I don't know about gunite pools but, we just finished our vinyl liner pool and were in it three days after the chemicals went in. We filled it with water trucks, so it was filled instantly and shock went in and our system was turned on. Our water is crystal clear and balanced so we swam right away. We only waited those three days to get the temp up.

I would check the chemical level and if all looks fine, go in. Most do not like to swim in the cloudy water caused by all the brushing of gunite, but with pebble there is none. With Salt system you should not have to wait either, we swam the day after we filled it. You would not want to swim just after adding shock anyway, so I would think if the chems look ok, swim on Pa's day.

We just had our pebble tec done on Friday, then because of Saturday's rain, they acid washed today and the pool is filling as I write. I was told Thursday they would do the chemical startup and I thought we could swim after that. I hate to call and pester them again because I just called since the color looks "uneven". They said it was normal...I just posted a question to see if others felt the same way. We are hoping to swim this weekend.

I was in my pool while it was filling (Pebblesheen)...due to equipment problems we didn't really add chemicals and start up for 4 days - we swam the whole time until it was started up. Granted it was just DH and I - we didn't want to have a big party with the water like that - but I could never have waited :-)

We finished our remodel 2 weeks ago (Stonescapes mini-pebble). After the pool filled, they turned the pump on and added tons of acid. It ran for three days nonstop. On the third day they neutralized the acid and added chemicals. We were told that we could swim after 6 hours. We waited till the next day to go in and we've been enjoying our money pit everyday since.

Thank you all for the information! The guy that's doing the chemical start-up is coming out tomorrow afternoon. It sounds like he'll do much like flmoneypit's pool - he'll add chemicals tomorrow and turn on the equipment for 4 days. He'll come back in 2 days and adjust the chemicals, then next Monday he'll come back and add the chlorine. He said that the acid in our skin can cause staining/discoloration on the pebble finish, which is why they recommend not going in for 2 weeks?? We'll be swimming by Father's Day weekend :-) At the rate it's filling up, it should be filled by noon tomorrow. I can't wait to see the color in the daylight. We added the 3M aquamarine quartz stones to the Gemstone sandstone pebble mixture. It looks like it'll be a deep aqua blue when it's done. Again, thanks to all for the info!!! :-)

I asked our pebble tec rep today, they said you can swim the next day after chemical start up. They will be here tomorrow. I am assuming they will do the chemicals and chlorine, but I will let you know. Maybe Gemstone is different than Pebble Tec????

gk5040 - I'll be interested to hear what they tell you after chemicals today. I don't think the brand makes a difference in this case. The guy came out to do chemicals yesterday but our pool was about a foot short of being filled when he got here. He'll do the first chemicals and equipment startup today. We've had an awful wind stir up in the past 2 days. Manual skimming isn't keeping the pollen and stuff off the surface. Supposed to hit 90 deg this weekend. Canceled my biz trip, so I think we'll see if we can't just swim a little this weekend :-)

We are swimming.....it blued up immediately. The pebble tec guy said to wait at least a few hours, but tomorrow it would be fine. I have to bring the water to Pinch A Penny on Saturday to balance the pool. The start up chemicals are not very strong since the pool is still curing. We went to Bush Gardens today, came home at 8:30 and the kids wanted to jump in....the rest is history. Tomorrow I hope I awake to a beautiful blue pool, it was too dark tonight to tell.

gk5040, thanks for the info. Are you going to post pictures soon? Our startup guy is coming back for another round of chemicals tomorrow. He said he didn't have to add too much, so I'm trying to get him to add the chlorine tomorrow, too. Kids aren't home this weekend - we'll swim without it if we have to. I'm anxious to see what, if anything, happens to the water color in the next couple days. It's that last unknown, you know??

OK beachdiva, here's a pic of ours, still incomplete....you need to post too. Our stonework is not complete and then needs to be sealed, the waterfall is scheduled for next week and the bar area in 2 weeks.

{{!gwi}}

gk5040 What is your deck stone/tile? I love it and need it. Great look, thanks, Barb

gk5040 - very nice! I love your waterline tile and stone decking. It's nice that you already have some landscaping to look at. I'll post pics this weekend. The only pics I have right now are at dusk. We basically gutted the entire backyard, so we desparately need landscaping now. Will look forward to seeing yours in a few weeks as you finish the bcue. I'll post more in a few weeks when the landscaping's in :-)
Christy

I love it too.....its tumbled marble or also called travertine. Its 1 1/4 inches thick. I really dont know the exact name, everyone seems to have a different name for it. The color is noche aka walnut. Its the same decking as twochicklets, only her's was the cream or ivory color, mine is more carmel/brown tones. Twochiklets coping was limestone, mine is travertine. Its not as vieny, if that is a word, as the decking. The coping is a solid mocha color. We grouted the holes on the coping, and may grout a few crevises on the decking. My water tile is from Luv tile, called Piriti black. Its not pretty to see it on line, but in person it is very nice. I avoided blue tiles because I was afraid of it clashing with the water color. We also ran the tile on a diagonal...had to because of the remodel and my coping was a bullnose instead of a traditional remodel coping. It was the only way to get 8 inches of tile. Here is a pic after I sprayed it with water. The pictures do not do it justice....it is really beautiful. We plan on sealing it to enhance the color. In the end it should look close to this wet color. My water is Pebble tec Tahoe blue.....that wasnt my first choice, Tropical Breeze was, but the pebbles in Tahoe Blue went better with all my brown stone....which is very noticable on the stairs. I cant wait for it to all be done:)

Ahhhh I figured, it is either Gothic stone or Durango stone, here on the west coast. Absolutely gorgeous, but way out of my price range here.It must be shipped which adds considerably. Enjoy it, it looks fabulous, Barb

Instead of going through a pool company I went through a "one-man band" guy. He did work for several other neighbors and came highly recommended. Years ago he worked for one of the local pool companies building waterfalls. The materials were bought at a local wholesale rock yard that sells to the public, for around $5 a sq ft, (he gets a discount so it was more like 4.68) and my pool guy charged me $3 a ft to install. If I had gone through an authorized dealer they charged $12 a ft. for material and install. If there is a will there is a way. We got lucky in that we knew someone who is a perfectionist. We had to wait months for him to finish up his last job, which put my start date May 14th, and the kids got out of school May 18th:( It was more than concrete pavers, but well worth it. Keep looking, maybe you can have your cake and eat it too:)

gk5040- here's our pool. Chemicals have been added and we've been given the blessing to swim :-) 8 weeks exactly from dig day. Water's a little cool (70s) without solar, but I suspect we'll be in this weekend anyway. Solar gets installed in another week. I'll do a new post with landscaping and pool details in a couple weeks.

Its beautiful. I love your tile, the boulders and your neat little waterfall. So many things I would have done if ours was a new pool, its so expensive to change things afterwards. We moved to FL last May when the market was HIGH. Our home isnt worth what we paid for it and now we have put SO much into it. It was hard to justify spending this much money on an existing pool, but it is much more beautiful than it was. Here is a picture so you can see how lovely our mauve tile use to look. Where are you located? I like your stacked stone, do you know who made it and what color it is. I am using stacked stone on our b-que and on the pillars, I picked Chardonnay Country dry stack ledgestone its a cultured stone by Owens Corning.

{{!gwi}}

gk5040, what a difference the remodel made to your pool! It looks great now. With more space and money, there are things I wished I could have done, too. I live south of Sacramento in Northern CA. In the same situation as you re: purchase of home last year. Market had started dropping when I bought mine, but it hadn't hit bottom yet. Have just done a bunch of remodel projects to modernize/upgrade kitchen, floors, doors, along with entire backyard remodel and pool. Trying to have faith that I'll eventually get my investment back. Understand completely what you're saying.

I started to relandscape the back last fall, which is when I did the ledgestone waterfall/planter. It was the only good thing that came out of that project. Don't have good things to say about the landscaper. When I asked him what stone he used (we originally thought we'd use it on the RBB to tie it all together) here was his response:
'Its the 'country ledgestone', and I am pretty sure it was the Chardonnay color, altho it could be Aspen also... I think if you look on the web site, you will be able to tell the color, but for sure its the Country Ledgestone.'

Nice answer, huh??? Anyway, enjoy your beautiful 'new' pool!!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Cultured stone

What a small world in that our stories are very similar. We too remodeled the kitchen, tore up floors in the kitchen and family room and put in wood floors, installed a new front glass door, remodeled the kids bathroom, along with relandscaping half the yard....all in one year. Now I just want the pool area complete. This weekend we started to seal the deck, but ran out of sealer, the store should have more on Wednesday so I will post more pics when the decking is all sealed. The sealed stone looks really nice. Monday the guy starts the waterfall, he says it should take 1 to 1 1/2 weeks....I wont hold my breath:) I cant tell which color you chose for your stone. The chardonay had a little bit of red to it which I didnt like and the salesman said just order 10% extra and toss the red. Does yours have any red pieces. I havent had the guy order it yet, its in-stock, so I have to take one more look, I will look at the Aspen, its not in my notes. They might not have had a sample of that on the wall.

Thanks
Cindy

I'm laughing as I read this . . small world is right!!!!Want to see a picture of my new glass front door????? ;-) I did 20" tile floors in my downstairs kitchen, family rm, living and dining room. Counters and backsplash in the kitchen, slate front porch steps, and tomorrow they're supposed to install a new sliding door. Now we have to fix the front and back landscaping. Too funny how similar our stories are!!!! I love doing projects like this . . . I'd do more if the remodel funds hadn't been depleted for now. My stone did/does have a little bit of red to it. Due to my inexperience at that point, I didn't realize how different the pictures looked from the real thing - my landscaper didn't suggest I go look at the real thing. I'm not sure I'd follow the salesman's suggestion. Definitely post more pics in a few weeks.
Christy

Sure, love to see your front door. I think if I had won it big in the lottery and could remodel everything without a budget I might enjoy doing all this work, but I find all these decisions stress me out. I have never spent this much money and its scarey. My husband is color blind so his input is useless and he rarely cares, his comment is it looked fine before we painted, the pool looked fine before the remodel, the white kitchen cabinets were fine and the appliances worked...etc. We moved to FL from NC. Things were much cheaper there and the house was decorated. It took me almost 4 years to get it right but it was done and I could put my feet up and enjoy the finished outcome. Its overwhelming to start all over again and pick things out. I cheated, I have been repainting the same colors I had in my old house. We bought this house because my husband like the size of the garage...closets and functionality where not his concern. The property taxes in FL are screwy...your taxes are based on the sales price, not a neighborhood value. So everyone has a different tax base. The longer you own your home or the less expensive the house, the cheaper your taxes are. So my neighbor who bought 10 years ago pays about $9000 less in taxes than I will!!! With the inflated market value my husband wanted to purchase a cheaper house (realtively speaking) and fix it up then buy a more expensive home that might have been already fixed up. Part of the deal was I could redo all these things. We remodeled the whole kitchen, cabinets, appliances, & floor. We salvaged the granite counter tops, though I wish I didnt, I dont like the color....again, I couldnt justify spending the money. After the pool, we have three more things to do....as I wrote this I had one, then two then three. We have one more bath to redo, add cabinetry to the bonus room and finish adding plantation shutters to the windows I didnt do the first go around. Tonight I was pulling weeds and noticed one of my expensive palms we had put in last summer is dying at the top. God I hope it is only a lack of water, but I am not sure. We have a sprinkler system, but my husband thinks it doesnt get much water because he didnt want the sprinklers to hit the house....I am so afriad it has a disease, the new growth is what is dying:( The saga never ends....but on a happier note, they started plotting out the waterfall. He said it wont look good until Wednesday or Thursday. Now I need the electrican to call back to get power to the thing:)