Re: Want to see our clay??
Heh, the first two shots looked like you had a strip mine going, or something.
I'm wondering if thoroughly wetting it down to loosen up the clay and then a roller might do it.
C.
Re: Want to see our clay??
Hey, I have no advice, but am wondering if you live in our area... looks like they took slabs of stone out in the strip-mining shots!! Our yard is about 50% clay and 50% stone.
In my experience, wetting down clay only makes it worse! It just gets stickier...:p
Re: Want to see our clay??
Hi Hoffmans, glad to see you are getting started and look forward to following your progress.
At this point I think Matt and I would both agree 100% that a few inches of crushings smoothed and packed would be the perfect cure for that lovely soil you have there.
Don't level it with sand, but crushings are perfect. Best of luck, Dennis
Re: Want to see our clay??
Limestone screenings or crushings would be perfect. Either that, just attack it with something, likely a shove and shave off all of the high spots and toss them on the pile you have. It sucks, but it may be worth it in the end, and remind yourself that it doesn't last forever. I suppose that a compactor would work, don't use a jumping jack type compactor if the soil is moist clay though, it will just dig in even more. Rollers on wet clay tend to just turn things into a waterbed, and if you vibrate with it you are sunk. Personally, if I had access to one, I would go with a gas compactor, second option, the shovel.
Good luck.
Re: Want to see our clay??
Thanks for your advice Dennis so happy to have you.
Thank You Sevver and Carl.
So grateful for everyone's advice.
Yesterday (Tuesday) Tom went to the concrete place. They had no Crusher Run so he got Masons Sand.
Yesterday (Tuesday) We tossed a little bit of the Masons sand down to fill in the tire track ruts from the skidsteer. The sand is about an inch thick or less.
*Rain rain rain all day today (Wednesday)
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...orkingman1.gif
Here's the Plan:
Step 1. This wkend rent a Tamper/ Jumping Jack or whatever they have & tamp down where the ring will go.
Smooth out middle.
Step 2. Check for Level.
Step 3. Lay out ring and plates to get a visual of where they go.
Step 4. Pour mini concrete footers instead of using patio blocks.
Step 5. Get some heavy black plastic or whatever and lay that out as extra barrier/weed block/peace of mind?.
Step 6. Happy Bottom on top of that.
Step 7. Install ring and plates on top of plastic and Happy Bottom.
Step 8. Read manufacture instructions for the rest of the set up.....???
Hows that sound? Good Bad Ugly?
CarlD- We had the same idea! Tried the water. Put a little water in a small area- opps, didn't work at all.
No harm done tho.
Sevver- Thanks for the heads up on the Jumping Jack! I will call around tomorrow (Thursday) for the Gas Compactor.
Thank You All so much,
Hoffmans
Re: Want to see our clay??
You are going to level/smooth it with Masons or use it after you get it smooth? We put that down under the liner but the base HAD to be level and smooth before putting it down. Masons is very fine and any lumps, divits and bumps will definitely be evident after the pool is filled - too late to fix it without draining.
The best advice anyone ever gave, and one of the most important things when putting in the pool is to be sure your base is level and smooth.
First off, we had a mixture of clay and gumbo where we put ours.
We used a loader bucket, then a blade grader (behind the smaller tractor) to smooth it as best we could, which really works nice. We could not get crusher run, limestone chips or anything like that in our area, so we put down class 5 (they use it to make parking lots solid) Next we rented a plate compactor to get it nice and smooth AND solid all over. It was cheap enough to rent ($40 for 24 hrs) and it does a VERY nice job - you could drive on that with the tractor without making ruts - it hasn't moved a bit over the winter either and we get deep frost.
Re: Want to see our clay??
Ok well....
it rained all Tuesday and Wednesday all day and night.
Friday we are getting the vibrating plate tamper.
Hopefully the little bit of masons sand we added will only help us work out the rainy clay substrate we have now.
The tire tracks have softened up from the rain so maybe this will make for easier smoothing and tamping on Friday.
DH says the sand will not be used as a leveling agent, there isn't even enough of it. And we wouldn't want it wash away in the future, so there is very little there. Praying it will mix nicely w/ the wet clay and make a good compound for us to work with.
We can only go forward from here.
I guess blood, sweat & tools are what it is going to take to get it flat, smooth and level.
~Hoffmans
Re: Want to see our clay??
Sorry I'm late to the party!!!! - But yeah - What Dennis said!
We are all clay as well, about 50-80 feet down, the only thing that changes is the layers of color!
Yes, screenings are the best, also really help with the drainage around and under your pool, the more you can get the better - clay really soaks up moisture, primarily when it's wet season (makes sense right?) and then the winter freezes that and heaves it like crazy. I would recommend at least half a foot of the stuff under your walls for a width of about 3 feet (1.5 to either side of the wall) - then put your mason's sand in the inner circle and shape it like a saucer, you can probably get an extra 10 inches depth in the middle that way on a 33 foot pool, I got 8" and could have done more on a 30 footer.
Re: Want to see our clay??
Try calling gravel pits or just the local soil trucking outfits, concrete plants usually only have or get what they use and screenings/crusher run are rarely used under/in concrete, pits and truckers might have more access to a more diverse selection of materials.
Re: Want to see our clay??
Hey Matt4x4
Thanks for chiming in w/ the info. I think the screenings would come in very handy if we can get our hands on some.
Tom wants me ask you a question.
I seem to remember you saying that you had to build up the ground for your pool to get it higher than the river. Did you use crusher run under your rails instead of patio blocks? We are planning on pouring concrete footers instead of using the blocks.
Tom came home from work & we were out there till dark shoveling wet clay trying to get it smooth. Even after it dries out it is going to be hard to get smooth. Looks like it is going to take longer than we thought.;)
I don't know how you guys do this all the time.
~Hoffmans
Re: Want to see our clay??
Wow, good memeory - luckily, I don't do it all the time, just for myself and have helped neighbours.
Yes, I had to build up my ground some, for two reasons - one - the pool top rail was to sit level with the top of my raised septic bed, we were eventually going to build a deck at that ground level over to the pool - essentially making it look and accessible like an inground. Second, every inch helps because of my creek that comes to within 50 feet of the pool and could flood the entire lawn it sits on when we have storms. I had the clay moved in from another section of my property the year prior to building the pool, this way it had time to settle over the winter.
I used a ring of crusher run about 6-12 inches thick for my wall foundation, no footings, personally, i don't like footings, I've thought this over many times and they just don't make any sense to me, ESPECIALLY in a frost environment.
The clay gets very wet in the fall, winter frost really expands it, essentiall lifting the entire ground by what can be several inches, the footings can be distorted easily by frost - by that I mean they will exert uneven pressure up on your wall and most likely no longer be level once they settle after the frost leaves the ground, at least the screenings are workable, and pretty much settle flat again because they are able to shift with the heaving of the frost, dispersing pressure upwards more evenly.
Another reason I don't see any need for footings is that the pressures exerted by the water in your pool are not directed to the posts and down into the ground through them, here's how the pressures work (more or less):
Most pressure is straight down due to gravity - so it's compressing the dirt under your pool.
Some pressure is outwards, since the wall is the structural component, most of the force there is trying to expand the perimeter of your wall, so the stresss point here would be the seam - thus all those bolts holding it together.
The bottom rail is really just there as a spacer for teh posts and as a flat receiver for the wall edge, it also helps disperse upward pressure from frost more evenly over a larger section of wall.
The posts are just there to hold and join the top rails together and transfer any downward pressure exerted on the top rail to the ground so the wall does not get affected - this pressure would only be external forces such as a person standing/leaning on the top rail. The top rail is also there to give the wall rigidity and stop it from becoming an oval through uneven water motion (kids roughhousing) or people leaning on the wall from outside or inside the wall - however, if you remove all outside forces - whether it's frost or human, your pool is perfectly fine to just sit there full of water even if all you used from the entire kit was the wall, bolts and liner - unless you incurred really high winds which can be interpreted as outside forces pushing on the walls and moving your water more that circulation would.
I hope this helps you some, personally, I would NOT pour concrete, especially with your soil, sandy soil might be a different story since it drains very well and there's less frost heave due to that, but clay is a very uncontrolled environment that works in mysterious ways to somehow spit up solid objects every spring in random patterns.
Re: Want to see our clay??
To further illustrate Matt's last statements, Wall Mart sold a pool a few years back that was literaly a wall, nuts and bolts, a liner and some coping. They came in 15' and 18' by 36" and 42". These pools brought new meaning to my mantra. Perfectly round and perfectly level. If they weren't they did not stand a chance.
It is also safe to remove a few top rails from a pool full of water if minor liner adjustments need to be made. They are not there to keep the pool from falling down.
Later, Dennis
Re: Want to see our clay??
WOW!
Thats a heck of a post. Thanks Matt! Your info was very informative and helpful. I hope alot of people read it and can learn from it.
DH on his was now to get Limestone Screenings. We know a guy who knows a place and who knows what to get- so we are getting some.
YEAH.
Time to get the show on the road!
Rained like heck yesterday. Supposed to be sunny and 80 today.
Will get pictures up next.
Thanks again for your help.
~Hoffmans
Re: Want to see our clay??
We had the same problem in our yard. Ended up pouring a 32 foot circle of concrete 4 inches thick and then put some styrofoam on the bottom after setting up the walls. Smoothest floor I have ever been on. Hope this helps.