Miscellaneous Week: Clean Up, Equipment, Granite

The PB's guy, Dave, has been out starting Tuesday and cleaning up all the junk in the spa & pool and sealing off the valves and things that stick out of the pool wall.

He has to start in the spa, because the pool still has a few feet of water in it and it all needs to be pumped out.


The pump that is supposed to be sucking out all the ground water is pulling a little bit, but it doesn't seem to make a difference inside the pool. Dave has to set up a sump pump to get the last couple of feet of water out of the deep end so he can keep cleaning up.

By the end of the week, there are several 5-gallon buckets full of dirt and mortar and trash and gunk that have been left behind by everyone else. Just a little bit of water left and the two bottom drains.



The electrician has also stopped by and hooked up the three lights. I think I forgot to mention that at some point around spring break, the PB had called me to ask if it was okay if he put in the LED "disco" lights. I had wanted plain white LED lights, but they were only offered by a different company that he didn't want to deal with (Hayward's white-only light is halogen or incandescent). So I said it was fine for him to install the Hayward "Color Logic" LED pool lights (2 pool lights, 1 spa light) at no expense to me. For some reason, I think these disco lights are hilarious. I just can't wait to try the "Mardi Gras" lightshow (purple, gold, green) or the "Cool Cabaret" ("turn your pool into a nighttime hot spot") or the "Voodoo Louge" ("When it's time to really get the party going"). Geesh.


Anyway, I have to show the electrician where we took some sort of intercom box off the wall in the lanai and ran a messenger wire down from the attic.  He's going to put in two switches for the lights and the spa, and was planning to run a conduit on the outside of the wall, but this will look much nicer and built-in.  He also has to take a look at the circuit breaker panel in the garage to determine that we don't have an available double-circuit for the pumps.

The equipment has been delivered and on Friday, Dave's got some of the stuff out of boxes and set on the pad but nothing hooked up yet.  I grab some of the owner's manuals out of the boxes mostly to see what the venting requirements are going to be for the gas heater (for the spa only, but can be used to heat the pool slowly if absolutely necessary).  The heater is going to be right under an awning window, so we're either going to have to screw the window permanently shut or put up a vent that will probably have to be above the top of the roof.


Also, the designer, Erin, brought the granite slab that Maria had cut to see how it looked. She didn't think it would look like a "black hole" either.  What do you think?

I don't see any blue flecks in this particular slab, however, and that's disappointing.  There are many shiny silvery flecks, but I just can't see any blue.  So I brought the sample chunk outside and set it next to the slab, and I can't really see the blue in that anymore either.  Must be the bright light on that day.

But not a "black hole".....