Wayne's Crazy Deck-Inside-Pool Project...

[Wayne 962]

Okay, some of you know that I just bought a new house. Well, this house was perfect for me and my family (large backyard, good neighborhood, 4 bedrooms + office, etc.). But the one albatross was a big ole pool that was in the backyard. It's a great looking pool, don't get me wrong, but my kids are ages 3,2, and 1, so we don't want them around any pool right now. Building a fence and/or getting a pool cover wasn't really an option either, as the pool is a really weird shape, and the fence would run very close to an existing deck that the kids could easily use to climb over. Not worth the risk.

So, we didn't want to fill in the pool, so I decided to build a custom deck inside the pool flush with the surface. My original plan was to make it modular, so that we could remove it for a season and then replace it in the winter, but that was way too difficult of a project. Instead, it's going to be semi-permanent. There's a place in AZ that does this, but they seem to be the only place in the country that builds these types of decks. They didn't want to come out to LA. Their website is www.deckover.com, and here's a photo of what they do:



So, that was my goal for our pool. Here are some photos of what I am dealing with:

[Wayne 962]

The pool is about 37 feet across, and 25 wide at it's widest point. Needless to say, it takes up a lot of space. The first step was to empty the pool. I hired the pool guys to come out and loan me a pump. It took about 28 hours to empty the entire pool (it was a relatively small pump). Believe it or not, they pump the pool out through the toilet. Go figure, it worked fine. The crazy looking bridge thing off to the right in the photos is this weird/cool underwater tunnel thing in the pool that you can swim through. The bridge across the top was weird too, it was only about 4" under water, so you could walk across it and look like you were walking on water. You could probably also sit over there with a tall drink sitting on the shelf and 1/2 would be in the water, and 1/2 would stick out. Cool, but alas, the water's gone now...

[Wayne 962]

Day one of construction (Sunday a week and a half ago) was a very unsucessful day. I didn't take any photos, because none of my ideas worked. I thought I would build the structure by hanging it from the sides of the pool, and then building the superstructure underneath. That way, the upper deck would be automatically level with the top of the pool. Turned out this was impossible to do by yourself (only one guy, and the wood is *really* heavy when it's 16' long. I gave up in disgust, and couldn't sleep that night.

Well, that night, I decided that I should call the guys in AZ and beg them to come out and build it for me. They said no. So, it was back to the drawing board again. I decided that the only way to really build this was do start at the bottom and try to build it like a traditional beam / joist / top surface deck. So, I got some concrete feet, some pressure treated 4x4s, and a bunch of 8x2x16 boards to use as joists. I placed the concrete feet as close to the sides of the pool as possible, where they wouldn't be angled too much (the pool bottom is not flat, of course). Then I used my level to align the two degrees of freedom on the posts (after sawing an angle on the bottom to "match" the angle on the feet). Sure enough, the posts when anchored to the feet stay up in the air, nice and level by themselves. It took me a while to figure out the best way to do this, and a lot of trial and error with the 8' long 4x4s. After building two of these posts with the "swivel foot" concrete pier, I placed one of the 16' beams across the top. This was a big improvment over the zero productivity of day one.

Oh, the pink string was used to determine the top surface of the deck. I then measured down from there the width of the top deck material, the height of the joist, and the height of the beam. That's how I knew where to cut the 4x4s. As I will disclose later on, this is only an approximate measurement...

Some photos:

[Wayne 962]

Day two and three, I added two more 16' beams across the pool, and then tied them all together so the whole structure wouldn't lean over towards the shallow end and fall down. In the photos below, I just chucked some joists onto the top of the three beams just to show my wife and my Dad (who have both been tracking my progress) some semblence of progress towards a "deck". I quickly realized that the top surface of the deck wasn't really level from side to side, and quickly came up with a plan to build the deck in a few sections, each one supported only by four beams (to start). Then I would apply the top deck material (I chose redwood in this case - more on this later), and then I will shim or cut each of the posts around the deck to align the top surface with the edge surface of the pool. The goal is to make them the same exact level so that tricycles can be ridden seamlessly across it without any problems. It also helps to reduce the trip hazard.

Well, by the end of day four (forgot to take photos on day 3), the structure had the three beams and the joists simply laid on top for effect. The underlying structure is weak - the goal is to shim the entire deck to the proper height, and then re-inforce the heck out of it once it's final height is determined. It's strong enough to support my weight, but not strong enough to support much of anything else. When done, I will make sure you can drive a truck on it, but before the shimming, it doesn't make any sense to reinforce, as I will just have more things to adjust later on.

Photos:

[Wayne 962]

Day five, I basically took all of the joists, measured them out to 16" centers, and then used Simpson strongtie brackets to attach them to the front and rear beams. The middle beam does nothing right now, as I only want the deck supported on four points, for easier shimming next time.

I also began to cut some pieces and join them together to make the edge around the rounded part under the diving board (we will remove this later). I covered the whole thing at night with a blue tarp, as I wanted to keep as much sunlight off of the pressure treated wood. It seems that the sun heats the chemicals in the wood, and if it's not tacked down, it twists and bends very easily and then is basically ruined. I ruined about 3 pieces this way by accidentally forgetting to cover them up.

Photos from day five:

[Wayne 962]

Day six was spent picking out the deck material. I had to comb through a lot of bad pieces at Home Depot. I was originally going to go with a composite material, but I found so many bad reviews on the Internet about the material getting mold and mildew, that I decided I didn't want the hassle. I thought the redwood would make a nice colored texture for the deck, but my wife has now convinced me that we should paint it the same color as the outer concrete deck. I wanted to stain it a deep red, but after thinking about it a while, I agree with her. The goal is not to accentuate the deck, despite the fact that I will be quite proud of it.

I don't recommend dropping a 16' piece of redwood on your foot. I was bleeding through my sock after that (not good, still hurts now 8 days later).

Cleaning up the end piece here, I cut all of the joists off (with my 7.5" circular saw, $60 at Lowes), and complete the end piece. I didn't have too much time to work, but I did have time to lay some of the redwood across and walk on it, so I could get a feel for how it would look, and to also show my wife and Dad some progress.

Photos:

[Wayne 962]

Day seven I spent all day attaching the hidden fastener system. Based upon Milt's recommendation, I went with the Deckmaster system:

http://www.grabberman.com/Deckmaster/

It truly seems to be the best one out there, and I needed one with some flexibility too, as this pool deck project is not your average, typical deck. The bad part about the system is that it appears to take about 2X as long to install as some other systems. You have to attach a series of metal rails to the deck using lots of screws and a cordless drill. This took about 4-5 hours to complete for this first section - what a pain! Plus, this section is 8 feet off the ground meaning that I was working above my head the entire day. Very frustrating, but I got it done:

[Wayne 962]

Okay, so day eight was spent trying to figure out what color to stain the deck. Multiple trips to Lowes and Home Depot later (with gallons of stain I will now never use), resulted in me going with the Behr Deck / Fence solid color stain that will match the concrete almost perfectly. It's a greyish color with some pinkish hues in there. I bought a gallon tonight (again), and will test paint tomorrow.

In the meantime, I started on the other side of the pool. The goal is to build the same sized deck on the west side of the pool, and then join them together. Having already done this on the east side, this was much easier (and I only made a total of four posts, instead of six to start). So progress for day eight was four posts, two beams, and then I laid the joists across the beams to show some apparent progress. The lumber yard I went to for the other wood was out of stock on the 8x2x16, so I got it from another location. They must use a different type of process on this treated wood, as it was much greener (both are Douglas Fir). Odd that there would be a big difference in color like that.

On a side note, I have spent just about as much time in lumber yards, Home Depto, and Lowes as I have actually working on the deck. It's very frustrating, but I waste a lot of my time trying to find just the right equipment / parts. No one place has it all, and the people at all of the stores (including the lumber yards), are either extremely slow or incredibly unhelpful. Home Depot and Lowes in particular seem to only hire the bottom of the barrel these days. The guy at Lowes had no idea what I was talking about when I was trying to inquire about ordering redwood, the guy at Home Depot didn't know what hidden fasteners were, and didn't know anything about the IQ hidden fastener system, for which Home Depot is a dealer. Didn't bother to help find out either. Very frustrating - it makes Pelican's great Customer Service surely stand out.

Photos from day eight, assembly of the west side:

[Wayne 962]

Finally, on day nine here, I was able to cut the joists on the west deck, and start joining the west deck to the east deck. Now, it's starting to look like I may actually finish sometime in July!

Photos (taken at night):

[Wayne 962]

A few more notes and thoughts:

- We're trying to keep the jacuzzi area open and operating. My pool guy tells me that this should be possible if we reconnect some of the plumbing to the filter, and install a heater (there's no heater there now). I'm going to make a mini removable deck that will fit over the hot tub area and cover it with the water still underneath. That's the plan anyways...

- The cost of materials so far is nearing about $4K and change. Estimates from deck builders would normally peg this project at about $20-$25K if there was a crew doing it. I expect that I'll spend about $8K on the materials when I'm all done. Just for reference, the 8x2x16s were about $16/$18 each (or about $400 per deck side so far). The redwood to cover one deck piece was about $700. Brackets, nails, supplies, etc, seem to keep adding up every time I visit the stores!

-Wayne

[Dave L]

very interesting project, the only sugestion I would have is to leave a trap door so you can still get to the bottom of the pool. The deck obviously wont be water proof so you will get water sitting at the bottom which will become quite nasty and smelly if it isnt pumped out.

[Tim Hancock]

Kudos on the whole DIY aspect, but if I owned that pool, I would cherish/use it not hide it. Seems like it would have been easier and better to teach your kids to swim. My kids grew up with a non fenced pond in the back yard and swim like fish.

Surely you are not falling in-line with the whole wussification of America syndrome are you?

Anyhow..... looks like you are doing a d@mn fine job. No doubt it will look very nice when completed.

[KFC911]

And we thought you were busy working on PelicanWiki . Great job!

[TerryBPP]

You're breaking the hearts of summertime kids everywhere.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Dave L

very interesting project, the only sugestion I would have is to leave a trap door so you can still get to the bottom of the pool. The deck obviously wont be water proof so you will get water sitting at the bottom which will become quite nasty and smelly if it isnt pumped out.

I was also wondering what would be done about water that ran into the hole. I'm sure besides the smell/nastiness issue, it's probably not good for the wood.

[Garyo4]

Originally Posted by Dave L

very interesting project, the only sugestion I would have is to leave a trap door so you can still get to the bottom of the pool. The deck obviously wont be water proof so you will get water sitting at the bottom which will become quite nasty and smelly if it isnt pumped out.

Or, because the children might get the trap door open, place a sump pump on the lowest section on the pool's base and have the discharge hose semi-permanently coming up through the deck somewhere where it won't be a tripping hazard. You are at the point now where you can "plumb" this in and run an extension cord to the pump. Your choice then as to how often you need to plug in the cord to see if there's water down there.

Neat looking job! Kudos to you.

Regards
Gary

[jyl]

I see another 101 Projects book in the making.

I think you should have an opening in the deck and a proper stair leading to the pool floor. Wire in some lights and you've got a funky cool guest suite, love grotto, kids secret clubhouse, or room for a big-ass slot car track with banked curves.

[charlesbahn]

Not a fan of this project. Very hazardous. Big covered hole will attract water and critters, and who knows what else. Wood will rot and support will be (????), if not already. If you don't want the pool, should just completely remove it.

Sorry

Charles

[Porsche-O-Phile]

You can use treated (exterior grade) wood. It is no longer impregnated with the arsenic-based chemicals of years past (safer now). Or you can just stain it. Overall I think this is a good idea although to echo some of the above comments yes, I'd strongly consider building in some kind of access door. You can always put a lock on it.

Is your intention to keep the deck in place permanently or just until the kids get old enough to not potentially drown themselves by falling in a few years down the road?

It's a perfect place to hide a surreptitious grow room too.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

...It's a perfect place to hide a surreptitious grow room too.

Not any more