Tresw, thanks for the compliments. We absolutely LOVE the way the pool has come out. We now also have our SWG hooked up and I already love it, I was going through a lot of bleach to keep the chlorine levels up. I finally just turned the bubblers off to send more flow to the waterfall. If I hold my hand over two of the bubblers, the 3rd one will break the surface, but we really don't miss having them at all. They were a free add-on anyways for us. Womanowned, I passed your compliments onto our builder, thanks! A few comments about color. I now understand better why folks have trouble describing, and picking, colors, because it is a very dynamic thing. The color seems to change constantly with the lighting conditions. But we absolutely LOVE the Blue Granite. The majority of the time, the color is kind of an aqua-marine blue that is really neat. I can't say however that there aren't times where I can detect a touch of green (just a hint) if the clouds and sun are right. Other times it looks almost icy blue. It really changes a lot, but it looks very natural with what we have around the pool. The green you see in the fill photos above is all due to having green fill water (yum!). Within days of having chemicals and filtering, all of that green was gone. We saw several Aqua Blue pools, and they really did look wildly BLUE, and in the end with our natural looking pool, we felt teh blue granite was better, and we are very happy with it. As far as the Abalone shells, yes we did add them, and it was money WELL spent. They are really, really cool looking, especially when the sun is shining directly on the water. They look like diamonds on the floor. VERY cool effect. I just started building the shade structure, I'll some pictures as I go, but so far so good.

jhmjr, Sorry for the delayed response. I actually made a completely different thread for the final product. Here are the pics and a youtube video for you: We opened up the Pool June 24th, and thouroughly enjoyed the pool the entire summer. East Coast Pool Concepts out of Manalapan NJ did an incredible job from start to finish. I would HIGHLY recommend them for anyone considering a pool in NJ/NY/PA area. I cannot say enough about the quality job these guys did, the attention to detail, and the follow up. Even after the job was done, and I finished my payments, they were still checking up with me and stopping by to make sure all was going well. They build a great pool, they are great to work with and they stand by their work. Here is a youtube video of our pool: Natural Style Pool CNJ by East Coast Pool Concepts Here are the completed pics of our pool: Here is the before pic:

Thanks for all the feedback. huskyridor, some very nice work in those photos... looks like they all were built totally from gunite/rock... correct? Have you ever seen any built like a hillside? backfilled dirt, plantings, landscape rocks, etc? There will be a cave/grotto on the back side with waterfall coming down over top of it. It will be backfilled to be a natural hillside around and behind the cave, with rocks and landscaping up to the pool edge. The rocks at the pool edge will be down on a shelf so they are at/below the water line. A slide will start behind the cave and wrap around, entering the pool on the right side of the cave (steps on left side). How is this all usually constructed when backfilled dirt is involved? I assume the pool rebar and structure will be integral with the cave, and the water in the waterfall will be contained by the gunite structure... and that the slide will have concrete sonotube footings... but is there any horizontal concrete pad underneath it all like in your pictures? Or is the dirt just brought up to the rocks at pool's edge? How is it built to keep soil from washing into the pool? Is the pool beam raised up to hold back the dirt and accept rocks on it's front face, or is it at normal level and the back side of the rocks cemented solid to keep dirt from washing through into the pool? We are trying to weight the pros and cons of gunite vs natural rock steps up to the slide... it seems gunite will be more stable and less maintenance, but stone steps are definitely more natural, and may be cheaper??? Also, how do you manage any runoff from waterfall or leaks from slide sections to keep from eroding dirt underneath?

I know of one engineering firm in California that will perform forensic tests on the shell to determine the problem. So many things can create cracks in a shell such as unstable/unsuitable soil conditions, improper placement of rebar, type of rebar, amount of rebar, improper coverage and or cement ratio and content of the shotcrete. Groundwater can affect a shell as well. There may be rebound in the mix which most certainly causes cracks. Rebound is the material that "bounces" off the surface when the shotcrete is applied. It does not provide a mechanical and chemical bond needed and must be shoveled out of the shell during the shoot. That is customary during this process. Shotcrete crews may offer a warranty or be responsible in some aspect if their mix was poor and not to standards. But, they will generally be under the impression the PB will have the pool prepped properly to meet the approved plan. Your situation is horrible and I feel terrible for you. If I looked at your pool in it's present condition, I would probably recommend removal and start all over again. I think problems will continue and although the Torque Lock is a great product, a 100' crack is a lot to mend. Others may differ on opinion. You can make the repair and see if it holds, but understand it may not go away.