Shotcrete Complete

These are a few pictures that I took throughout the day to check on the progress as the trucks cycled through. It's really fascinating to see it slowly take on form throughout the day. The PB stopped by and told me about the shotcrete: the truck is divided into compartments (gravel, portland cement, water, and sand?), and it is mixed on site (vibrated?) and shot down the hose at 5000psi. The curious thing is that it doesn't need to be watered like gunite in order to cure properly, which tells you how little I understand the chemical process. The shotcrete hardens pretty quickly, so the guys have to trowel it fast.

It's amazing to watch the guys use those simple strings as guidelines for the walls and steps and shapes. You can see the diagonal string in the picture to the left that delineates the end of the tiny sunshelf (1st step). The spa was going to be tricky, and the floor was shot last. I didn't realize until watching this that the steps are all solid shotcrete.

The rebar formed the benches (which are equivalent of the second step down) and the swimout, but the first steps and the third step are all solid and shaped by trowel. They did a really great job squaring the walls along the strings. That back beam wall is 12" thick since it will be unsupported, and the rest of the walls are 8" thick.

When they were finishing up, right before shooting the floor, I took a critical look at the diagonal entry stairs and decided that I didn't like how they turned out. The first (top) step is a tiny sunshelf, and the second step is extended along the lanai as a seating bench, and there is a third step leading down to the 3 1/2' depth of the shallow end.

The bench is 18" wide from the wall into the pool, but the treads for the 2nd and 3rd steps were only 12" wide, and I'd thought they were wider. Fortunately, the shotcrete was still in action and the guys were able to add 3" to each of the 2nd and 3rd steps without interfering with the shallow-end light. Whew.

That probably would have made me crazy if I hadn't gotten it the way I thought it was going to be. After discussion with the PB, I learned that the spa has a "keyhole" design, where instead of a circular seating bench all around the spa, there is a cutout at the spillover, so someone can hang out in deeper hot water and rest their arms on the spillover, or kids can "slurp" over it into the pool. This, I understand, so we stick with the design as is, with the staggered-height jets. The guys finally finished up around 5:30. Long day, but it looks amazing. I can really imagine this turning into a pool soon! It was almost 80 degrees today and relatively humid and I am so ready to jump in. (See my swim lane? This picture was taken just to the right of it. You can just barely see a pool jet just above the shadow at the other end.)