Introduction
This story has taken a couple of decades to form. When I think back upon this time, there are elements to this story that goes beyond simply building a pool. I hope to share some of those insights as well as documenting the process of building a gunite pool.
Background
It was about 15 years ago when my wife and I developed our list of 10. This list of 10 was very specific. There were 10 things we wanted to have in our next house, and one of those items was a pool.
Since my wife has been a realtor for two decades, we have had plenty of opportunities to view houses over the years. With each house we viewed, we compared the features of the house to our list. We were never able to find a house that had all 10 features we wanted, as well as being affordable.
It took many years of searching, thinking, and visualizing where we wanted to live. We realized we would have to build our house of 10. We knew what we wanted in the house, but we just didn’t know where it should be built. Eventually, we found the area and negotiated a contract to build our house.
The video shown below is a time-lapse sequence of events while we built our house. It is not necessary to watch this video to understand the pool building process, but I included it because it is an interesting construction story by itself.
The good news is that we were able to build the type of house we wanted, although we didn’t complete all 10 features. The bad news is that we built it between 2007-2008. We finished construction in 2008, which is when the real estate bubble burst and housing prices plummeted.
That massive shift in the values of houses was one reason that it has taken us so long to complete item 10 (a pool) for our house. It has taken us 10 years of additional planning, saving, and research to finally be able to construct a pool. Our decision was not easy because pools are expensive and they are not necessarily a great investment. We debated many times about whether it made sense to build a pool.
In this story, I’m going to take you along with us as we build this pool. We are currently mid-way through the project, so I do not know what the outcome will look like. We haven’t made final selections on colors, tiles, and the decking design.
If you follow the story, however, you will learn a few things about how pools are built, the sequence of operations, and what you have to do during the construction process.
Day 0 – Initial Marking of the Pool And Building a Model
Before any work was started on the pool, the builder came to our house and marked the pool in full scale in our backyard. I flew my drone over the yard to get an aerial picture of the backyard and pool placement so that we could use this to submit a plan to the neighborhood home owner’s association. The pool proposal showed this map with other information such as where the pool equipment would be located. In our neighborhood, getting an approval is necessary before beginning construction.
The aerial photo was printed and a pool cut-out was created so that we could move the pool around into new positions. This exercise gave us time to visualize different orientations before the construction crew arrived to begin excavation.
Figure 1 shows the initial pool location. The actual location was placed further from the house, with a different orientation to best take advantage of the localized topography in the backyard.
Figure 1 – The aerial photo showing the initial and final positioning of the pool. The small white pool cut-out helped us visualize where to place the pool before construction began.
Day 1 – The Big Dig
The dig itself happens in one day. A bobcat and a small front-end loader are used to complete the job.
The total amount of digging involved two items. First, there is the pool itself. Second, there is a trench that is needed to hold the piping and electrical connections needed for the pool. These items are shown in the slideshow below.
Upcoming In The Next Article
Day 2 – Which is installing the plumbing and electrical housings.
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What made you decide on a gunite pool instead of a vinyl liner? My research shows that gunite is quite a bit more expensive to install and maintain, but I know you always do your research so how did you arrive at your decision?
Hi Derek,
That is a great question. My wife and I have been thinking about building a pool for over 10 years. We had many estimates for vinyl, fiberglass and gunite. By doing the research on the advantages and disadvantages of each, we concluded that gunite was best for us. Our backyard topography, the durability of gunite, and the experience of our builder were the primary decision points. When you learn about the history of gunite and its strength and durability, it really becomes an easy decision to make.
Our analysis and estimates showed that there was less than a 20% difference between the three options. Gunite was the most expensive. Here are the ballpark numbers: Vinyl (40K), Fiberglass (45K) and Gunite (48K) for pools of approximately the same surface area. The custom designs possible with Gunite were also a decision point for us.
Thanks for writing, and you have given me motivation to finish my series of articles on building a gunite pool!
Ken
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