The truck is scheduled, the cage is built, and the inspector is on the way — and you already know that what gets buried under the gunite can never be fixed. Skip a chair on the cove, run a contact splice in a shotcrete shell, or set the steel an inch too close to the dirt, and the rejection costs you days — or the buried defect costs you the whole shell. This book takes you from a pile of stock bar to a cage that passes the pre-gunite inspection the first time, with the reasoning behind every spacing, lap, and cover dimension you'll ever set. Here is what this book delivers: • Beat the number-one rejection — hold earth-side and water-side cover on floors, walls, and curves with dobies and chairs, and read why ACI 318 demands more cover against earth. • Splice for the shot — build noncontact lap splices that let the gunite encase the steel, and stop the shadowing voids that contact splices bury behind every bar. • Size it shootable — work within the No. 5 bar ceiling for shotcrete and the clearances ACI 506.2 sets, so the nozzle reaches the back of the shell. • Build the bond beam right — tie horizontal steel into the wall mat, turn the corners continuous, and dowel a cold joint that actually holds. • Make the cage the bonding grid — coordinate the equipotential connection NEC 680.26 requires before the steel disappears. • Carry the Pre-Gunite Inspection-Ready Walkthrough — one checkpoint at every element, consolidated into a master pre-shot sign-off. Written for pool contractors, rebar crews, foremen, apprentices, and the inspectors who check their work. Build the cage you'd stand behind — on every pool you shoot.
