A form was placed around the pool for the second and most important pour. This area received two bands of 1/2” steel re-enforcing rebar. The idea of the this pour is to counter “Hoop Stresses” This is a fancy word to describe the pressure of the water forcing the sides out. Sort of like how you have hoop bands around a wood barrow. The lower concrete band contains the bottom pressure, the midpoint band contains the stress half way up the pool sides. The two bands act together to help eliminate the outward forces on the wood framing where the strength is the least (compared to concrete) which caused problems with my first pool installation.
You can also see the how the 2” insulation is used as the part of the form. This will mean I have a continuous 2” layer of foam around the entire pool which will reduce the energy used to keep the pool warm in the winter.
I found some little sparrows were hard at work making a nest in an area of the wall which will be removed at some point. I can’t decide on what with the nest as I hate to remove it.
Today was preparing for the bottom concrete pour. I placed steel rebar around the perimeter and a 3” dam around the interior of the pool.
This pour will keep keep the water pressure on the bottom of the pool from pushing the bottom out. The inside lip will keep the bottom steel nicely in place.
The next step is placing 1” insulation on the outside of the studs to hold back the dirt.
Three inches of insulation was then placed inside the studs. This give to total R-value of the insulation at ground level to be R-20. That is better than my house walls!
Today, Scott and I flew some formation flying for the first time. A friend of of mine (Frank) graciously offered to do some aerial photography of our planes and gave me over 300 pictures when we were done. I assembled the best 40 or so plane pictures and made a short YouTube video. BTW, there is a geography teaser at the beginning of the presentation.
Frank, Jenny and Scott outside the Aero Club hangar where we keep our planes.
We had a great time flying and racked off 1.6 hrs around the bridges and beach areas of Charleston.
Although it looks like I am flying close to the Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridges, I am quite a distance away and it an optical illusion.
The Morris Island lighthouse was originally built in 1767, distorted and rebuilt in March 1873 and was in service until 1962.
Beach erosion has now moved the shore line1600 ft away from the lighthouse. The foundation was stabilized in 2009 to ensure it will be around for future generations.
A nice shot of Scott, the bridge and North Charleston where the new container ship terminal will be built.
The next step is taking steel wall studs, cutting them in half, and screwing them back together. I wanted to make I-Beams out of the pieces to hold the insulation in place and provide extra strength to the walls.
Here the wall sides are placed around the pool. I also started digging out the dirt around the base of the pool
Todays effort was obtaining structural steel and attempting to straighten a piece of bent wood sport structure. in retrospect, I should have just replaced the wood instead of trying to straighten it. Here you can see where I clamped steel and wood bracing and used a jack to bend the wood into shape. What a PITA but I finally got it.
Today I started working on the pool again. I haven’t done a thing out there since Dec 11. Man how time flys! I want to get ti done before the heat of summer is back. I need to start swimming again.
Surprisingly, nothing has changed since I stopped working on it. Hum, wonder why.
House | Nick | 
Comments (0) 
