You have made it to the gunite and shotcrete phase of your pool construction project. This is a huge milestone, and this is where the pool shell is going to be formed. Before your crew arrives, make sure to do a quick pressure check at the pressure gauge over by the pool equipment. Pool equipment pressure should match whatever the plumber set or at least be close to it. Your pressure is usually set around thirty to thirty five psi. If there are major drops in pressure, that means you have a leak, and we wanna address it before the gunite crew comes on-site. So take note of that. If you're gonna have any Art Rock on your pool, you'll wanna coordinate with your Art Rock crew and see if they're gonna work alongside the gunite crew or come in after they're done. Schedule accordingly to whatever their preferences are. Shotcrete is premixed and delivered on-site by cement trucks. It has a stronger cure and there's no rebound, so it's typically a cleaner application, which is why we prefer it if it's available in your area. Gunite is a dry mix applied at the nozzle. It is a great material if shotcrete's not available, but it does require a little extra care because all rebound must be removed during this process. Take note that if you are using traditional gunite, that rebound could cause structural weakness if it is not removed. So make sure that that is done by your gunite crew. Watch for future notching. Your raised bomb beam should be notched at a forty five degree angle after twelve inches. This will create the proper base for your coping. After your shell is complete, there are a few responsibilities for you as the homeowner. Number one, if there's any rebound left in your pool, if you shot gunite, make sure it is removed immediately. Make sure there's no material left in any of the trenches around site, and make sure that you put a little pile together if there's a bunch of rebound that needs to be removed from the job site later. Second, it's so important to continue monitoring your pressure gauge at the equipment and ensure that there are no drops in pressure throughout the rest of this construction project. And finally, you're also gonna wanna be watering down that gunite per your subcontractors recommendations. So check-in with them, see how often you should be watering down that gunite prior to moving to the next phase of your pool project. And as always, don't forget to download your checklist and check out the FAQ after this video. But before you do, let's join Mike in the field on the day of gunite. Alright. Today's the day of gun night or shotcrete as we're doing here today. It's exciting day. We get to see the pool take shape today. These guys are all getting everything ready to shoot the shot here today. This is what they'll be shooting the shot through. What happens is the shot gets delivered out front. We'll show you that in a minute. From cement trucks, it comes up through this big tube here. It'll go up into the nozzle. This is the airline, which has a controller on this side and what they call the nozzle man. The nozzle man will shoot all of this in, starting at the bottom, working his way up to the top to get that shotcrete material from the screed out here to the pool and shoot the entire pool. This is what they call button board. In this case, it's a pegboard they're using. Some places actually will use drywall. And what they're gonna do is they've set this up here on the spa dam wall, the wall between the spa and the pool. It's called the dam wall. They'll set that up, and then what they're gonna do is blow up against it in the beginning with the nozzle I just showed you. And that way they have something to shoot against. Once that's done, they'll untie it, take that off, and then shoot up against what's already been shot from the inside to form that whole wall. So expect to see some button board or pegboard like this on your job. You may even see on your proposal that you get a separate charge for button board. This is what they're talking about. Any area that is void, they have to put this up to have something to shoot up against. Right here, these are tie wires that you see set up all throughout the pool. And on a straight line pool, they're going set these in to get everything level and straight. You want to have if it's a rectangle, for example, you want that rectangle to be a true rectangle. So the way they get that is with these wires. They're pretty tight, almost like a guitar string, and they'll have those all throughout to make sure every single line is completely straight. And then when they go to trim their Shotcrete, they'll trim right up to this wire so that they know that everything is plumb and straight. Okay. You know, in the earlier videos during plumbing phase, we talked about the skimmer. The skimmer, which is in over here, has that loop up on the top that's there to hold pressure. What I wanted to show you today is see how the way they put that red duct tape in the front and on the top of the skimmer. You're going to want to see them do that so that that way as they're shooting in the Shotcrete, they're not shooting any material that happens to go inside the skimmer or on the top of that skimmer inside. Because once that Shotcrete dries, it's hard to cement and it's going be really tough to get out. So you should always make sure, and I'm sure they will, that they cover up the front port of the skimmer and the top of it so that no Shotcrete material gets inside that skimmer. Okay. Just like we wanted to see the skimmer all taped up so that no Shotcrete could get into it. If you have bubblers or any kind of fountains that are already installed, make sure they tape those up as well so that no Shotcrete material gets inside of any of the bubblers or fountains or anything like that that you have. So just make sure that they're all sealed up like this. Once concrete gets in here, once they shoot the shock crate, it's going to be really hard to get it out. So make sure they tape everything up first so that no shock material gets inside. Okay. These are the bond wires that we talked about earlier. We call them WIPs, the number eight copper bonding wire that's attached to the steel shell of the pool. Make sure that they're easily identified like this, sticking up and out from the gunite. So then they're doing the shot create or the gunite. They don't take them and accidentally bury them into the rest of the shell. So make sure they're sticking up and out at the at least four places around the pool so that they're gonna be easy to get to when the masonry crew shows up. Okay. Make sure your shotcrete or gunite crew knows, and they should, to go around and make sure all these Adobe blocks are underneath the steel. That way, it keeps the steel elevated up three inches, and you can get enough material underneath as well as on top. Your Shotcrete crew or Gunite crew should set up tarps like this around your pool to help contain everything inside so that no extra material gets out, hits your house or any windows. This particular project is set off of the house a little bit, so they went ahead and just surrounded the entire project with these tarps. And it just keeps everything self contained inside the tarp that nothing gets out and hits anything else. Alright. Behind me, you can see the shotcrete truck, the concrete truck that's delivering the concrete. It's gonna be pouring it through its chute into the hopper of the compressor, which is the yellow machinery you've seen behind me, and it'll go down into that hopper. And what we hear that's so loud is the vibrator that vibrates it all the way down, goes into the hose, and then now we're going to the backyard to do the actual shotcrete into the pool. Okay. We got the laser set up, a little elementary here on a stool, but as long as it's level, it doesn't matter. So the laser set up, and we did that originally when we were digging the pool to get everything level and flat. Now that we're doing the shotcrete, they're gonna take the laser out and re level everything and make sure everything is completely straight again and straight and level so that that way when you put your tile in and your water in, everything's nice and level. So they'll have this set up, the transit set up, and then they'll have this which senses the laser. They'll bring this over, and they're going to check the pool at different locations to make sure that everywhere is the exact same all throughout the pool so that that way they know it's one hundred percent completely level. Okay. When your day of Shotcrete comes and you're putting in the Shotcrete or the Gunite, go over with your Gunite crew how you plan on doing your overflow. You can either do an overflow out of the back of the skimmer port where a pipe would go in here and come out and go into the drainage system, or you can use a device like this to take the water out of the pool if it were to fill up too much through a rainstorm and put it into your drainage system. If you do this style, they're going need to put a notch into the gunite or the shotcrete that's about an inch deep and about four inches wide so that this can fit in there nice and flush. Your coping will go just over the top of this. And then, of course, the water is going to come out and go into your drainage system. So if there were a heavy rainstorm, water comes up, it doesn't overflow onto your decks, it goes into the drainage system. Either way works. You just need to let them know which way you'd like to go. Also, have your shotcrete crew while they're here put in a little hole that's what we call a weep hole in case there were any underground water pressure that should come up, especially if you live in an area that has high water tables. You may even want to have a couple of weep holes put in. These weep holes will get filled in once they do the plaster process. But while the gunite shell is sitting here, it's just extra protection in case any underground water should come up. It would come up through that weep hole and not put any undue pressure on the structural shell of the pool. All right. Right now, they're doing the wash out down into this bag that's gonna hold all of the wash out. Not all areas will require this, but some jurisdictions do require to have a wash out station, and that's what this is. They're gonna wash out all of the hopper. Everything's gonna come down and stay inside of here. So that way, nothing goes out into the street. It goes into the curbs and go down the gutter and ends up in lakes and oceans and rivers and things like that. So they're actually washing right out into the washout bin right now. Day of Shotcrete's exciting, and, pro tip would be to make sure you go over with your Shotcrete crew, Gunite crew if that's what you're using, the elevations of everything that you want. Any certain elevation of the seat bench height, reef seat, Baja shelf height, the spa steps, seats. A lot of people will have the seats in the spa at different elevations. Now would be the time to go over that with your Gunite crew or Shotcrete crew. Let them know the elevations that you want everything. Also, the spillway notch itself. If you have a spa on your project, the wall between the spa and the pool is called a dam wall. You're going to have a notch in there that lets the water overflow from one to the other, from the spa down into the pool. The wider that notch is, the more of a dribble effect you're going get down the front of it. The narrower it is, the more it'll sheet out almost like a cascade. So if you want that look, keep a little bit narrower spillway. If you want the where it just kind of flows over the top, then you're gonna want a wider spillway from the spawn to the pool. Just make sure you go over that with your Shotcrete crew, and that way they know exactly what you're looking for. Alright. Pro tip. On the day of gunite or Shotcrete, make sure you talk to your guys about leaving you umbrella holes wherever you're going to want to put in an umbrella sleeve. The Shotcrete crew will actually put in the umbrella sleeve. They're all pretty universal. They come in white, tan, and gray, and the Gunite crew or Shotcrete crew is just going to dig some holes for now. And then once the plasters get here, they have a hole to put that umbrella sleeve in. Another pro tip. On the day of Shotcrete or Gunite, make sure you ask your crew how often you should be watering down the Gunite shell once it's done. They're watering it down right now, as you can see. Most of time, they'll tell you to water it down one or two times a day for the first seven days. Make sure you ask them, see what their recommendations are, and follow their recommendations.