Training: Classic Slides

Hello. This is Chuck from Advanced Waterfall Systems. Welcome to our training video of this classic slide installation project. What today's video is gonna focus on is a standardizing the installation of a classic slide, which includes our custom prepoured concrete pads, the slide, the template for the slide, the template for the footings, and the slide panel, which goes underneath the slide, which is part of the rest of the AWS system. The goal is to systemize and simplify and create a simple, fast, and easy installation for a slide that is tied into the AWS system.

Okay. One component of this system is the templates. Okay? So what comes with it is it comes with a slide template. Alright?

Now this particular, slide is a SR Smith turbo twister. We have a template that we created that is the exact curve of the slide. We also have templates of the concrete footings. So you're gonna see the guys are putting together the, templates, and then we're gonna show you how that gets built, and we're gonna show you this process on how fast and easy it is. So stay tuned.

We're starting the job right now. It is 03:54PM. Everything lines up with the marks. Okay? Everything's numbered, and then there's these little plates on the back, the core of plastic on the back and the front, and all the holes are predrilled.

So you take these little plates, you put this on the back, you put this on the front, you just take these little plastic screws with the heads and you screw them tight. And that fits these all together. Okay? They're in two pieces because they're they're gonna get shipped to you. Right?

So he's gonna put all these together along with putting the slide together, and the slide is also numbered. The slide template is numbered. So that's a four by four template, and that's a five by four template. You're gonna see the front con that match the concrete pads. Right?

You're gonna see that the five by four goes here for the front of the slide, and the four by four goes in the back. So you're gonna have two concrete, pads, prepoured, precured, ready to be drilled. So you can see what the boys are doing. Everything's numbered. Right?

There's pictures. One, two, three, four, and the way you connect them is these little sets of plates. Right? Two little panels, two little screws. You take this apart.

Right? These holes are predrilled. You take these apart like this. Right? You take this off, and then this goes through here.

That goes through there. Right? You'll see. And then this goes on top, and then these get put in. Right?

So it makes it a pretty simple install, and you do that for all two, four, six connections. Right? Everything's numbered, so you know where everything goes. So it makes it pretty simple. And again, why we do this is because we ship it.

Right? So it comes in pieces and like a packet, and this is also great as a sales tool for laying out slides on a pool when you're trying to sell one of these projects because the way they lay out in the yard and how the waterfall is gonna lay out in the steps is all part of the sales process. So these templates have a lot of value in the sales process in addition to the construction process. So keep them in your truck and sell waterfalls. Again, this template is very valuable and very useful from a layout perspective.

Right? So the first thing you wanna do is you wanna lay out this lay out the slide, okay, on the pool. Okay. We'll lay it in place and, there's a minimum three inch overhang when you lay it out. Okay?

So that's the one thing you wanna keep in mind. Minimum three edge overhang on either side. That's one criteria. And then the next criteria is the the slide envelope. Okay?

And what I mean by that is there's a safety envelope on every manufacturer. It goes out. Okay. And it's on this one, it's 13 foot six out. And from the center line of the slide is three foot six that way, three foot six that way, which is a total of seven foot of width, thirteen six out, four and a half feet deep.

So when you lay this slide out, you have to clear the safety envelope. You gotta make sure there's no obstructions, no seats, no the bottom of the pool, seats, benches, anything can't be in that area. That's the safety envelope. You kinda lay it out, and you kinda see where it would go. Okay?

On the template, this is marked right here. This is a circle or oval, and that's where the the pedestal of the front the front pedestal of the slide is. So you know that's where you gotta have you gotta locate the concrete pad, number one. Alright. So we finalized the slide location based on, like, I say two things.

Minimum overhang of, three inches and the slide envelope clearing. Alright? So the next step is after the slide is laid out is that underneath it, we lay out the footings. Now what happens is the AWS system comes with two slide pads. Comes with a five by four slide pad, five inches thick, and a four by four.

Okay? The idea here is that the five by five is right here. See, this is the template under the template. This is the slide template, and this rectangular one, like I said, is the footing template. Okay?

And then also, this one right here is a footing template. You can see the pedestal right there. So the idea is you wanna locate the footing template underneath the slide in the proper location because at the end of the day when it's done, that pedestal is gonna sit on the concrete pad. Right? So you kinda lay it out like that.

Now this pad is sticking out a little further this way because this is a two foot footing here. Now if that footing was a foot, then it will be a foot closer. Right? So that's kinda why it's five by four. Alright.

So you can adjust the pad based on the layout of the slide. Okay? And then right here, the same thing. You can see right here. This right here is a footing template.

This sits underneath the pedestal, and this is the pedestal for the back. So, again, when this is done, this slide's gonna sit on that pad, and on this, it's gonna sit partially on the concrete footing as you can see right here. This part will be on the footing, and the rest of will be on concrete pad. Right? So now that that's set, what we'll do is we'll remove the slide template, and we will mark where the slide the pad templates are, and then we will remove them and then prepare the base.

Alright. So the boys, we we did as you can see, we set the we set these, these pads are in place, set properly underneath the slide template. So we put four pins. Right? One here, one there, and then a pin over here, and a pin over here.

Right? And then we use zip ties, and we level the zip ties to the concrete footing. So now they're leveled front to back. So now these corners here and these two corners, they kinda locate the slide pads. So now you could take everything out and then prep the base for the slide pads.

The slide pads are five inches. So in this case, our ground's low, actually, so we're gonna be building the ground up a little bit with crushed stone and stone dust. But if your ground was high, you have to dig down. The five you know, below the string lines or the zip ties, you have to dig down five inches. Plus, I would suggest another four inches.

Go to nine and put in a four inch base of crushed stone and compact it. Give yourself a nice base for these concrete pads the slides are gonna sit on. Okay? So like I said, these are all ready to go. We're gonna take everything out.

We're gonna dig this out. This is already a crushed stone base, so we don't have to dig down. And we're just gonna level it out with some stone dust, and then we're gonna put the slide pads in, and we're gonna just drop the slide pads in right to the pins. Put it between those two pins and those two pins, and then they'll be located. And then the next step will be bringing in the slide and anchoring it to the pads.

Okay. So when we had this we had that slide template in here, we marked where the slide's gonna go. So now we took the templates out, and now what we're gonna do is we're gonna come out a machine, and we're gonna select the slide panel right here. The slide panel is designed to fit underneath the slide and to go in the slide location. It's the same width as the bottom of the slide, and it fits underneath.

So this again, this is about systemizing an installation. So the way we're doing this, it's gonna create a specific height, okay, between the pool beam and the bottom of the slide. Okay? This slide pad will fit underneath that perfectly. Right?

And it's gonna go in first. The slide pad will go in. And, if this was an if this was a this is training. Right? But if this was a full installation, you put cement down and you would set that slide pad and you'd level it.

And the reason for that is it's a lot harder to put the slide to put rocks underneath the slide once the slide's in. When you're building a waterfall and again, this is exclusive building a systems. You know, this is ultimately if this was a real installation, it would have a bolder waterfall and an AWS system around it. So in that case, you gotta find a rock that'll fit underneath the slide. Number one, you gotta find rocks to fit onto the slide.

Number two, you gotta lift them and put them in there. Right? So you gotta get in the water and you gotta you gotta lift them and put them in because you can't you can't just drop them in with straps because the slide's covering the area. So you gotta go, like, down and, like, under, or you gotta go in from the side. So, again, doing this twenty five years, that's a little tricky thing.

So we systemized it and simplified it. Right? So now you're gonna see our slide panel. That slide panel goes in, boom, real quick, fast, and then the pads go in, then the slide goes right on top, and you're done. So you can see we got the slide pads in.

We located the slide pads with the templates, used the pins to, locate them and set elevations, got the ground prepped, and then we set the, slide pads in place. We leveled them with our EZ Lifting system with the screw out eye bolts. And now they're leveled, so everything should be pretty simple. Next step is we're gonna bring the slide over, and we are going to set it on the concrete pads and anchor it in. Now the slide is already assembled.

Okay? There is a process of putting the slide together. That will be covered in the manufacturer's installation and assembly manual. So this video is made to be a supplement to the manual, not in place of. Right?

So we focus on an efficient standardized process to install this slide that is in conjunction with the system and the manufacturer's installation, manual is how to put the slide together, and it also has some pointers on installing the slide. So they're designed to be a collaboration of the two. Alright? So guys are gonna bring it over now. So you can see they put the slide in place.

Right? As you can see, this slide pad is made to fit the exact width of the slide. Right? So that has two purposes. Number one, you can see it fits underneath.

Right? It sets the height, so it fits underneath real nice. So you might have to fill a couple little rocks in, but nothing big and heavy. And the second part is the rest of the system that's designed for this is going to be, you know, this might be a large like a large waterfall possibly in here. Right?

But that's gonna be designed to butt right into that. So you'll get a flush height here, and it will also be designed and built where it doesn't come up too high. It'll be here. So if someone's going down the slide and they put their arms out, they don't whack their arms and get hurt. So like I say, Advanced Waterfall Systems covers all the bases.

Right? We make sure they're safe. Everything fits together like a puzzle. The next steps are the guys will anchor these in. But in case I didn't mention earlier, this is dry fit, but if this was a full installation, that would have cement underneath it.

It will be leveled. And then once the, slide gets put in, then you would put the rest of the, system in, and then everything would get mortared in. Alright. So this thing's anchored in. Right?

It's pretty sturdy. Doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Even with that, this is not designed this is designed to, not be used as a standalone. Right? This is designed to have an AWS system around it, which would have a lot of weight and crushed stone and material all around this thing, which would put additional weight on the concrete pads, which would give this whole system additional stability.

Right? So this is not like I say, this this footing detail is not designed for standalone even though it's pretty sturdy. It's designed to be part of an AWS system. Okay. So we could see we anchored everything in.

You know, you got four bolts back here. You got four on the front. We only anchored two on here. But if you were doing the full installation, you would anchor every bolt, which is four and four, which is eight, which anchors it to the pad. So this is done, and, we're ready to go.

Ready to move on to the step, which would be the AWS system and, the landscape phase and all that type of thing. Now if you're doing an AWS system, you might decide to do the system first and then put the slide in. Afterward, that's a possibility depending on access. Right? Because now you gotta get in here.

Right? So logistically, it's something to consider depending on what you're doing. So this thing is wrapped up. It is 05:06PM. We started a little bit before four.

So you're, like, an hour and fifteen minutes roughly. Free guys. Four man hours, roughly. Slides installed, connect the plumbing, right tie in the plumbing line, and you are good to go.