The Moshav Swimming Pool Story

I was hired by a Moshav, a cooperative agricultural settlement South of Rehovoth, to help them in their swimming pool project. The contractor was one of the members of the settlement and while he was sincerely trying to do a conscientious job, he was no professional. On the other hand, the moshav management committee did not want to comment since they have to live with the person and tomorrow, he may be in the ruling committee. So they hired me to convince him to do some changes.

I found that he knew nothing about drainage, that floor surfaces have to have a certain 1-2% slope, in order to maintain its dryness. The architect design did not show any slope, so he interpreted the designs as no slope, 0% slope. It was nicely finished, with antislip ceramic floor, very nice to touch and walk on.

I took a bucket of water and trew its content on the floor. The water did not run nor drain into the drains, it stayed forming dirty water shlooliyot. The dressing room would be permanently wet, and probably develope and ugly mold and fungus odor.

The man said he did exactly what the architect´s designs ordered,which was true. He insisted that floors have to be with zero slope. That is how they had to be. Obviously he had invested much effort on getting the floor well finished, and the ceramic antislip tiles were very expensive to replace.

In the end, more by insisting and wearing him down than sheer engineering authority, he agreed to lift the floor tiles and do it again with a slope towards the central drain.

The swimming pool is nice and it wa opened on time. The things I do to earn a few piasters.