A new question on Drop-in Steps

That would be me :)

I ended up selling my old stairs this season I gave the new owners the yellow diesel fuel cans for the weights. They looked at me strangely when I showed them the containers.

I filled up two empty bleach jugs with sand . Tied a nylon rope between then about 10" longer than the width of the second step up from the bottom of the stairs .

Hung the jugs by the rope on the back of the step ( on mine is were they snap together so was a nice crack to fit the rope in ) one on each side of the steps . Now when I take out my steps I just grab the rope and take off the weights in the pool and they are much easier (the steps) out of the pool .

If you wanted more weight , fill with cement , either use , 2/3 gal , 1 gal , or 1.5 gal jugs . On my pool they are white jugs that more or less blend in with the steps anyway .

cheers
Sprocket

I suggested this as a fix in another thread and it was well received. Maybe it might work in your situation as well.

Maybe you could try a Magnum??

I'm going to try the jugs today. We ended up pulling our stairs out on Sunday because the ziploc bags failed. There was air in the bags, no matter what we did, and when we went to adjust them, the seams popped.:mad: I'll be vacuuming sand this weekend.

I used 3 extra deck blocks i had from the pool deck, worked great. The sand and bags was a PITA. I put each deck block in two extra heavy contractor trash bags and completely wrapped them with duct tape. The bags and tape seem to keep the water out and also contain any small pieces of of the blocks at come off as well as really cushion the blocks so they don't damage the liner while trying to wrestle them under the stairs

http://www.deckplans.com/Images/How-to/dekblock.gif

I think the big question is what kind of steps do you have? I bought a set of Wedding Cake steps a couple years ago. The only place to put weights is along the bottom step which covers the front and part of the side. This doesn't provide a good center of gravity as the back side keeps floating up. It relies on the hand rail being fastened to the deck also. I didn't want to do this because I have to move the steps to clean(after my algae explosion last year) and I didn't want to mangle my composite decking at the time. I put 3 80# of concrete wrapped in garbage bags. When I pulled them out for the winter, they had leaked gravel out causing a big mess. Clean up was easy.....we moved.

We put the pool up at the new house and dropped our steps in 2 days ago. We put a couple deck blocks also. Didn't work. I worried about the duct tape dissolving over time as to what it would do to the pool.

Last night we went and bought a straight ladder. Works great and have more swimming room.

In the end, your steps need a good center of gravity point to place the weights and good water flow. Then you shouldn't need that much to hold them down. Using over 80# just seems like a design flaw.

Update on the Straight ladder. Not liking it too much either. It's a hollow PVC like with the back open. An algae/water boatman breeding ground. Plus there is no way to weigh it down. I'm trying to find a way to fill the openness to 1) weigh it down, 2) eliminate the breeding ground. Any ideas besides concrete? That would make the ladder 100lbs.

I've also got the wedding cake steps. The pool builder put in the sand bags wrapped in plastic bags. I also had the big mess at the end of the season with the bags disentigrating and getting sand in the water, and over the bottom at that end. I didn't do that again.

I use some large oval and rounded river boulders (no nicks or edges), three - maybe 20 to 30 pounds each or so - that I got at a rock supply place. They've worked great for me for three years.

Well we got the Biltmore steps and put three bleach jugs filled with sand/water under the steps. We started with 2 but they lifted just enough for the vinyl mat to float out - 3 jugs did the trick.

I am seeing very good water flow through and behind these steps. We were messing around to put the vinyl back and dh wanted to see the "flow" so we put a few drops of blue food coloring and watched it move. So far, no problems with algae but we will be diligent anyways. The water is still on the chilly side so I guess when it warms more, then the algae alert will be in full mode.

Here's a pic of my steps with the jugs holding them down .

I just reopened my pool and it's great to see no green after all these months :) yaaaaaaaaaaaa !

Thank you pool forum .

http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/1...3_mvc-059s.jpg

http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/1...3_mvc-059s.jpg