Twas The Night Before Christmas...

And I thought I would take a couple of minutes and throw up some of the last photos for 2007, sort of a tour around the facility to see where it stands presently. Anyhow, here you go!

Taken from the deep end of the main pool - looking towards the shallow end.

Taken from where the run out lanes for the water slide - looking across the pool deck and the wave pool towards the shallow end.

Main Entrance to the facility

Rear of the facility - Air Handling units on the ground waiting to be installed in he facility.

Looking for more recent photos? Take a peek online at www.flickr.com/photos/cowichanaquatics

Thanks and have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and enjoy the time with your friends and family!

Deck work on the Competition Pool

Hi Folks,

There's lots of activity on the construction site today. One of the highlights so far is the big cement boom truck that came in and poured cement for the decks around the competition pool.

The cement truck lines up behind the pumper truck and connects to the pump and the pumper reaches over and through the window slot to direct the cement to the deck area. The crew then spreads, smoothes and levels the cement to form the deck around the competition pool. After they finished that job the pumper and truck moved over and poured the foundations for the two big Air handling units.

The two air handling units will be lifted into place through the opening in the wall and onto the platform. I'll have more pictures of this when we start to put the Air Handling units in place.

That's all for this week. The best of the holidays to you and your families from all of us at North Cowichan.

Nuts&Bolts

One of the areas that will be hidden from most persons views but is truly integral to the pool is the pump room.

This room is located on the bottom level of the mechanical section of the facility and is where the water will flow in from the three pools, be sent off to the filters / waterslide / spray features / lazy river and such.

The two photos here show the pump room at their initial stages (it is quite a while until the pumps show up and the plumbing truly begins) but shows the layout of the room at the outset.

The pipes you see coming out of the wall are the lines coming from the main drain and skimmer lines for the wave pool and competitive pool.

This is one of the areas that we will be highlighting as progress hits it as well - watch for more in the future!

A slightly wet afternoon...

Despite the dampness progress is still being made on the pool!! Today the installation of the glass around the main entrance has commenced and the vast majority completed. Starting to look very much like the entrance to the new pool.

Also, the exterior cladding is nearing completion - 85% of it has been applied around the building with only the deep end side of the main pool and the slide tower left to be done. The main pool side should be done by the end of the week and the slide tower will be completed once the slide pillar and stairs are installed.

Seems like everyday little pots of progress are showing up. Other notables on the interior include the brickwork being completed in the changerooms and staff change areas.

Look for more updates tomorrow!!

Hi Folks,
I'm back again today! I was walking the site taking photos and checking out the progress when I saw that the panels were completed past the slide tower and it really highlights the tower. So I took a few photos and wanted to share them with you. These photos are taken from the Pioneer field side of the site. On the photo on the left you will notice a square opening up high on the panel. This is where the smaller slide will enter the building on one of its twists and turns. Also at the bottom of the panel to the right you can notice two squares. This is where the slides come into the building and end at the runout lanes at the end of your slide. That's all for now! I'll be back with more next week.

QUICK TIP: If you want a better look at any of these photos just click on it with your mouse and it will enlarge enabling you to see even more detail!

Hi Folks!

I’m just getting started at the new pool site and I’m trying to absorb all of the activity going on. I’ve had a few opportunities to go onsite and see the progress of the construction. Wow talk about a beehive of activity! Right now one of the focuses (foci?) is on getting the building envelope completed so that we can keep the weather out and keep building our pool!

So on the exterior we have the building panels up on the James street side and going up on the ball field side of the building(photo above).
We have the glass framework being installed at the pool entrance to prepare for the windows (photo right).

Up on top, the roofers are working on the roof to keep everyone dry. On the inside of the pool the brick layers are laying out the rooms on the main floor(photo right).

The construction crew has cemented in the pool skimmers on the competition pool and are filling in this area with sand in preparation for the deck to be poured (photo below).

As each day passes it is getting harder and harder to see what’s going on, and that’s where I come in. I’ll be your eyes and ears and give you a peek at what’s happening through this Blog. I’ll be taking lots of pictures and I’ll share these with you to give you a regular snap shot of what’s happening.

Building the Pool

Welcome.

Every now and then municipal employees have random thoughts...that is exactly what this was. We were sitting around trying to figure out how do we keep everyone (or at least those that want to seek out the info) up to speed on what is happening with the pool, especially once the walls go up.

Naturally, being the government types we thought about newspaper advertisements, radio ads, press releases, the formal municipal website, posters, quarterly brochures and the list went on (and on and on and on).

In essence all of the usual, formal, ways that we try to communicate through. But at the end of the day we weren't truly satisfied that would meet your demand for info, our desire to be casual, and be extremely timely in our updates (preferably the day something cool happens (like turning on the taps, tiling the whirlpool, installing the showers, etc). By the way, I am a pool guy so this stuff does excite me - hopefully it will excite you as wel.

So at the end of it...a few of us got together and tried to decide on what would be the easiest way to get our message, show what is happening in the pool, let you see some (if not most) of the background things that go into building a pool and get some creative and interesting photos that you would not see otherwise. Generally just keep you up to date in a casual yet instantaneous manner on building the pool

Well, here we are (thanks Google!)

So, starting in December we will post here on an infrequent basis (perhaps the better phrase is on an impulse basis) photos, comments, schedules, plans and who knows what else on the building this pool.

Oh, and by the way, when we talk about building the pool we do not just mean the structure (although that is the cool stuff) but we are talking about deciding on equipment, making the swim schedule, decisions with user groups, swim lesson times, events and more. Sort of a catch all of building a pool, more to it than just making a hole in the ground and tossing water into it.

Anyhow, enjoy, make comments, and come back often.

The Pool Guy