Welcome to plaster day. It's time to put the final touches on your pool and get it filled with water. Now there are many different types of plaster materials. If you watched our selecting materials video in section two, you've already been educated on this. But every single plaster option comes with its own cost, color, and finish. On the day of plaster, make sure that the crew is protecting your site. You probably just had your decking poured, so ensure that they're laying plastic out all the way around the pool to keep everything protected. It's also probably a good idea to throw some plastic tarp under the mix er outside just to ensure you don't end up with a messy job site in the front yard during this phase of the process. Once your team finishes the pebble or the plaster install, you're gonna be filling your pool with water immediately. Mike's gonna show you the best way to do this in our in the field section coming up next. But first, what I want you to know is that you need to make sure that you are filling that pool all the way up with water until it reaches the middle of the tile line and do not stop in the middle. If you stop during the water fill, you could leave a permanent ring around your pool. So ensure that that water flow is coming continuously and that you've paid your water bill on time. Once the pool is finished, you'll wanna move that hose over to the spa if you have one and then fill up the spa to the middle of its tile line. It's also extremely important to never use your autofill during this stage of the process. Wait until your pool and spa are completely filled with water before utilizing your autofill. And listen carefully, guys. Please don't leave the hose on the edge of the pool and let it just sheet down. That can cause divots in your fresh new plaster. So make sure to put it into the pool properly. Again, Mike is gonna show you how to do this in just a second. Now is also the time to call your startup technician and let them know that your pool is gonna be full within twenty four hours. They should be able to come out immediately to start up that equipment as soon as the pool is finished filling. And as always, don't forget to download your checklist and check out the FAQ after this video. But first, let's join Mike in the field for this very exciting plaster day. Okay. Talking about the fence and gates that you'll need to have up before your plaster inspection. In some areas it's called a pre plaster inspection, Other areas, we'll call it a fence and gate inspection. What they're gonna do is they're gonna come out to make sure that you have a perimeter around your pool. Now whether it's around the pool itself or outside of the pool area, in this case, the property line pretty much is where the fence line is. It doesn't go the entire property, but just the part that's around the pool. It needs to be a five foot high non climbable fence. So for example, if they were to put one of these bars down here, that would not pass code because that would be a foothold that somebody could use to get up and over the fence. So this is a good example of what an iron fence looks like. You can use wood, vinyl, glass, plexiglass. There's lots of different choices when it comes to fencing, but they're gonna look for it to be five feet high and what they call non climbable. For the gate, there has to be at least one gate, what they call a man gate, which is your basic entry gate that has to swing out away from the pool. Now in this example here, this gate did swing in, so we had to take the gate off and switch the hinges to the outside and the latch to the outside so that this would actually swing out away from the pool area and self close and latch. It has to do that in order to meet code, so you'll either have to have hinges that have springs in them like this one or a separate gate spring on here. Part of that fence and gate inspection or pre plaster inspection is putting an alarm up inside your house. You will need to check with your local jurisdiction. They're all a little different, but most will require an alarm that goes inside your house at any door, and in some areas even the windows that face the pool area. So if you have a patio door that goes out to the pool or windows that face the pool, they may all require these alarms and you'll need to check with your local jurisdiction to see what they do require before you call in that inspection. This one is by a company called Techno and it's called Pool Safe. It's a battery operated alarm. You just simply put a nine volt battery in the bottom. This mounts onto the by the door, and then you're gonna have two magnetic sensors. When those sensors separate when the door opens or the window is opened up, it sounds an alarm. There is a little bypass button you can push, but that's only for temporary opening. So if you wanted to open the window and then close it again, you'd simply push this. If you were going outside out of your house back to where the pool is gonna be located, you'd simply push the button and have to close the door behind you or the alarm would sound. Check with your billing department to see exactly what alarms they allow, where they want them before you purchase them and know how many to purchase. These are available online. You can find them on Amazon and all the other local pool supply places all have them, but make sure you ask your billing department which ones they approve because some of them only approve a certain brand and I hate to see you buy ones that you can't, get past the inspection with. After the pressure has been checked one more time right before plaster and we know all the plumbing lines are good, it's time to cut off all those fittings or what we call stubs, that are sticking out for the return lines, for the, airlines, for your pool lights, spa lights, and jet fittings. Speaking of jet fittings, I wanted to show you this is what an actual jet fitting looks like. When it's sitting in your spa, you're gonna have the waterline and the air line that mixes inside where the nozzle goes, to get to your strong jet action. And what happens is depending on how far back in the gunite shell or shotcrete shell this jet fitting is, is gonna depend on how long they make this stub that goes inside. It's actually gonna come in here and screw inside and each one's gonna be a little different depending on how far back into the gunite shell that the jet fitting is. So if you look at these two, you'll see they're a lot different in length. This one obviously has the jet fitting further back into the spa, so it needs to be a longer one. And if the jet fitting happens to be a little closer, then of course it'd be the shorter one. And what they've done here is they've actually numbered each one of the jets with a coinciding number on each of the pipes so that we know exactly, oh, number seven goes into number seven, number nine goes into number nine and so on and so forth. So that way they know the length is proper for that exact location. Now, also I wanted to show you on the jet fittings, there's all kinds of jet fittings you can get. This particular one spins. There's others like this that pulsate and there's others that are just a straight stream of water that come out through the jet. That'll be up to you to pick the exact fittings that you want in your spa. You may do a variety kinda like we are here, but it's up to you to pick the exact jet fitting that you want for your spa. Okay. Here where we had the stub out sticking of the pipe, they've cut that and put in this fitting here. That's gonna be for the return line that's gonna be pushing water out to try to keep your pool as self cleaning as possible. Unlike the jets that have air mixed with it, this will be just a straight stream of water, so you won't see a bunch of bubbles coming up inside of your pool, like you do inside of your spa. But, this is what the fitting looks like. It actually threads inside of it, and inside those threads are gonna be a fitting that actually you can adjust the nozzle which way you want the water to go to help clear off whatever areas they are, go around a corner, whatever it might be in your particular pool. Okay. Again, the prep crew has come in here, cut off all the stubs, put all the fittings in. A lot of people wanna know why there's no fitting on this particular pipe. That's because this is for the autofill. It doesn't have any water coming out that's being adjusted. It's just water coming on as it's needed. As the water level drops in the pool, it'll add water to the to the pool from the autofill and this is where it comes into the pool and enters into the pool. So this doesn't get a return line fitting like most of the others that you see. Here you do see a return line fitting. Again, has the threads in here that'll thread in a return line that'll have a nozzle that we can adjust to get the flow of the water going however we want it to. And the plaster is gonna come right up to the edge of this fitting here. And you can see around each of the fittings, they've made a concrete mix to kind of fill in that gap that was there before from the Shock Creek and Gunite crews. And as we get down to here, this one a little lower, this is actually for a pool light. The pool light will go in here and get threaded in and sit inside of this fitting. It looks very similar to the return line fittings, but this one happens to be for the LED pool light. Here we have a suction line that is for the fountain pumps for this particular pool. You have two options. You can either do a channel style like this. This is gonna fit on there so the outside perimeter is all that's sucking in water. Or you can have two six or nine inch round grates that will go here. If you do it that style, it has to be separated by three feet in order to meet the proper codes. What is gonna happen is this is gonna fill up with plaster or pebble, whatever material you're using, as well as what's gonna be on the wall. So when this goes in here like this, the only thing that'll be open is the outside perimeter of this area here to do the suction again for the fountain pump. Here you can see where a couple patches have been done prior to the plaster going in from normal shrinkage cracks that you get from the shock creed or the gunite shrinking as it cures. So they went ahead and patched those up just to make double sure that there wouldn't be any leaks in the plaster once it's done. As you can see in the background here, it had rained and so they're getting a pump set in there to get that all pumped out and getting it ready for the plaster. Okay. Here we have, the fitting for the bubblers. This is what's gonna go on top of it. So what's gonna happen is when this twists off, one of them is gonna have the light that goes in, the other one is gonna be actually the bubbler that comes up. So this fitting looks like this. This is actually where the bubbler comes up, and then this will be for the light that helps, blow it out. So that's gonna sit on something very similar to that to allow the bubbler to work and then have the light right along side of it, but that's the way that fitting looks, so you know what to look for if you have bubblers on your particular project. Alright. As they're prepping your pool for plaster, you may want inside your pool and either in a reef seat or maybe in a shelf to have an umbrella sleeve put in. This particular one is from a company called Aquastar. This is the way they look. What'll happen is there's two pieces, the part that goes down inside and then the cover piece which is separate. Let me show you what that looks like. This is what you'll see on the top, and if you want to put your umbrella in, you simply unscrew that, and the umbrella goes inside. And then, if you don't want your umbrella in there and you don't want to be stubbing your toe, you just screw that back in and it makes it nice and flush. On this particular project, on the Baja shelf, they didn't want the umbrella sleeves originally, but they're gonna add them to it by roto hammering a hole into the gunite so that that way they can get these umbrella sleeves installed and be able to put umbrellas out in their reef seat if they want to. Okay. Here we have the main drain for the pool. They've prepped up and got ready for the plaster. Again, this is a channel drain. The way that's gonna look is this fits on here just like that, and this will be filled in with pebble or plaster, and the pebble or plaster is gonna come up to the edges here. So this outer edge is the only thing that's left open for suction. You either have to do a channel drain like this or two round drains that are separated by at least three feet in order to meet code. But this is all prepped and ready for plaster. Okay. Here you can see where they did some patchwork on the barstools getting it ready for plaster. When they're filling up the sauna tubes that were over this with the shotcrete, they weren't able to get all of it filled in. So the little bit of void they filled in with a quickcrete five thousand. That's a high cure rate cement, that they use to do any type of patchwork that's needed in any big voids. If they have smaller voids like this, this can be filled in with plaster or pebble when they go to do the pebble or plaster, but any larger void should be filled in prior to the pebble or plaster crew showing up on the job site. Alright. Plaster day. It's always exciting. Pool's almost finished at this point. There's many different types of plaster you can go with, whether it's a white plaster, a colored plaster, quartz, pebble. There's all different hydrazzo. There's all different styles and types and colors you can go with with plaster. You'll need to go over that with your plaster company and get samples. Actually, look at the samples, see what they look like, feel them, make sure it's exactly what you want before you decide on which product to have installed in your backyard. The guys are pretty much wrapping everything up here today. They have to go into the pool in the beginning with the hose, fill it all up with the plaster, trowel it all in. They go through a bunch of different phases. They actually do at least two different coats. They wait till the first coat is in and gets kinda sticky. Then they do the second coat on top of that and trowel it all out and they'll start off with spikes on their shoes and they'll end up with sponges on their feet before they're done. You should also have the plaster make a little sample for you of actually what's gonna be going in your pool. They should be able to present that to you before they fill it all up so that that way you can take a look at it and make sure it's the right color combination if you picked a color. So that that way you're getting exactly what you thought you were getting. You sure don't wanna make that choice once it's already all done. So their plaster company should be able to do a little sample like this for you. Take a look at it. Obviously, it's not gonna be exact as it will in the whole pool, but it'll be pretty close and give you a good idea what your pool's gonna look like once it's completed. Alright. With your main drain covers, you can either use a round cover or these channel drains, which are kind of popular right now. This particular channel drain, you fill in the center portion with the same material that's going to be inside your pool, whether it be a plaster or a quartz, doesn't matter, or a pebble. It fills inside these, and then this is going to get installed inside the pool down there where the gentleman's working right now. He's clearing it all out so that they can actually put these in before they start filling it up with water. Okay. If your pool has barstools like this particular pool does, expect to spend a little extra on the cost of the project. It takes a lot extra time for them to finish these barstools. They take a lot more effort and a lot more labor to get them just right. So if you do have barstools or a lot of ledges and seats in your pool, you can assume to pay a little bit more for your pebble or plaster, just so that they can cover the extra time and guys it'll take to get that process done. Alright. The very last step that they're gonna do with plaster right before they fill it up with water is they'll go around and clean all the edges anywhere where the plaster may have gotten up on in a tile or on any of the fixtures, whether it's a return line fitting, lights, anything like that. The very last thing they'll do is go around and make sure all those things are cleaned out and looking really good before they start filling it up with water. Alright. Now we're at this point of the plaster. I wanted to point out a couple things. If you look straight down here, you can see where they've cleared off where the light itself is. That's the lens for the LED light. And, they've cleared that all off nice and clean so that that way the light will shine really nice and bright. And over here, we have the cap for the bubblers. This is on just for the plaster purposes so that no plaster gets inside where the bubbler is and the light is for the bubbler. What'll happen is once this is all cured, you'll come back, you'll unscrew that cover and screw on the actual cover that lens that's gonna be the final product where the bubbler comes out here and the lens is here to shine out around that bubbler. Alright. They're almost done here. They're gonna be ready to start filling it up with water. If it's regular plaster, they'll start the water right away. If it's a pebble product, you have a choice of either filling the pool all the way up and doing what they call a pH startup, which is where they put acid in the water. They let it cure like that, then they put a soda ash baking soda in to bring down the pH, and that way you can filter it through after that. Sometimes you'll have it where it's acid washed and they actually come in and do an acid wash in the pool. So make sure you talk to your contractor about which way they prefer to do the startup and what they feel is gonna look best in your pool. Pro tip, during the plaster phase of your project, I would have a new hose ready for your plasters to use in your pool. Probably by now with all the different contractors using your hose, it's probably pretty dirty and grody. So I would supply them a new hose, and at the very end of the hose, I suggest wrapping that with a soft cloth so that that way as it's in the in the pool filling it up with water, it can not mar or put any kind of divot in the plaster itself because it's got this nice soft cloth around the edge. In other words, we don't want this metal to be on the bottom of the pool where it can be scratching or marring any of that new fresh plaster. So on the side that goes in the pool, put up nice piece of cloth, get it so that that way there's nothing sticking out that can mar the finish. This particular hose has another one couple feet down just again to help keep that hose off the bottom so it doesn't mar the finish of that brand new plaster. Alright. Another pro tip for at the plaster time of your project is have a little area available for your plaster crew to clean everything out, and they're gonna wash out their buckets and clean all their tools. Make sure you have a nice little area for them to do that, so they don't have to do it on your grass or your nice landscape or something like that. So make sure you have an area like this for them.