Have decided to go with the Pentair Intelliflo VF, to run everything but the infinity edge. That will be a whisper 2 hp. He is quoting me a 400,000 btu Ray Pac heater. And we switched the pool to a SWG.

kswl, smbnobles... thanks for the advice. We are putting tile on the spa, and on the raised part of the pool. We now have to decide on what pattern / design for the tile work for the pool, since it is about 140 sq. ft. We feel like we need to break it up some, since there is so much of it.

tresw... thanks for the advice. We have spoken to 3 people so far that this guy has built a pool for. One is my sister. All have good things to say about the pool, even though what you and smbnobles say about the owner being left out of the loop has come up. I am one that will be working from home most of the time, so I hope this will prevent any miscomminications to a minimum. PB says the Charlotte offices have received 7/12 national awards last year for scheduling, customer service and the like. We will see.

NC - this is going to be a great poolscape....of course I'm kinda partial to natural pools nestled in the woods! After seeing your trees, I would definitely recommend a 2 speed 2HP pump for your pit for the skimming action I mentioned in your other post.

Keep this pics coming!

Looks like a great pool layout, and your home is beautiful as well! So I'm guessing the top of the ladder in the first pic is where you were standing when the 2nd pic was taken, LOL!

trhought... I am taking your advice and doing the two speed for the trough. Especially after I get finished landscaping with dogwoods and redbuds and rhodies.

tresw... that ladder pretty much stays outside in constant use, trying to finish odds and ends that my home builder never did. (It is a long story, but he ended up going bankrupt, never finished the house, left over $100,000 of debt to his subs, and drug a 7 month project out to 16 months)The pic was taken off of the balcony.
Anyhow, that is one reason we decided to go with a national PB, Anthony and Sylvan. Figured maybe their pockets run a bit deeper.
Feel free to criticize, suggest, and advise about what you see going on here.

Oh wow... I LOVE your house! It's beautiful! I can only imagine how pretty the pool is going to look!

Smbnobles... thanks for the compliment. I owe it to my wife. She designed it herself over 3 years. BTW, your pool looks awesome. you are almost there.

Well, we signed the contract today with Anthony and Sylvan. We negotiated an upgrade to a VF 3.2 Inelliflow w/ easy touch 8 controller, went from 38 feet to 40 feet, the deep end width started out at 16 feet and we asked for 18 feet, went from 650 to almost 700 linear feet, added two extra calf jets in the spa, which went from 40 sq. ft. to 50 sq. ft. I am building the retaining walls myself. When we got the first quote 12 months ago, it was for the smaller pool, smaller spa, single speed pump, and the price now is about $5000 less.
PB is pulling permits for the first week, while I try to get a varience from the 30 foot setback, as the pool needs to be 2 feet over the line. PB says to give him 4 weeks! Yeah right...
When it gets staked out, I will snap a few pics.

Congrats!! Always a little nerve-racking signing on the dotted line :-) Sorry to hear about the problems you had finishing up your house, I saw the great advice you posted in Bird's thread and it sounds like you really went through the worst case scenario! It looks like you're doing a very nice job pulling the house together, and you'll have plenty of stories to entertain your guests with for years to come, that's for sure!

OK,
PB was out yesterday to do the final staking before the excavator starts in a few days.
Because of our grade dropping off from the back porch, there is going to be a 10 foot length of the pool on the shallow end, that has to be about 4.5 feet above the existing grade. (When we eyeballed it last week, the PB estimated 2.5 feet. He suggested that we just backfill that part of the pool with 3 feet of soil.
My question is...
will only 3 feet of backfill be enough to support this part of the pool?
should I expect this part of the pool to be reinforced more, because it is so far out of virgin soil?
I appreciate your advice.
Excavating should start within days, so I will post pics then.

I wouldn't think it would require any more reinforcement, but it's important that the fill be of sufficient quality and properly compacted. Is there going to be a retaining wall or are they going to slope the fill back and blend it with the existing grade? If they are sloping it back, it's going to be a lot of fill I would think. When we do backfill on commercial projects here in DFW we typically compact in 9" lifts. We also have a geotechnical firm test it to make sure it was done properly.

tresw,
I think I am going to terrace the 3 feet into two sections. I can then incorporate the terraces as seating areas on the edge of the patio. I can not really do the sloping backfill, because we have a creek that right now, is only about 12 feet from the waters edge. We do not want a slope from the pool all the way to the creek.
I am subbing the retaining walls, so I will get them right.
So, IYO, this retaining wall will be sufficient to keep this 10 foot of pool stable, even though about 4 feet is above original grade? This is primarily the entire depth of the pool at this spot.

Signed the contract, and a week later we have a hole in the ground. It took two guys two days to dig and form.

Looking good! Your treed backdrop is going to look awesome!

That looks great! I am building a pool that looks something like yours. Our specs are very similar except I do not have an infinity edge. I can't wait to see that. I bet it is going to look great. Keep the pics coming!

The setting for your pool is perfect! I also love the fact that you have a second floor "view" of your pool. It's going to be beautiful :).

It's been 7 days since they broke ground and we just passed the bonding inspection, and are all stubbed out and the shotcrete is going down tomorrow or Th.
They changed the return lines from 1.5 inches to 2 inches as specified in the contract.
Anyone see anything wrong, different, or suspicious?
So far, Anthony and Sylvan has been good to work with.

Hi ncrealestate-

How exciting! I really love your design, especially the elevation that you have the spa set at. The large drop to the pool will really be spectacular when it's full of water! Personally, I think that elevations add so much to a pool's appeal. I can't wait to see this pool finished - it's going to absolutely be one of my favorites on the forum!

Your friend in Phoenix

Birdbath,
The spa spillway has a 4 foot opening, that will fall 4.5 feet into the pool, and there is an 8 foot bench seat under the falls.
I just spotted the production scheduler on site (who is an office guy), and as always went out to say hello. He was just there checking to see if we were ready for the shotcrete. (we are).
But while he was here, I had him move the two lights to different positions. So, here we are, with shovels, in 98 degree temps, digging new holes for the lights, and rerunning the bonding wire. (the deep end light needed to be moved over one foot so that when you come off of the steps, there is more room on the landing before you run into the diving board. And the shallow end light was shining too much into the deep end, so we moved it to the other side of the pool, where it shines into the shallow end.) Anyhow, the guy was very nice about having to get dirty, and I gave him a little $$$ to say thanks.
You know Birdbath, we have some things in common,,,
we both had horrible experiences with costly projects, I love Geckos,(used to have them as "pets" while in college, and I love Margaritas!
Post those pics of your finished pool as soon as you can. Can't wait.

Looks like they are moving fast on the pool.

Nc, I can't wait to see the finished product! The infinity edge will be fabulous! I too am envious of the second story view to your pool. Where we live, we have to be content with looking down from the second floor... I did think about getting on our roof to take aerial pics of our pool, ha.

Are they installing the shotcrete today? Any news pics to show?

View from the master BR

View from the spa, looking towrds the infinity edge

OK... day 9 and we have gunite, plumbing, and electrical. Just need coping and tile, (they are supposed to be out early next week), and then the pebbletec! This has been so much nicer than our home building process. But there have been a few hiccups...
They sent me an Intelliflow VS, instead of a VF. No biggie, it will be switched out tomorrow. The gunite hoppers kept breaking down and they shot gunite from 7:00AM until 9:30PM!!! Six or seven truckloads. The guniters formed a notched beam (of 4 inches), and when asked by me what the ledge was for, they told me to it was there to hold the stacked stone up. Well, we have always been speced for tile and not stone. After a 10 minute discussion we decided to keep the notch and just mortar coping all the way around, and then start our tile above this. It actually will be a nice place to grab hold of when swimming in the deep end, and it breaks up the humungus 4.5 foot of tile from the water line up to the spa. It also makes a nice drink shelf.
Also caught the guniters spraying the tanning ledge so that it would only be 6 inches deep, even after our sales guy was told that we wanted 12 inches here. The guniters were eager to please and just shoveled the excess out and got it right. There were some other minor things, but all in all, I am pleased with Anthony and Sylvan, even though their project manager only swings by to pick up the checks.
A question... do they scrape a lot before they spray the pebbletec? Our finished gunite is very rough, with lots of projections, that if scraped, seems like they would pop off.
Another surprise, is that the guniters were from California and Houston, (I am in Charlotte, NC) and they just travel from city to city shooting pools. Seems like an inefficient way to run a business to me, but I'm sure I am missing something here.
Anyhow, I am subbing out the decking, and retaining walls, and I am now worried that A & S is moving too fast for me to be ready.

I really like it a lot. It is a great design and looks like it is going to be beautiful. I can't believe you've gotten that far in 9 days. Incredible!

How old is the little blond guy in the earlier picture? Looks like he is the same age as my little guy. Is the tanning ledge for him?

Keep the pics coming.

momof3littleboys,
yeah, 9 days. I wouldn't have beleived it if they told me. They actually told me from the begining that it would only take 4 weeks.
Big Luke is 1.5 years old, and we have an 8 year old girl.
The tanning ledge will be a good place for Luke to splash around, and we thought it would be a nice place to place some chairs for those days when you just want to get a little wet.
Thanks for your compliments.

Looks great ! I did see your post last week... I thought I had commented on how much I am jealous of your full brick back and that little covered patio you have with the sliders (your walk out basement?) Looks like you're progressing nicely... I wanted the raised spa, it's such a nice look... but I already was over budget... :( The ledge is so nice on a hot day to put your chair and bake....it's nice your stairs are off to the side so you don't block traffic...

Good luck... keep the pics coming !

Moocat,
I posted on an old thread of yours yesterday, but it seems like it got deleted somehow. Just wanted to say how nice your finished pool looks, and I just love your mature landscaping.
The tile and coping is now finished, so I will post them tomorrow. I finalized my decision with the decking crew... way more than I wanted to spend, and I negotiated very hard with 4 bidders too. Doing a 3 peice paver. The grader is grading on Monday, and the decking crew will start on Wed. It seems like we could have water in a 45' x 20' pool in 4 weeks or so.
Those sliders lead to our "den" and wet bar, but we do have a basement that is accesable from the den area.

NCrealestateguy~ I saw your post, it's not deleted just a few pages back..... :) thank you very much... I think the bigger trees give it that look like it's been there a while... like you said... mature :)

The decking really makes a difference in the look... very exciting.... You'll be in swim mode before you know it! It's crazy how much more you can spend then what you originally planned ... I mean real scary ! LoL
So the basement is below the sliders..you must have four stories ?! It's such a nice rear elevation...compared to what you get in NJ... with new construction you think for three quarters of a mil... you'd get bricked in the back..... but no...not here... our homes are ridiculously overpriced.. I mean the market is slow now and the prices did come off because of it... but man compared to the rest of the country our homes & taxes are not to be desired..
Anyway... good luck with the pavers.. lookin forward to seeing the pics...

The tile guys are finished... 5 days of long hours with a crew of 3 - 5! They were slow, but very meticulous, and I think it looks fine.
Turns out the guniters made the infinity edge 6 inches longer than the trough, so we just added another six inches of "wall" and coping to fix that. All I cared about was that I still was getting every inch of my 12 feet of infinity edge.
The plumber is supposed to come out tomorrow to do about 3 hours of work, and the grader will follow him the next day. This will allow for my decking subs to start on Monday, the 30th. About 1.5 weeks for all of the retaining walls and pavers, and then the carribean blue pebble tec will go on.

Very striking, really nice job choosing the tile, I love those earth tones. Yours really works well with the surroundings and your home. Lookin real good.

ncrealestate- Wow, here I am going on about my Pebblesheen, and look at all that was accomplished at your place today! I have to say, every time see pictures of your house, I just drool.....it's so beautiful! The way you have the pool layed out is extremely complimentary to your house - they look like the perfect match! I love the tile, you know I'm all about the natural look :). You have one of those rare "whole packages" - everything looks fantastic together. Yours is another pool build that I can't wait to see the finished pictures on! My favorite part is still the steep drop off from the spa to the pool - that is going to be THE show stopper when this is done!

WOW! Looks fabulous. It is blended so well with the site and your lovely home. You are doing the pavers and retaining walls yourself??? Brave man! Too bad you won't already have a pool done to jump into when it gets so hot! Keep on posting those pics.
Judy

WOW! I have been silently watching your progress and all I can say is WOW! Your home, pool design and setting are just gorgeous. L-O-V-E the tile. Do you mind passing on the name/maker? We start our own pool build the week of July 7 and I am in agony over making everything tie together with existing stuff. You have done a wonderful job coordinating your pool elements together and incorporating it so well with the house and natural landscape. Job well done.

cdavmd, thank you. Your pool looks awesome. After seeing your steps with the coping treads, I am changing my treads from brick to coping. Thanks for the idea. I will just send the check to smnobles!

jmck nc, Thanks, I am not actually doing the walls and pavers, just subbing them out myself, as opposed to A&S. I used to build retaining walls for 10 years when I was in college, but I am too busy now. It kills me to pay the amount that they want for the walls and steps... $29,000!
The pool costs came in at $69,000.
Where in NC are you. I live in Charlotte.
zookeeper93, the name of the tile is Fon Pie, and it is one of A&S standard selection. The coping is A&S standard dark grey. It is really light gray / brown in reality though. Go to mastertilepool.com for some additional ideas.
Birdbath, I really have to compliment my wife on the house design. She designed the home over 3 years. She would lay in bed and draw, and redraw until she got what she wanted. She even had furniture cut outs from sticky notes that she placed on the drawings to make sure that our furniture placed well in the home. She has that type of mind that can visualize in 3-D. She also is the one that came p with the pool design, along with some good suggestions from our PB.
From the top of the spa to the bottom of the pool is 13.5 feet. It is pretty impressive to imagine jumping off from the spa ledge.
I am going to add about 10 accent tiles to the raised beam and spa, but will do them later myself, because A&S wanted $10 / tile, $500 to install them, and another $200 to put them on diagonal! ( I really think they are just trying to recoup some of the loss they took by thinking that an EasyTouch controller would run an Intelliflo VF. They found out midway through that we needed an Intellitouch, which is way more expensive) Anyhow, I plan on cutting out the tiles and replacing them with some fancy accent tiles.
Landscaping is one of my hobbies, so I can not wait until that can begin. I just love Moocats look. Lots of mature evergreens, grasses, dogwoods, and redbuds.
Will post more after the grading, and when the walls start going up.

I love the tile work. They're doing a beautiful job on your pool. You're lucky to have two separate outdoor living areas to enjoy the view from!

Glad to hear you won't be doing that paver work yourself. We are in Chapel Hill. I have to say that everything is much more expensive here. Our pool was over 20K more than yours without a spa and NO PEBBLE! Ours is smaller too. We have friends in Charlotte area and real estate, building costs etc are much better there. We moved here from MA less than one year ago and pretty much everything costs the same...not so for our friends who ended up in Charlotte...lucky ducks! You will love your infinity edge...it is my favorite thing about my pool. Looking into the woods as if you are about to go over Niagra falls. Enjoy.

Beautiful pool! I LOVE the tile, it is gorgeous. What color Fon Pie did you choose? Our builder uses Mastertile also but when I looked it up, there are three different colors.

lala2874... I am not sure what color of Fon Pie it is. But i am going to buy a couple of cases more from the PB tomorrow or so, and I will try to find out.
The tile in the pics still has a slight mortar haze on the surface, but I think the main color is there to see.
The "brick" pattern was my idea... for some reason, all of the PBs around here keep all of the joints in a row, and I thought that I had too much height for that to look right.

Beautiful. Yours is one of the pools that pushed me over the edge to re-evaluate my choice of a matte smoky blue waterline tile. I wanted the tile to coordinate/match the pebble (Slate Blue) but the recently completed pools I see here on this site are using tile to match the coping and I really love the monochromatic look. I think it's timeless and can be either elegant or earthy looking. Gorgeous pool and home.

The rough grade was done yesterday. It is nice to not have to jump from hill to hill, and finally get a good feel for how it is all going to look. The decking (pavers) crew starts on Monday. Should take about 1 -2 weeks. Then the pebbleTec! It looks like from start to finish, it should be a 5 week project. I just do not understand why a lot of builds take so long. (excluding weather and bankrupt builders)Our pool has elevations, infinity edge, raised bond beam, and is fairly large.
Oh well, I suppose I should just be grateful. And I am.
I will post pics after the decking crew gets started.

5 weeks is amazing. Thank your lucky stars! We signed our contract in November and didn't dig until March. Now we are 3 months into our build and we are a couple days work behind where you are.

I am right there with you. I don't know why it has to take so long. It is so frustrating.

I hope the luck keeps coming your way. If you have some to spare, send it north!

Just curious-you mentioned shotcrete,and then gunite,do you know which product you received for the pool shell?

If you can tell me the difference, I will tell you. I beleive it is gunite. What is the difference betwen these two and concrete?

Gunite is mixed at the nozzle-sand and cement.Shotcrete is concrete delivered by a concrete truck and of a KNOWN p.s.i. strength,then pneumatically applied.Shotcrete seems to be a stronger(but slightly costlier) product.

OK, The pavers are done, and salt is in the pool. I am putting stone to match the house on all of the retaining walls myself in the next few weeks, then I will cap them off with bricks that match the house. Finish grading and clean up is tomorrow. I then have plenty of planters (4) to landscape too.
Overall A&S was fine to work with. Like I was told in the beginning, their on site management could be better. Sometimes it seems they would rather have the subs do something wrong, and then fix it later, than to just keep a project manager at the site more often. But, they did respond quickly to all of my requests and changes. And I am a picky person when it comes to projects like these.
Anyhow, I appreciate all of the ideas, suggestions, and comments from you guys and gals. Here are some photos. I will post others after the stone is on the walls and the landscaping is in. (BTW, the pavers are Dublin's Potomac 3 peice, and the water is very dirty from all of the paver dust... it actually is a much crisper blue than is appearing here)

Thanks for posting these. It was worth the wait. It looks gorgeous! It fits in perfectly with your home. I can't imagine how it could fit in better. I love the different levels, the infinity edge, the pavers, and so much more. I like how you can enter the spa from the top level or from the first landing on the steps. We really wanted ours to be like that but our spa step is in the wrong spot and it is not going to work out as well as yours.

You must be so happy with how it came out. I can't wait to see it with all your finishing touches.

How dirty has your water been with the paver work continuing on after you put water in the pool? Our paver work will be half done when we get the interior finish and water put into our pool.

Wow! Really beautiful. I love love love the pavers/stonework and especially the spillway and location of your spa.

It is going to be drop dead gorgeous once you get your stone on the walls. And landscaping makes so much more of a difference than I had realized. That will take it over the top.

Happy swimming - it is supposed to be VERY hot here in N.C. this week!

Mom,
Thanks for the comments. I am pleased with the overall project. It finished on time and on budget, except that we thought we were loking at 1260 sq. ft. of decking, when actually it is 1600. ($3500 over)
Our elevation change dictated that we needed 7 steps... so we decided to break them up with a landing in the middle and change up the direction. of course, the top of the spa is a favorite jumping off place to the water about 5.5 feet below. My neice was already doing backflips off of it! She is a cheerleader and is great at that sort of thing.
As far as the water during the decking construction... lots of sand and paver dust got in the pool. I had to backwash the DE filter 3 times in 3 weeks. I vacummed twice, and swept the walls and bottoms every day. Not a real big deal, but it did get dirty.
I am gonna try to "lick and stick" some stone veneer today. I am ready to be done with the whole project.

It's absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I love all of the different elevations. Be sure & post pictures after you finish everything.

Very nice! The sheeting effect over the negative edge looks much better since they modified the tile. Are you draining those planters above the pool through area drains or leave-outs in the bottom of the wall? It may be different there due to climate but around here leave-outs tend to trickle water constantly which leaves a pile of unsightly slime at the outlet.

Oakrunfarm... Thanks. We realized with our last pool that we wanted the spa as close to the kitchen as possible. And i love to landscape and garden, so I have big plans for it.

Tropical paradise... thanks for the comments I like the differing elevations too.

tresw... The negative edge actually sheets better than in this picture, but I had just turned on the trough pump, and was too impatient to let it get all the way up to speed. Thanks for your ideas on it.
Every wall has a sleeved drain sitting on gravel, and then more gravel laying on top. All of them are then conected to the main deck drain that then is directed to daylight out in the yard. No leave outs on the face of the walls.

Looks gorgeous! Love the stonework on your house as well!