Karen, I've been using these teepees a lot. I often find that, when a rose I've planted in a cluster is spreading too widely and invading other roses's space, I drive the 10ft rebars into the ground and secure them at the top; then tie the "wild" rose to the structure. My point is that, instead of re-locating a "spreading" rose, I just train it vertically. I do think it makes sense, however, to be able to have some room to maneuver around them, but this isn't always possible in my collection. When a rose on rebar seems to be sending out canes that are wider then the alloted space (i.e., beyond the rebar dimensions I had intended for it, I just pull the canes to the rebar and secure it to the structure with twine...or I cut the canes to fit.) I am finding that some of the roses grow much taller than the teepee (perhaps 6 feet taller, then, the canes start arching back down...it's a lovely sight for me). Some of my rebar teepees are as close as 2-3 ft from each other (Golden Celebration and Jude the Obscure come to mind...as well as MIP and Constance Spry). I would like to say that it IS wiser to set the rebar a little wider at the bottom. I've set a couple of them at only about an 18" diameter, and when the rose gets top heavy the structure can get wobbly. When a description of a rose says it's gonna need to be spaced 5 ft apart, this is not always reliable information. It really is gonna depend on your climate. An excellent example is the David Austin roses. Most descriptions of the David Austin roses suggest that they will stay 3-4 ft x 3-4 ft.... This is probably for a climate in England. For me 3-4 ft might really end up being 10-12 ft.... no exaggeration. So, when I space roses, it's always a "wait and see what's goon a happen" thing. In your situation, I'd space the individual teepees as far apart as I could to fill the space. If the roses don't exceed their space, plant other roses in between the teepees.. And, I ALWAYS put a clematis with the roses on the teepees... I hope this helps some. Robert

Cascade, I understand the leak(s) could be anywhere, and are not definitely related to the cracks, but as all protrusions were shot with the shell or mudded in with diamond brite, it would have been nice not to lose so much water. As to your other questions: The plumbing is complete to the mechanical pad and the pad is higher than the water level. The light conduits do not run above the water level but terminate at the equipment pad above the water level. The overfill pipe is installed in the auto fill but it is temporarily terminated above the water level and is dry. The hydrostatic valves are properly installed in main drains, and the drains still have the test plugs from the pressure test but you have we wondering now about the secondary drain paths from the MDXs intended for SDXs, which I do not have, as they did not need to be plugged during the pressure tests which may explain things, although they see to actually be capped and are encased in gunite. The skimmers are open to the equipment pad, have the equalizer ports connected to the pool, but I can not remember what was done with the drain lines. I was not present when the gunite company started filling the pool so I do not know if they looked at the drains or skimmers. I will check both. Thank you for your suggestions. I have included a diagram of the crack pattern.

While renovating my pool with attached jacuzzi (still in progress), I had to chisel out three rust spots as well. I was very surprised by how much of the old, spalled concrete I had to remove. In all three cases, an entire segment of the rebar had rusted away completely, but only one of the spots had been bigger than a dollar coin and one I only found after I had chipped away the plaster of the jacuzzi. I have attached a link that you might find helpful if you are going to tackle this yourself. Here is a link that might be useful: Shotcrete and Gunite repair advice

Hey space man. Pretty sure yours had a double mat of #4 in the spa, but your spa is HUGE! They should be fine. I would have taken the #3 further down on the inside wall, looks like they went just below the form. But again, they should be fine. Wonder who the gunite company is?? If its good quality gunite, it'll hold up. BTW, thanks for letting us invade tonight. My clients loved the pool!