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.

Yah, today I start pouring concrete.

After setting up the mix area, I found it only took me 3 hours to complete the pour.

I ended up mixing 20 bags of concrete.

Done. The base is about 5” deep and 6” wide.

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!

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.

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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.

As I lit my fireplace tonight, before a buddy came over for dinner, I started reflecting how strange it is, I am heating my house with my house. I am burning my house up, a bit at a time!

Check the recycling bin next to the fireplace.

Nick’s house recycling.

As I do projects most around the house (raising the roof, back deck replacement, front porch, etc) anything which involves wood, I just throw the old wood scraps on to my utility trailer. In the winter, I chop the fuel up with the cordless circular saw and burn it.

Although I am adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by burning the wood, studies have shown it is no more than what occurs by natural biodegradation. Sadly, my wood will not be layered, compressed for ions, and converted in to crude oil for someone else’s pleasure of consumption. Another possibly is it be franked for its natural gas by pumping unknown crap into the rock strata and polluting the environment some millenia in the future. Fracken for gas what a terrible idea for the environment.

NO, I will be a consumer of carbon and use the stored carbon NOW. If there is pollution to be had at some point in time, I want to the one who benefits!

What is funny for me is that EACH piece of wood I touch evokes a memory and tells a story! I flash back to where and when I ripped it off the house, reflect and give honor to this moment in time in which THIS scrap of wood delivers to me the last bit of utility and pleasure it has to offer.

A much nobler purpose then being eaten by microbes…..

This little jewel is from my the side soffit brick detail near the guest bedroom. Took it off when Tony and I were re-roofing the house last winter.

This piece from the front porch rafter. I added new rafters when I repitched the roof. Spent a some time using Autocad to design the porch soffits which saved me LOTS of time trying to figure it out.

This guy is some of the vertical siding on the front porch.

And finally, these very memorable and special boards…. the last of their kind….

These boards which removed during a back porch upgrade. A lot of holes drilled in them to be repurposed as worm composting box ventilation boards. Eventually, after an upgrading the worm box the boards were relegated to the trailer for winter. Now as the last two that exist were being recycled. It was delightful to watch the smoke, flame and light start to dance out of all the holes as this wood begins the ultimate recycling.

In its place another memory has been born….

Red Worm composting. Remembering the Worm Poop Guys selling Worm Tea and Worm Casting at the downtown Charleston Farmers market. Hum, thats, another crazy story for another point in time….

While waiting for the plane parts to return, I had a chance to start working on the house again

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After the sides were removed, the pool side rail were removed and the wood replaced.

Moving right along. Looking forward to getting back to my swimminging exercises.

Todays project was to try and organize all my commonly used spices in my kitchen

This is the area where I decided to add some custom shelving.

A quick trip to the hangar to cut and bend some pre-painted aluminum I had and I shortly ended up with some nice shelves.

The finished product… Now I can have quick access to my commonly used spices and I also made a rail to hang my big spoons and ladles.