Work back underway

Phases 1-2 of the builders "comeback" plan has been executed. The variance application has been submitted to the county - and the temporary fence around the pool area has been installed.
With the fence up - the actual pool can be completed.

FL has very strict rules about the safety precautions that need to be in place before water can go in a pool. The fact is that children are MANY times more likely to be injured in backyard pools than they are by handguns. (please don't read this as a 2nd amendment message - we now HAVE a pool underway - and NO plans for a gun)

Early next week the final electrical installations will be completed - then the actual finish inside the shell - then the installation of a child safety barrier - and THEN by weeks end we should be putting water into the pool!

builder REALLY feeling the pain

Spoke today to the owner of the construction company - and they are well of the fact that this issue rests solely in their sphere of responsibility. Better - they are tacitly acknowledging that fact.

Plan of action agreed to this afternoon:

• Builder will construct a temporary but code compliant fence around our property to enable work on the pool to restart - no later than mid next week
• Builder will file for (and pay for) the variance application
• Builder acknowledges that I will be delaying a payment due now until AFTER the variance is granted - and that if it is NOT granted that we have a whole other set of issues with regards to compensation.
• Builder recognizes that to get on the July council agenda that the paperwork needs to be completed by next week.

It is a plan - but it sure would have been nicer to be talking about construction completion next week than facing these hurdles.

I knew that this process was just going too well up to now!

Builder now feeling the pain

OK - so now that my blood pressure is back merely to a high boil rather than the sufficient to "power a cruiser" pressure zone - we are working the issue of the setback.

This is a major mistake by the builder.... and they even realize it at this point.

The contractor received word about this issue a full month prior to starting the actual construction of the home - and NEVER mentioned it to us until after the requested permits for the screen were rejected. If they had noticed the issue and talked with us we could have simply pulled the pool in another 3 feet closer to the home and the issue would have been resolved. We have the deck space to spare - and it would have actually saved us a couple of $k on deck materials etc.....

Instead we are at a complete construction halt - and we are going to have to wait as much as two months for the necessary paperwork to be approved (IF IT IS APPROVED) to get the screen up.

Obviously payments have been halted - and now we are escalating the pressure on the builder. This is not a case of OOOOPS... instead we are in the "what are you doing to fix this and keep building my pool" conversation now.

Tomorrow I will be calling the owner of the construction firm.... I wonder what they think of demolishing the pool and starting again on their dime?

A very abrupt halt

Well we have hit a BIG roadblock - and frankly it is a pretty momentous screw up.

Seems like the builder neglected to mention to us more than 60 days ago that when the county approved the plans for the pool - they REJECTED the notion of a screen enclosure. We are evidently less than the required setback from the brick wall behind our home - and will need a variance in order to get approval to complete the screen.

Now was posted earlier - our builder was WAITING for the screen to be constructed before completing the pool itself. ... so everything is currently halted awaiting resolution to this mess.

To make things worse - the next time we can get on the county agenda for a variance is not until JULY 23rd. Yeah.... you can imagine how happy we are with the builder right now.

Waiting for a screen.....

Construction finally hit a bump in the road. Not so much because there is a problem as because we are waiting for one contractor to finish their piece before about 5 others can come on site to do their own work..

We have contracted for a screen enclosure - and that vendor is still waiting for the permits to come through from Seminole County. Once the permits are issued - the contractor can come on site to take final measurements, then fabricate and finally install the enclosure.

The current "word" is that we will hopefully have the permit issued next Tuesday / Wednesday - get the final measurements taken after Memorial Day, and have the screen actually built on site by the end of the first week in June.

According the the pool contractor - the construction can be completed within 10 days of the screen going up.

It LOOKS like a pool now - when it was only partly constructed it was easier to be patient.

Paver installation complete

I know even from the little bit of work that I did clearing the old pavers how hard that type of work is when it is 90 degress outside.

A crew of 6 arrived on Thursday - and in 10 hours of effort the entire deck is down, installed and completed.

Man do these guys work hard!

Wife.com is delighted with the color of the stones. She is not a fan of red, and these dusky sandy looking bricks look MUCH better with the color of our home.

I could not be more excited - the pool is looking like a really swimming hole and I am anxious to get the final steps complete!

Deck choices

The two principal choices for a deck are concrete or stone. Having said that– the types of materials available in those two categories are enormously varied.

There are engineered products like coolcrete, and stamped concrete which can look like bricks, stones, pavers or a 100 other surfaces.

But if concrete provides choices - once you start talking about stone, the options grow exponentially. There are a huge variety of paving materials including bricks in a range of colors, flagstone, marble, etc… then once one has chosen the material there are a variety of construction techniques and “treatments” that provide a range of designs etc.

Since our home had come with pavers originally and we liked the look (even if wife.com was not a big fan of the color) we decided to replace the existing pavers and change the color of the stones to something sandy and similar to the color of our house.

Removing the pavers was a nasty job – and that was only some 600 square feet. Including the lanai and the area around the pool – we are talking about almost 2000 square foot of pavers to be installed!

The picture at the left gives some perspective on the TONS of stones that were delivered this morning.

Today is probably the 100th time in the last month we have been grateful that there was an empty lot beside our home to act as a staging area for the construction process…..

Preparing the decking

While the texturing of the concrete was underway - there was again another crew on site today to work on the deck.

Today was the grading stage... prepping the ground around the pool and in the lanai area for the arrival and installation of the brick pavers.

It is beginning to get really exciting - instead of a big construction site - it is beginning to actually LOOK like a pool.

The pictures above show what the ground looks like ready for the deck to be installed (tomorrow)

Concrete Texture

Today's step was the texturing and painting of the concrete.

This reminds me of texturing a ceiling.... a coating is sprayed onto the concrete and allowed to harden. This "ridged" pebble coating is then painted with a special (obviously non water soluble) paint.

The first picture on the left shows the texture material itself being sprayed on - the second shows one of the crew smoothing that texture out and preparing the surface for the final painting coat.

Concrete complete

I am on the west coast today - but wife.com took some great photos of the concrete work as it progressed over the course of the day.





Step one was attaching a temporary plastic form to the edge of the pool to help the concrete "set" into a nice smooth cantilevered edge that is "foot friendly".

Step two involves the actual pouring of the concrete into these molds - which is then smoothed into place.

Evidently the enire process from start to finish - including the pouring of the footer around the endge of the deck was completed in just a couple of hours.

inspection complete

I am on the road today - but got word that the county inspectors came by and approved the concrete preparation.

Our builder has been incredibly responsive thus far. Evidently they got word of the inspection by 10:00 am - and by 11:00 I was getting a call from the production coordinator informing me that concrete is being poured tomorrow.

Pouring on Tuesday - texture on Wednesday - and the installation of the decking on Thursday / Friday....

We contracted for a screen on Friday - and thought at the time that there would be approx two weeks until that step was required.... turns out that the screen is going to cause us a delay, but only because work is moving so quickly, not because of any timing issue.

Once the concrete footers are poured - THEN the screen company can come out and take precision measurements. Prior to that everything is only a "rough" plan on the screen. Instead of the 2-3 weeks between pouring the footer and completing the deck that was expected on our production plan - BOTH tasks will be complete in the same week.

Decking footer

The second part of the concrete prep entailed building the outline for the deck itself.

The deck itself is going to be covered in pavers (we will talk about that in more detail in a later entry) and required a “frame” to hold the pavers in place. This frame, also called a “pad” provides a foundation for the screen that will cover this whole area.

Evidently residential construction is really slow in Orlando right now. Instead of fighting to gain access to tradesmen in order to stay on track – we had a THIRD crew in the yard today working to create this deck frame.

A trench is dug – rebar to reinforce the concrete - then a wooden form is created to outline this 18 inch wide 12-18 inch deep concrete structure.

Once the frames themselves were in place – we needed to wait for the county inspectors to “bless” the pre-concrete work prior to having another team come in to pour.

Frame for the deck

While the tile guys were in the pool completing their tasks, another team was creating the forms for concrete work that would outline the brick paver deck and the concrete coping that marks the edges of the pool itself.

Our pool back in Vancouver had a slab concrete deck - and the coping was a simple strip of curved PVC pipe. The only alternative at the time was a to set concrete tiles on the edge of the pool themselves - sealed in concrete themselves but overlapping the edge of the pool.

Newer technology now allows for creating a seamless poured concrete edge that cantilevers over the edge of the pool - with the concrete itself being textured and then painted to provide a decorative border.

It took a crew only a few hours to create the forms for this poured concrete edge. These forms required steel rebar and then another inspection from the county before the actual pouring could begin.

Tile is finished

It is difficult to tell in some of the earlier pictures, but when the frame was blow for the pool - only the WALLs of the waterfall were created.

When the tile company was completing their work, they needed to frame and pour the boxes that would eventually form the steps leading up to the waterfall, and then tile the edges of these boxes as well.

By Monday afternoon these "boxes" were complete and the grout had been applied to the tile as well.