one year, i got so tired of having stuff up in the attick, so i carried everything in crates to the basement, well, that spring/winter, we had soooo much rain that our basement had flooded, and it flooded so much that it went up to the middle of the height, i never knew this, everyone kept talking about their basements flooding so it got my curiosity up. so i finally went down there, and danged if it didnt. we lost alot of stuff. but you could see the water line so it had sit there quite a while. ohhh man, i was so sad. not only that but man did it stink like sewage. so i knew that we had a leak from upstairs somewhere, OOOPS!! found that tooo!! loose wax, man those people who we bought the house from, i was not very happy about, they did not obviously know how to put the waxy stuff on the toillets!! orrrr...maybe it was my crazy kids playing with the toilette! Hee Hee we've definately learned alot from this old, and boy do i mean OLD house!! LOL i have more than hubs because i am so curious than anything how things work and such!! Granny!! i totally woulda loved to see that pic!! i bet your dh was happy!! **big grinn** Sinfonian, wonder if we could use the stairs though? because it didn't go all the way up there? hmmm......or **being goofy** how about.....put them on a huge slab of styofoam then the thing that will hold them, then if it does rain, it will rise with the water!! **BIG GRINN** ~Medo

Thanks guys- Is there a particular type of engineer I should have look at the pool? Structural, building?? How much should I expect to pay for a consultation?? I wanted to add a second light (houseful and others will remember those threads), but the pool builder insisted one would be enough which means it probably won't be. I'm trying to block this one out, because I realize no one should bully or otherwise influence me in how MY money is spent. I'll probably try to get someone else to add some type of lighting later on once they ever finish. Any suggestions? The builder is feeling certain that a truck hit the pool, it seemed flaky to me that a pickup truck can break concrete. There were no excavation problems other than the ground was pretty hard, no errors in excavation or fill-ins. The only thing I know is there were long cracks found in the floor and roof plaster of my house around that same time (and in the same direction) and my mom thought maybe the house/land had settled causing all those cracks. We haven't had any earthquakes (that would only be a reason for them to deny liability so let's hope none of those occur). Thanks for the support. I'll keep posting.. No one showed up today and likely won't tomorrow either- they usually only work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Hi Racket - I think it's unfortunate because having a SWG and swimming in a salt pool are wonderful! I think it's a great benefit to have chlorine being generated steadily and being able to maintain a steady chlorine level. Moreoever, at least for me, I have never had any combined chlorine which means I have never needed to shock. On the other hand, I do hate dealing with acid and having to dump some into my water over 5-6 days or so. I think it's unfortunate that some pool builders are starting to move away from SWG because it keeps potential pool owners from being able to experience this way of chlorinating a pool. With all due respect, I think it's much too simplistic to say that because one notices a certain type of corrosion or damage only on salt pools that the salt itself is to blame. How can one say that it is NOT because the pool owner was running their pump too long, or setting their chlorinator at too high a level which caused their chlorine level to rise much too high becoming a much more active corrosive agent? (I personally know of people that run their pumps 24 hours a day, for example.) Here's a personal story. I have my SWG set at 35% which allows me to keep my chlorine level at 5-6ppm. I was away on a trip for about a week. When I came back, I was shocked to find out when I checked my water that my chlorine level was up to 11ppm! Well, up until a couple weeks ago, we had about 3 straight weeks of rainy weather here in the Dallas-area. I concluded that it was the lack of sun exposure that caused my chlorine to creep up that much (not as much chlorine burn off from the sun.) I happen to check my water very regularly. Can you imagine the typical pool owner that doesn't, or just takes their water to Leslie's once a month? Or how about pool owners that allow their stabilizer levels to get so low that they aren't able to hold a good chlorine residual and they think the solution is to increase their chlorinator setting to compensate, not realizing that the chlorine they're generating has now become 30x more corrosive because of the low CYA level? I have read stories of salt pools being blamed for corrosion on structures made out of 316L Marine-grade stainless steel. If these stories are true, then salt pools with salt content at 3000ppm is somehow more corrosive than ocean water with salt content 35000ppm? Perhaps. But chlorine at high levels is easily corrosive enough to eat through 316L stainless steel. I'm not ready to blame salt quite yet. Mind you, I'm watching my pool very closely to see if I start to see any ill-effects, but so far, nothing yet. Having said all of this, I do think that SWG manufacturers need to be more upfront with the true care and maintenance aspects of owning a salt pool. It isn't as "care and maintenance free" as they would like the consumers to think!

Since it should be obvious that nail-fin windows cannot be replaced after brick cladding has been installed over the fins, the only issue here is whether to accept the white windows or wait for the almond windows, therefore the subject of this thread has always been whether almond is worth the wait so it has always been about color preference. If you had shown us the design and actual colors we could have had a reasonable discussion but you didn't do that preferring to discuss who was at fault and the hardships this has caused you. In the end it appears you are dong beige on beige but no one will ever know for sure. Thank all of the members who responded and let it go.