Cement Pond

Cement Pond

For those of you who remember "Beverly Hillbillies",

I always thought it was funny that they

called the swimming pool the cement pond.

Well who knew that we would one

day have our own "cement pond"?

And literally it is made out of cement...

no nice little ceramic tiles...cement.

Our cement was looking a little dull,

~ don't laugh ~

it was...and it had a ring of hard water.

The solution was to have the pool acid washed.

 

Kyle ~ the pool guy ~ came and put a pump in the deepest part of the pool.

In goes the pump...

It's small ~ but pumped 2500 gallons of water an hour.

I thought the water would maybe go out into the street...

He hose came out of the pool, down the side of the house....

....over the fence....

....and down into the waste water drain.

We watched the water drain.  After about an hour, the top step was uncovered....

Kyle and I put our feet "in".

Almost empty....

All in all, it took about 6 1/2 hours to drain the pool.

The next morning....Charlie was a little confused.

This is how the pool looked almost empty....in the day between draining and when Kyle came back to acid wash, more than half the remaining water evaporated.

Jon, standing in the deepest part of the empty pool.

Kyle thought it was pretty cool to get in an empty pool...

...but make no mistake, he prefers it filled with water.

We had looked into having the pool deck and slide painted.

The slide was down to the cement and if you went down too many times, you could get a hole in the backside of your suit.

The "pool painters"  wanted $1700 to paint the slide and the rocks.  That didn't include the pool deck.

Jon stopped at a pool supply store and the guy told him to get clear epoxy, which is what the pool painters would use.  So we went to Loews a and found clear epoxy. 

Jon painted the slide,

and then added the "non-slip-sand" to the paint and we decided to paint as much of the pool deck and around the inside edge of the pool as we could get out of our $100 gallon of paint.

Of course, it was Saturday night and dark.  But we needed to get it done in time for it dry before Kyle came to do the acid wash, and before Jon had to leave for Chicago on Monday.

We really didn't want to do it on Sunday, so armed with a battery operated lantern and a flashlight, we painted the entire pool deck with the epoxy.  It looks great!

Jon did a great job.....I helped a little, but he did the lions share of the work.

In case, you were wondering, the slide is now awesome!

Kyle came to acid wash....

It took him a couple of hours to clean the entire pool.

Loved the boots...

After he was finished...he hooked the garden hose up to this contraption.

He told me that it would turn off when the water reached the nozzle.

There was also a little trickle of water coming in from the water spigots in the pool, which keep the water level in the pool constant.

It took 7 hours to fill the pool half-way.

 

In all it took about 14 hours to fill the pool.

Then the chemical levels were adjusted, the filters turned back on,

and it was ready to be used.

If you were brave....the water temp was 78 degrees!

 

I am not looking forward to my water bill next month...luckily the pool only needs

that kind of maintenance every 3-5 years. 

 

So ~ know that the Cement Pond

is filled, up and running and being heated a little bit more each day

as the temperatures rise. 

Come and swim!