Can I set up 16' above ground on a thick mulch bed?

Hi. I'm a relatively new pool owner. I had a little Intex above-ground pool, but upgraded to a 16' above ground Intex. We set it up each summer and take it down in the fall.

The pool sits in the corner of our driveway, which is on a slight slope, one corner is about 16-18" lower than the upper corner. Last summer I built a deck-like platform that I put the pool on. It is disassembled in 3 parts. It worked fine, but leveling it was a pain because it required so many shims. Some of the shims made imprints into the driveway (this year I'll put 2x8s under the shims to disperse the load).

My question is this: since the deck is such a pain to set up and take down (it takes up a good portion of the driveway, so we take it apart too), can I get a few yards of mulch trucked in, level that off, and put the pool on that? I'd put some plywood or triple-layered tarps on top of the mulch to protect the bottom of the pool. To prevent the mulch from "migrating" down the driveway and hill, I'd use 4x4 lumber, anchored to each other, to create sort of a "box" to hold it in place. Then, at the end of the season, I'll just move the mulch to our garden beds.

It seems to me the only con to this is composting, if the mulch composts, it could go out of level. Rain building up in the mulch and not draining well could be an issue and making a smelly "tea", but the 4x4s wouldn't be water tight so I don't think so.

Thoughts? Thanks so much for your time for a NewBee question.

I don't think there's any absolute yes/no answer to your question; rather, it depends on how you do it. It seems you've already anticipated the major issue, that the mulch might shift under the pool. If you can work out a successful method of avoiding that, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

I'd be concerned about the mulch compressing under the weight of the pool.

We do something similar, although it's on a rock bed. We used 3/4" plywood sheets to cover the rocks, then used a thin wafer board type material to make strips to cover all of the plywood seams and where the corners meet up. Then we used the bottom of an old 18' easy set pool as our tarp material over the plywood (great use for an old pool btw!). This year we have the smoothest pool bottom that we've ever had. You'll want to make sure that your plywood extends out beyond the legs of your pool far enough to prevent the legs from sinking (or breaking off the edge of the plywood)- if you have a frame pool.

We went with a rock base, because we also take down our pool each fall, and for 8-9 months of the year we would have a mud pit in the yard. With the rock area, we put a fire pit and chairs in it for the other 8-9 months and avoid the pit of mud all winter. Just an idea if you have an area of your yard you could use instead of taking up your driveway.

With the mulch, I would be concerned about the water making a "tea" and really staining your driveway (if it is concrete).