Fiberglass Pool Installation – Pouring a Concrete Deck

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A Technical Guide to a Beautiful Deck

We have made some impressive headway and completed the fiberglass pool installation (if you've been following our blog). The final stages of this project were pouring our concrete pool deck, cleanup & pool startup. Now this home owner has a beautiful fiberglass swimming pool to enjoy for many warm days outside!

We have made some impressive headway and completed the fiberglass pool installation (if you’ve been following our blog). The final stages of this project were pouring our concrete pool deck, cleanup & pool startup. Now this home owner has a beautiful fiberglass swimming pool to enjoy for many warm days outside!

Sub-Contracting The Tough Work

You heard us right, we like doing a lot of the grunt work ourselves. It keeps us sharp and teaches us new construction techniques from hands on experience. However, there are just some jobs that require the attention of professionals who are artisans of their trade. For our concrete deck, we sub-contracted the deck installation to Silver Bros., Inc – from Hoopeston IL.

This talented team of concrete professionals was amazing to work with and we are very happy with their finished product. As you can see from the image above, we installed a concrete deck all the way around the edge of the pool. If you’re familiar with our industry or just simply curious, we had a couple of technical aspects of this job that is worth pointing out:

  • This is a Cantilever Deck (a.k.a. a poured concrete deck that requires the use of Styrofoam Stegemeier forms during the installation)
  • We also had to properly set the Polybox where our Automated Pool Cover will sit. This is tricky work because wet cement is heavy; we needed to ensure the wet concrete did not disturb our Polybox.
  • This deck had multiple elevations
Prior to pouring our concrete deck, we had to complete the "prep work." This involves "forming" our fiberglass pool with the white styrofoam Stegmeier forms (shown above). We also had to set framework (wood border) and lay our network of rebar in a 12"x12" grid.

Prior to pouring our concrete deck, we had to complete the “prep work.” This involves “forming” our fiberglass pool with the white styrofoam Stegmeier forms (shown above). We also had to set framework (wood border) and lay our network of rebar in a 12″ x 12″ grid.

The Prep Work: Prior To Pouring The Deck

As you can see from the image above, pouring a concrete deck is not as simple as just pulling up in a mix truck and dumping the contents. It’s much more involved and always comes down to one very simple step: Prep Work. As with any construction process, the efficiency of our installation is always based upon how well we prepare our work space for the next stage of development.

In our case, we prepared our work space by installing the following items prior to pouring our new deck:

  • Installed our Stegmeier Forms with a plumb strip. These forms are used form the inside edge of our concrete deck around the edge of our swimming pool. The plumb strip also prevents wet concrete from seeping through and setting in our new swimming pool. 
  • Secondly, we Framed our deck by setting reinforced wood beams around the outside perimeter of our pool deck.
  • Thirdly, we reinforced our Polybox to ensure it would not move from the weight of the wet cement as it rests and sets.
  • Lastly, we placed 1/2″ rebar steel in a grid-like pattern (12″ x 12″ to be exact) across the entire surface area of our new pool deck. Rebar creates a latticework inside of our new finished deck and holds the product together and reduces shifting or cracking.
Concrete is tough work! These gentlemen had to carefully operate around the smoothed wet cement and are essentially working backyards. You always want to ensure you do not walk on the "smoothed" side of your wet cement. They took create care to touch up our concrete deck and left us with a great finished product!

Concrete is tough work! These gentlemen had to carefully operate around the smoothed wet cement and are essentially working backyards. You always want to ensure you do not walk on the “smoothed” side of your wet cement. They took create care to touch up our concrete deck and left us with a great finished product!

Professional Installation – Your Pool Partners

Pouring a concrete deck is fairly simple in concept but hard in execution. Wet Cement is a malleable product that can be smoothed out, trenched out or sucked out (with a shop vac vacuum). However, once it sets and dries it takes on a permanent shape.

You can certainly understand why we hired professionals to handle this part of our fiberglass pool installation. One small mistake and you will see it forever. We would rather collaborate with these professionals so that our customer is left with a beautiful finished product.

At Illiana Backyard Fun, we are passionate about ensuring our customers receive the very best in all of our products and services. We work diligently, both in the field and our retail store, to provide our customers with the very best information for their swimming pools and backyards. It’s part of our overall mission of becoming your new Pool Partners for 2018!

After our cement was poured, Silver Bros, Inc. created some accent lines equally spaced along the surface area of our deck. This adds a nice tough and gives our new deck a more custom feel.

After our cement was poured, Silver Bros, Inc. created some accent lines equally spaced along the surface area of our deck. This adds a nice tough and gives our new deck a more custom feel.

Next Step: The “Startup” Process

Now that this stage of our fiberglass pool installation is over, we are ready for our final procedure: cleanup and startup. There is a lot of information to cover for new pool startup, but it mainly comes down to water chemistry & equipment maintenance.

Often, new swimming pool installations are a dirty and involved process. Once any new swimming pool is installed in your backyard, you want to hire Illiana Backyard Fun to “start up” your new pool the right way. We follow a specific process to clean up that construction work space, balance your water chemistry and complete a thorough check and cleaning of your filtration equipment.

This ensures that your ready to enjoy your new swimming pool without the initial hassle of getting it inline with industry standards first. Our startup procedure only takes a day and we do the dirty work so you can enjoy getting a tan and your first pool-side cocktail!

Contact Illiana Backyard Fun

We are here for all of your swimming pool and backyard needs. Our talented team of swimming pool professionals is here to answer any questions that you have about how to care or spruce up your backyard and outdoor living space. We believe in the concept of creating an Outdoor Oasis for you and your family to enjoy. It’s all about extending your home outdoors and create a wonderful environment for play and to make some great summer memories.

That being said, we have a great line of Outdoor Grills, Pergolas, Chemicals, Hot Tubs and much more available at our retail store in Iroquois County. All of these items are sold to enhance your overall backyard living experience. Contact us any time for a free estimate on any of our products or services! We are here for you and would love to meet you!

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