pooloz

Sorry about the other 2 posts, i'm multitasking Have you considered a cast in place concrete coping, I can be stamped and/ or stained in a variety of colors and textures and since you are adding a complete deck, the thickness is probably not an issue. Avoid darker colors because it may become hot.

The scarey part of leaving a pool empty in Idaho or any freezing climate for that matter is the frost heaving the shell just like it does to the roads to McCall. Also, with an empty pool, floating the vessel out place is a very real possiblity. Also, the interior plaster doesn't bode well. Is it possible to keep the pools full year round? How hot and water are the flow rates of the water? The buildings probably consume the heat in the winter and the pools take 2nd priority? Summer you pobably have way more than you can use. So the pool is a hillside installation and it will be essentialy "floating" in foam and a french drain, which is very good fore thought! I would have a soils & engineering firm develope a design to keep it on the hillside and evaluate the drainage systems to prevent it from looking like Hiway 55. I would expect that 8" walls and a 6" floor would do it but get engineering. As far as foam to form the pool, it's a good choice as long it is sufficiently braced, but if you are using it for some insulating value, about 80% of your heat loss will be from the water surface. I would not use it on the bottom unless the actual foam is certified to bear the weight of the loaded vessel. Why not use the excavation as a form? Mountain soil can be tough. Would you be using the PEX within the pool shell, if so let the engineer know that also. Does the hot water go through an exchanger? Is the shell the exchanger? Is there a risk of freezing if the source goes down? Is it a gylcol system? A far as flexible plumbing, I would not expect that much movement and would worry if it were the case. I would however expect a substantial amount of movement between your deck and vessel, so create 'cold joints' at these points. Very smart move installing some provisionary lines for future use. Size these accordingly and consider an entrapment potential as if they were going to be used, because you will love the pools so much that you will want them to look good for a long time, and in order to do that, you will likely want to "capture" the pool water, filter, heat it, sanitize it and ultimately preserve the plaster. Geo thermal water tends to trash plaster in a very short time. You could always sand blast & paint every year. My dad always told to to never invest in anything that eats or needs painted.

The scarey part of leaving a pool empty in Idaho or any freezing climate for that matter is the frost heaving the shell just like it does to the roads to McCall. Also, with an empty pool, floating the vessel out place is a very real possiblity. Also, the interior plaster doesn't bode well. Is it possible to keep the pools full year round? How hot and water are the flow rates of the water? The buildings probably consume the heat in the winter and the pools take 2nd priority? Summer you pobably have way more than you can use. So the pool is a hillside installation and it will be essentialy "floating" in foam and a french drain, which is very good fore thought! I would have a soils & engineering firm develope a design to keep it on the hillside and evaluate the drainage systems to prevent it from looking like Hiway 55. I would expect that 8" walls and a 6" floor would do it but get engineering. As far as foam to form the pool, it's a good choice as long it is sufficiently braced, but if you are using it for some insulating value, about 80% of your heat loss will be from the water surface. I would not use it on the bottom unless the actual foam is certified to bear the weight of the loaded vessel. Why not use the excavation as a form? Mountain soil can be tough. Would you be using the PEX within the pool shell, if so let the engineer know that also. Does the hot water go through an exchanger? Is the shell the exchanger? Is there a risk of freezing if the source goes down? Is it a gylcol system? A far as flexible plumbing, I would not expect that much movement and would worry if it were the case. I would however expect a substantial amount of movement between your deck and vessel, so create 'cold joints' at these points. Very smart move installing some provisionary lines for future use. Size these accordingly and consider an entrapment potential as if they were going to be used, because you will love the pools so much that you will want them to look good for a long time, and in order to do that, you will likely want to "capture" the pool water, filter, heat it, sanitize it and ultimately preserve the plaster. Geo thermal water tends to trash plaster in a very short time. You could always sand blast & paint every year. My dad always told to to never invest in anything that eats or needs painted.

I personally would go with the Pentair but since you are using a Hayward heater, I'm assuming that your market is strong with Hayward, so replacement parts are probably more readily available. The Hayward is a beast, so if it is a replacement application, installation would probably cost more. Regardless, I would use a 1 HP low service factor motor. But check the underground plumbing sizes, 2" is really marginal for these high flow 1.5 HP pumps. The 1 HP would be more than adequate for a typical residential turn over. Using a larger pump will only overdrive your filter, unless it is sized correctly for the pump. The larger pump if too big will use more enery and require more repair due to radial bearing load. So save yourself some $$$ on initial install, operating and repair costs. The heater will be fine, but i would go with the 400,000 because you will probably wind up using it on the pool also, that is not to say that the 250,000 would not. make certain that you hard pipe the gas to the heater as per the manufacturerer's specifications.