Back from Vacation. Time to do the Pool Floor

So, the pool floor was a bit more work than I expected.  It wasn't impossible, but it took more than a full day.  So, just be prepared to spend a couple days on this part.

We began by stringing the lines for the pool, all the cuts and angles, it is a very important step. The depths had to be measured off properly, 40 inches off the top of the pool walls in the shallow end and 6 feet in the deep end.  This gives us our final dimensions for the pool.  I used small tent stakes and mason string to do this part.  I am now a little concerned about the tent stakes, because some of them are buried, it looks like it will be a bit of a project to get them back out without destroying the pool floor.  I will let you all know how that ends up turning out for us.

I purchased the 94 lbs. bags of Portland cement, and I ordered mason sand in bulk from a local landscape supply company.  I purchased 12 bags of Portland, and 3 yards of mason sand.  Total cost for materials was around 375 dollars.  I ended up with about a half a yard of sand left and a little over one full bag of cement.  We also used pool trowels and aluminum hand floats.  I found that the floats had very little usefulness, except to support my weight, in the video I watched, they used magnesium hand floats, but those were 10 dollars a piece more than the aluminum, and I am happy I did not spend the money on them, I would have been a little pissed off about that.  But the pool trowels were very useful.  They did a great job, and who really knows, maybe the floats will work better for you.

We had two of us working in the pool and leveling the floors, and we had two other people mixing the Portland and sand, and one humping 5 gallon buckets of the sand from the mixer to the people working the pool floor.  This seemed to work well, we also did it for a few hours with only 3 people total and that moved a lot slower.  I would recommend at least 4 people, and I would plan for two days, but you might be able to finish it in one.

As I said, I went with a 5:1 sand to Portland cement ratio. Also, I went dry, meaning I used no water in the mix, just threw it in the cement mixer for a minute to make sure it was well blended and threw it in the hole.  We packed it and smoothed it and it stayed up on the walls.  We were all afraid it would just crumble, but it worked.  It actually worked best with sand that had some moisture in it, like the stuff in the middle of the pile, it gave the mix a little more work-ability and also made it firm up a little when it began to dry out completely.

At the end of day one, we had the all the tapered walls and the floor done so we misted it with the hose, and by morning it was crusted over very nicely.

The second day was more of the same.  We got started around 9 and we wrapped it up around 5, so it took the better part of the day.  In total I would plan about a day and a half for this project.

Also, instead of renting a mixer, I picked one up at Harbor Freight for 160 bucks, with a 25% off coupon, which was basically my budget for renting the mixer, so it just made more sense to me to go ahead and buy it.  I figure I will either sell it when I am done, or I will keep it and we have a cement mixer in the family.

This was not an easy part of the job, but by no means the hardest.  Now I am just worried whether or not the liner is going to fit properly and whether or not my measurements are close enough for the liner.

We are going to be making some fencing tomorrow, because the weather is calling for a chance of rain.  After that, we will be doing skimmers, lights, and coping, so we can get this liner in by the weekend.  Also I have to dig a trench for the pluming and one for the electrical.  Also get the form in place for the pump and filter pad.  Still a lot of things going on, and I am running out of days before I have to go back to work!