I did pretty much the same thing as starplex when building my pool. I have friends in the Houston area with salt/flagstone and they have corrosion. Could be coincidence, but I didn't want to take the chance. Because there's no definite proof on the cause, I think some pool builders in the Houston area will only install suggest salt with brick or preformed copings. From what I gathered, complete submersion of flagstone is ok, but the coping is where the problems lie. I elected not to use salt, so to help get the softer water I added Endure. Have been very happy with it. Since I have natural stone coping (travertine), I choose to seal it. Mine needs to be done every year at the start of pool season, but probably could use it every 6-9 months. I just don't think about noticing it in the winter when I'm not in the pool. Regarding pool equipment - I don't think there's too much of a difference. From what I understood the PB use different equipment b/c they have a contract/bulk price break/hook up to do so. When pressed, all the pool builders claimed the customer service representatives/time to come service equipment is better with the brand that they pushed. However, when I interviewed the PB, I asked if they would be willing to install the other...and all said yes. I second the control system part. Don't quite remember why now, but if memory serves me correctly the Jandy controller that I picked out wouldn't service some function in the other brand of equipment correctly. In this day and age, you'd think that they would all be compatible...but ask before hand just to make sure.

Hello, I am glad to see that this is a form that likes to help people, I am very new to working with wood. I had an idea and wanted it to be real so I found some logs that are 7in wide and 12-13in, I also have one that is 4in wide and 12-13in tall. My goal is to hollow these out but leave maybe an inch on the bottom left to make a wood cup. All I have for tools is a cordless drill Dewalt 14v, some reg drill bits and a spade 1in bit and a wood saw. I have tried upswing the spade bit but after pushing on the wood for about a min and seeing nothing but a little hole from the tip I knew that this can't be the right tool. Any advice? Side note I don't have much money but I am willing to spend a little to get the correct tool.

Thank you, Mush, for that suggestion! We will definitely look into getting some of that stuff. "I hope you find a remedy soon...it sure makes for not wanting to sit on your deck doesn't it!" Oh, Liz, you're so right!! We have incredibly comfortable furniture on the deck (it's by O.W.Lee - the Montrachet wrought aluminum collection), and I would so dearly love to be sitting out there reading good book on my Kindle, sipping a glass of wine and listening to the watefall into the pool... I know that when the words "redwood deck" or just the word "deck" is used, most folks envision something elevated. But our redwood deck is ground level. Because of the way the yard has to be graded (for the water runoff swale), we couldn't do a concrete patio. Well, we could, but in some places it would have to be three feet (or more) thick. So, we opted for a redwood deck (which I prefer, anyway). Here's a photo of what we refer to as the "east wing" of the deck. (It's so named because it's on the east side of the house.) There is a walkway that connects it to the large main deck, but it's all on the same level. This photo was taken in 2004, when the yard was torn up because we were putting in a pool. All that dirt that you see heaped up in the upper left of the pic is part of what came out of the hole that was created to become the pool -- that area of the yard is actually the side yard on the east side of the house. Our lot is sort of pie-shaped so the side fences really angle away from the house rather than run parallel to it. Anyway, hopefully this will help you folks to understand how our deck is constructed and why we can't just get under there to find out what's going on. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that there aren't any nails or screws showing, which is why we can't just pull up a few boards to look underneath. Each board is nailed to the board next to it by nails that are in the sides of the boards...

Update! Success! I installed my spa light without incident and the length of the spa cable turned out to actually be longer than the pool cable. Initially, I had difficult pulling the spa cable, but followed the advice to remove the grounding cable first. I tied a string to the grounding wire and pulled easily. Once I accomplished that, the spa light cable came out easily. I then used a fish tape which easily moved through 1" conduit and attached the new cable. It wasn't easy, but it worked. I used the same string to very easily pull the grounding wire back through the conduit! One light down! The length of pull for the spa light was just over 50'. I used my longer fish tape to see if I could get down the pool light conduit and at a point, probably the last 10 feet or so met some resistance. I kept moving the fish up down and around and finally was able to push it through the niche into the pool. O.K., if I can push a fish tape through, I should be able to pull the old pool cable out. Right? I removed the fish tape and got to work. Well, taking my experience from the spa, I attached a pull string and removed the ground wire easily. Again, it was super easy to remove. More hope. I attached another pull string to the cable, just in case, and got in the pool and started pulling. I was able to get it moving and then it got stuck and I thought "Shoot." But then I looked over towards my pool equipment and noticed my pull string had snagged on my rock wall, so I got out, freed the string and got back to work. The cable seemed to hang up a couple of times, but heres another tip. I used a pair of large pliers and wrapped the cord around a couple of times and that easily gave me the leverage needed to get the cord through the tough spots. 6 hours later, I have a new spa light and pool light installed! Oh, and the length of pull was under 50' for the pool cable. Don't know if it made a difference, but each time I pulled the ground wire out into the pool, I shot some water soluble, PVC compatible wire lubrication with the hope that as I was pulling from the wet side, the string would grab some of the lubrication and bring it down towards me. Ok, my next problem. After wiring the JBOX, the spa light works and pool light does not. I went into iAqualink 2.0 and set up the remaining auxiliary switches to be pool lights, and still no success. So this morning I switched the wiring of the spa and pool lights and now the pool light works, but not the spa light, so I have determined that both lights do work! That's the good news. So now what? The Jbox consists of three conduits. One from the panel, containing 1 white, 1 green, and two red wires. The two other conduits are both the pool and spa light, which contain the large green ground and the pool cable. Each pool cable has one black, one white and one green. So I'm guessing that one of the hot wires is bad somewhere in between the panel, or where it goes into the GFCI? Any suggestions would be appreciated on this new annoying issue. Could it be in the panel itself at one of the Jandy Auxiliary Switches? This latest issue may warrant a call to my pool guy.....