pump it just picked up the water and immediately started to build a bit of pressure. The pump must never suck plain air as it could take damage from that.

Oh well what a relief, things are actually working. Following the manual and backwashing the filter first. That is the procedure to run the water backwards (from down to up) in the filter to get rid of dirt caught in the sand and push that out into the waste pipe.

Then attaching the "vacuum cleaner" and sucking up all the muck in the pool. Note that if the pool is as contaminated as ours it's better to set the filter to "waste" causing the water to go directly to the waste pipe without clogging the filter. Sure a good deal of water gets wasted but considering the amount of sand in the pool there was really no option.

Some time later one could actually see the pool bottom again...hooray.

Some vacuuming later

Our local Miamipool sales representative popped by with some goodies. As a side note: This is the major reason for our choice of vendor...they have guys close by to you and they make house calls on Sundays. Anyways it was time to strike back...with vengeance. Once the pool is clean of major debris it's time for chemical warfare. All kinds of stuff such as flocking agent, Baquacil (instead of chlorine) but my favorite has to be the "Chock". It's apparently used when taking the pool into usage after winter or in our case for the first time.

Loads of chemicals were dumped into the pool making it very hazy. Guess it's the flocking agent doing it's work. We won't see the final result until tomorrow when it has done its job and major particles should have dropped to the pool bottom. 

Whilst Agneta spent some quality time with a brush trying to get rid of the algae that sticks to the walls when there's no cleaning agents.

I was busy trying to resurrect the previously demolished wooden deck.
Things didn't go quite as we planned from the beginning. The original idea was that the pool would cut into the deck but due to solid bedrock we had to move the pool so now the deck is an itsy bit too short. Don't think that'll be a problem. Though what bugged me most was that the pool got a bit lower than we had calculated so I had to spend the better part of the day lowering the framing to the old deck.  Which in an essence means cutting grooves into the framing in order to lower it on the concrete posts/supports.

As a final to the week we've also started to replant the grass hoping that in a near future the dinosaur tracks are covered and all forgotten.

Next week will be a vacation week as I'm off to Sweden Rock.

Title reference: Chemical Warfare/Show no mercy/Slayer