06/12/2012 Day 65- 99% Complete

The pool is full of water and waiting for Burkett's to do the start-up on the equipment. It is looking so good and, after 65 days, it's nice to be almost done.

Things left to do:
- Start-up pool equipment
- Fill hot tub and start-up
- Reprogram and test controller and remote control
- Rubber seam filler in between coping and concrete
- Install tile under patio door

The reveal

06/11/2012 Day 64- Pool gets plastered!

After being out of town for a couple of days, the guys from Burkett's came in to do the final stages of the remodel- the re-plaster. The dark blue finish is going to give a deep, dark and rich look to the pool. It only took them a couple of hours to do the re-plaster, put in the pool light and the VBA compliant pool drain (that prevents drowning from getting stuck in the deep end main drain). The 23000 Gallons of water fed by 2 garden hoses should take about 24 hours to fill the pool. It's already near half full just 10 hours into it.

Burkett's will be out tomorrow to apply the rubberized expansion joint around the coping and perimeter of the pool and likely do the startup of the pool equipment which will then trigger the start of brushing the pool walls twice a day for 2 weeks. The heater and the salt chlorinator can't be turned on for 30 days but manual chemical balancing will allow us to swim in about 2 weeks!- We can't wait.

06/02/2012 Day 55- Hot tub installed and patio furniture back in place

We got the hot tub and patio furniture moved into place today and  finally started to clear some space in the garage for cars again. However, the holes through the concrete for the hot tub plumbing were put in too low and Burkett's will have to bore them out higher to avoid the hot tub's wood foundation.
We are really going to enjoy the extra space on the deck from removing the planter at one end- it doesn't feel so crowded anymore. Pool replaster is due on Monday and we will begin filling the pool with water later that afternoon.

06/01/2012 Day 54- Pool equipment adjustment and re-inspection

I was able to check out the work that Burkett's did on re-routing the plumbing to accommodate the hot tub into the architecture. They've added 2x 3 way actuators that tie into the Pentair Suntouch controller that allows the water, filtration and heating to be routed to either the pool, or the hot tub depending on what's being used- automatically. With this system I can choose either gas or solar (or gas assisted solar) heating for either the pool or the hot tub. The water for both will flow through the Pentair salt water chlorinator so I'll never need to add chlorine again. I even added a wireless remote to be able to change from pool mode to spa mode on demand.

The wireless remote

We should be getting the pool inspected today to go onto the plastering stage. Also, the hot tub gets moved into place tomorrow and I think I can start moving the patio furniture back in.

**UPDATE. Inspection passed. This allows Burkett's to plaster the pool on Monday and this also clears the bathroom and pool shed violation. The inspector will be coming in one last time post plaster job for a final final.