Building a pool at the Monolithic Research and Industrial Park
Chicken fights with my son in the finished pool. Those chickens are hard to keep above water—even without a skinny kid trying to push you off.
Mike South
2020 was quite a year. One exciting thing we did here at Monolithic was build our first swimming pool as a crew. My wife and I had been thinking of putting in a pool for years, and it was finally time to pull the trigger. We decided to situate the pool next to our Gazeedome that houses our outdoor kitchen and dining area and got to work on the design.
We put a lot of time and thought into the design and, because it was a smaller pool, I think I thought it was going to be easier than it was. I will tell you; it was a learning experience. Unlike shooting shotcrete on domes, a pool requires a lot of hand work and a lot more volume of concrete. When we started, we pulled out our big industrial Schwing concrete pump and sprayed a lot of material.
After that, we wanted some smaller batches so we could fill in around the hot tub and fine-tune different details. Unfortunately, we were having trouble with the concrete supplier not giving us the kind of concrete we wanted. So, we pulled out our mixer and little GHP 1500 peristaltic pump. I was pleased with how well that worked. Many pool contractors would be interested in a system like this, which was much smaller and a little more modular.
At one point, we had some rain that caved in a small portion of the hole for the pool and I was nervous about a second cave-in. I realized I should’ve immediately sprayed an inch of concrete on the whole thing as soon as we dug the hole. That would have given it that initial strength and resistance to the rain and flooding I needed. Come to find out; it would have worked perfectly, making a great little business in and of itself. If someone had one of our pumps and mixers, they could go out and flash the pools — give them one inch of concrete. They could mix it right on site, pump it with our small pump, and spray that pool in no time, which would make a great little business.
Original design layout that my wife and I designed. We really labored over the hot tub and bubbler ledge, both of which were worth it.
Mike South
Rendering of the original design.
Mike South
Site before we started construction. Note the blue water line that had to be moved from where the pool was going to be built.
Mike South
Digging almost done, kids are all ready to get in.
Mike South
Hot tube and bubbler ledge dig. It’s amazing how thick the concrete is on these elements —a lot more than we’re used to spraying in our thin shell domes.
Mike South
The good news is we didn’t hit rock. The bad news, it was worse than rock, it was sloppy mud. You couldn’t step down the bottom of this pool without sinking down to your knee.
Mike South
A pile of crushed concrete I purchased to put down at the bottom of the pool to stabilize the slop that was the base of the pool.
Mike South
Rain and groundwater. Rebar is starting.
Mike South
The rebar is done, the plumbing is in, ready to spray concrete.
Mike South
Javier starting to spray concrete
Mike South
One more spray layer left to finish.
Mike South
Leveling out the waterfall from the hot tub into the pool.
Mike South
Shotcrete done! Next is the plumbing, tile, and coping.
Mike South
Filter and spa heater were installed behind the outdoor kitchen. It’s amazing the number of pipes that go into plumbing pools
Mike South
The underground propane tank connects to the hot tub heater, grill, and burner in the outdoor kitchen.
Mike South
Tile and coping installed. I love the tile that Tessa picked out.
Mike South
We hired out for the plasterwork. That is a serious job.
Mike South
With the plaster done, the crew waits patiently for the water to fill the pool.
Mike South
View of the pool at night. Color-changing lights are a fun add-on to the backyard scene. My family and our relatives use this little pool constantly. It’s a great addition to our lives down here.
Mike South