Landscape Contractor / Design Build Maintain

JUL 2016

LC/DBM provides landscape contractors with Educational, Imaginative and Practical information about their business, their employees, their machines and their projects.

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Appearing on television for the first time car- ries a certain amount of risk even if that appear- ance is being made by a what and not a whom as was the case when a main character on an episode of Pool Kings, which is in its first year on the DIY Network, was a nature-inspired pool and its surrounding backdrop. To get to that point, the production company of the show first contacted Peek Pool and Spas, a renowned designer and builder of water features from Hawaii to Georgia. According to founder and owner Kyle Peek, who had already appeared on two HGTV Cool Pools episodes, an audition took place, after which the producers asked to see the plans of four or five upcoming projects of his company based near Nashville, Tennessee. The project they chose was also, unknowingly, selected by LC/DBM for this issue. Talk about an overnight sensation. However that was not necessarily the case for Kyle Peek. Earning His Chops "I started 37 years ago now, mixing cement as a summer job for my brother-in-law when I was a junior in high school," he recalls. "And I loved it." Peek's relative installed pool tile, coping and decking, as well as masonry walls and waterfalls. Peek went full-time with him after high school doing all the various jobs needed to build a pool, and eventually worked his way up to director of operations for the largest pool-building compa- ny in the U.S. Several years later, Peek decided to form his own company but before breaking ground on that venture, he learned from a friend that an international pool construction company Pacific Aquatech was looking for a general manager for their sister company Maui Waterscapes. He got the job and moved his family to Hawaii. Three years later the tug of Tennessee brought him back home where he started Peek Pools and Spas. Above: There was no level ground in the backyard of this Franklin, Tennessee residence, just a slope about 15' feet in overall height. Company owner Kyle Peek and his son Justin used a rented excavator and crawler, and their own skid steer to excavate 500-600 yards for the wall, which took the two men, the only equipment operators on this part of the job, a day and a half to complete. The bases of the walls are 18 inches of "crush and run," which is gravel mixed with decomposed granite that is then wetted during compaction in layers. The first course of the 8"-high wall blocks, as well as half of the second course, was set below grade. The installation comprised about 40 pallets of the blocks and caps, which came in a shade called driftwood by the local manufacturer Red River Concrete that has since been bought by Belgard. Geogrid was used as reinforcement for the engineered structure. 38 LC DBM

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