Ask him to give you Pentair & Hayward equipment side by side equipment list. Especially consider the multispeed pumps. Get the LEDs even if it means going to 3 fixtures. Color changes and fire pits go together like peas and carrots. They will also use a lot less electric and last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs. Service call and bulb and gasket, and still only white light. The LEDs will be like the Energizer bunny. For both safety and WOW effect reasons, please get the electronic ignition for the pits. The WOW effect is when friends or family are over for a Bar-B-Q as dusk settles. Just hit the button on the remote! vs trudging through and lighting each one. POOF in your face. Or a friend's or anyone else's. I didn't see any mention of anti entrapment devices such as Hayward's & Pentair. These are fail safe devices that cause a pump to cease to be able to pull or push water by letting air in. Pumps suck air before water, releasing whatever is causing the blockage of a suction line like a person's hair or a kid's hand. New drain covers should be VGB compliant. Get big pipes! It keep energy costs down and extends pump motor, bearing and seal life. Make sure the equipment pad has plenty of service space. We look forward to seeing this project come to fruition. Please let us know what you decide. Scott

jscozz...your pool features sound very similar to ours. Below is what we have. This was a system that was engineered to provide energy efficient circulation and filtration while keeping the system design simple...i.e.; separate pumps for key water features groups based on frequency of use and water flow needs. The separate pumps provide ultimate flexibility and minimize complexity associated with valve actuators when trying to use 1 pump for multi-tasking. Our pool plumbing system: 2-speed .33HP / 2HP - circulation pump for floor cleaning, filtration and chlorination (salt cell) 2-speed .33HP / 2HP - waterfall pump for 2 waterfalls, 16 foot negative edge and circulating the negative edge pit .75 HP - 3 beach bubblers, 2 aerators and 3 deck jets 3 HP - slide pump, our 72 foot slide requires 160 gpm No valve actuators which add complexity and reduce efficiency of the plumbing system. The .75 HP pump has gate valves which allow flow to each of the water features to be dialed in perfectly when the pump is running. This is set and forget....haven't touched the valves in a few years now. All these pumps and about 4 other pool features are controlled via an 8 circuit pool automation system with remote control. Also, you mentioned your slide pump terminates into a 2" outlet. Is there only 1 outlet or will there be 2 outlets. 150 gpm coming out of a single 2" outlet will create high velocity and spray the water out further from the nozzle which is usually not desireable for slides. Our slide terminates with two 3" outlets which lets the water spill out onto the slide surface maximizing wetting area at the beginning of the slide path where it's most important. The water features you mentioned that you're not sure where to place. I would place them all on a separate pump and keep them off the main circulation pump. Use gate valves or 3 way valves to adjust flow to each like we have done. The laminar jets like a lot of flow if I remember correctly and when all water features are in use, the circualation pump would have to be ran full speed which is loud and uses a lot of energy...even more than today's 1 speeds due to drive losses. Even at full speed, the circulation pump may not have enough flow when everything is on. By the way, I'm a big fan of 2 speeds and not so much variable speeds. VS is too expensive and only offers marginal improvements in efficiency. Additionally, replacements costs down the road are high...you may as well buy a new pump for the price of a replacement drive. Just ask you PB how much a replacement drives will be for your variable speed pumps and you'll see what I mean. Hope this helps.

Thanks Elizablue. I got the palms from Beyond Paradise. They have a location in Cypress and one in Katy. They all are doing great and the triple Pygmy survived the cold winter which we feared it may not (I was in San Antonio when we got freezing rain that wasn't predicted so I didn't get to wrap it in a planket). The service and advice there was great too. Hope you find something you like.

Day 4 Build (Day 6 calendar) - Gunite I'm a little behind with the progress updates. Going into gunite, we were worried if a few things were going to turn out right. And then inspecting the pool afterwards threw us into a wave of second guessing some of our decisions and designs. Gunite in process Gunite Completed So, here are the things that we fretted over. Tanning Ledge Step location - we moved the steps from far driveway end to the middle. I think it looks much better plus it didn't make sense to have steps going into the deep end. Tanning ledge edge - after moving the steps, we didn't think to extend the tanning ledge. Doh! Bubbler location - managed to get it in. Originally had it in the far flat area but then moved it to bottom of the beach entry. And what's with the return sticking up from the middle of the beach entry? We originally wanted a return that came back across the beach entry to keep it clean. I looked at this and thought they are giving me a bubbler return. But then they said they put an angled jet on the return so it sweeps across. Do you pool builders ever get annoyed with our questions? Beach entry angle - it seem too steep. I'm not sure what my options are. Maybe we can flatten the slope and angle it back into the deck? Would this comprise the pool beam integrity? Weeping wall and moss rock below water line - we wanted the rocks in the water and not above the tile line. I thought they were going to build a ledge into the beam to support the rocks. Instead they angled the beam down. I was told that this is preferred since it can accommodate bigger rocks. Reverse beam - In this area, they also transitioned from the angle too late. We should have more beam and less rock. I was told that they can address this with the rock guys. Deep end step out - We had a seat in the deep end. We thought it would be good to add some steps to make it a deep end step out. I think this turned out well. Spa Oh, where do I begin with the spa? Size - dang this thing looks huge. It seems more like a small wading pool! And it looks really high. I remember making sure it was 18" (vs 12") so that it would be a good seat height from the deck. It just looks like a castle turret now. Multi level spa seating - managed to get a section 21" deep as I wanted to be fully seated and submersed. Never did measure the length of my upper body... Seating - they did a horseshoe seating arrangement. Seems like the wall along the spillway is just wasted space. This was to prevent playing footsies with the person seated across from you. Spillway - we didn't spring for the fancy spillway. Nor did we cut it open as we were hoping the notches would give us a scupper effect. Now I wonder if that was a wise choice. Again, castle turret... Piping - What's the deal with the piping outside the gunite? I know it'll be covered up with the mortar and veneer. Should I be worried about this kind of stuff? In pool table We thought this was a cool idea. Being able to have a drink or a meal while sitting in the pool. Well... Pedestal placement - I posted before that the pedestal had to be a mere 9" from the pool wall to prevent the cleaner from getting in there. I thought that was too close. In actuality, there's no problems. The pedestal itself is very small and the corner seating is wide so it's not like having to shuffle into booth seating at a restaurant. We are planning on using one large oval piece of rock as a table top. Table height - now this is where we didn't think it through (or the PB didn't educate us). The table is going to be at water level. They did standard in-pool bench seating. So it appears that when I sit on the bench, the table is going to be up to my neck! At this point, they can't raise the seat with gunite. The only thing I can think of is adding a layer of flagstone to the bench seating to raise it up a few inches. Any other ideas? Of course we also changed our tile selection for the 3rd time and made some last minute changes to the light locations. All of which I hope were the right decisions. Anyways, enough of my rants. It's good to document this stuff as I'm sure my wife is tired of hearing me talk about these things. Sounds like I'm just a worry wart. We're still very excited and can't wait for the pool to be all done and the backyard mess all cleared up. Cheers! Here is a link that might be useful: Day 4 - Gunite