Endless Pools

Yes, I'm taking my time to do this. The whole pool could've been up in two or three days had I got the slab and electrical work done in advance of the pool, and just devoted a whole weekend to erecting the pool itself. But I'm doing it little by little in my spare time. It's just my way.

Monty and I got the pool walls up, and it was easy. There are six panels that, when bolted together, form the pool, and by looking at the video and cursorily reading the manual it's easy to figure out how it goes together. Everything—including all the hardware—is included, and it's intuitive enough that one could probably figure out how to put it all together without the manual.

With a measuring tape and a string we got the pool plumb and straight and square. I used the tape to measure the diagonals, that is, I measured from far corner to far corner, and then measured the other corners, made sure the two measurements matched. That meant the pool was square. Each of the walls along the length of the pool is made of two wall segments. I just ran a string along the entire 16' length of the pool, and made sure the two wall panels were lined up straight with each other. We measured the width of the pool in different spots along both the top and bottom of the "walls."

Then came anchoring the pool to the slab. I decided I needed a beefier drill for this, and thought a rotary hammer would do the trick. To explain this process I've got to tell you about the Palmdale Swap Meet.

This is by no means a large swap meet. But it's been going on for a long time—at least several decades—and there are permanent stalls with storage capacity you can rent. It's highly developed. It's got your regular swap meet stuff—your garage salers, for example—as well as people selling new stuff. It's got a decidedly Mexican flavor, including salsa music blaring, Mexican food stands, Mexican juarache sellers, Mexican farmer's market fruit-and-veggie stands, and of course lots of Mexicans. If you like border shopping in Mexico, like I do, but you want to save yourself the trip and the wait at the border, this is your place.

Here's where the eerie part starts. As we go to this swap meet, as has become our habit on Sunday mornings, we dream up what it is we'd like to buy there. It doesn't seem to matter how obscure the item is (especially if it's a tool). This swap meet will have it. Say you want a left-handed reverse-thread 5/8" drive muffler bearing adjuster. Sure as shootin' you'll find two or three to choose from.

Not only that, you'll rue the muffler bearing adjuster purchase you made three weeks earlier, as well as every tool purchase you've made over the past several months. You could've gotten it here (and probably new and in the box) for a third the price.

So I went looking for a rotary hammer, and danged if I didn't find one, new and in the box, for $95. "Too much," I said, and continued on. Two rows later, the same rotary hammer in the same box was sitting there. $55. I bargained, and got it for $50. It came with a half-dozen masonry bits, including the 3/8" I needed for the Endless Pool's anchor bolts.

Now the pool walls are up, bolted together, plumb, true, and anchored to the slab, and all of that represented about four hours worth of work. Not too bad. I feel I'm in the home stretch, except for one part that, like the slab, represents a bit of manual labor that is in excess of the amount in which I generally like to engage. I have to rent a trenching machine and dig an 18"-deep trench from the power panel in my garage out to where the pool is—quite a distance, since the pool is in a scenic spot overlooking other scenic spots.

I confess I had my eye out for a trencher while at the swap meet as well, but I don't think I wanted to own one badly enough, or it would've been there.

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