Hi Islander2C,

We've got steps that are similar to the first picture in your post for our new pool. It came with two large ziplock bags that you have to fill with sand, to use as weights to weight down the steps so they're a bit more stable.

It seems harmless enough to drop the sand filled ziplock bags in my 60f degree water. My thinking was that I'd just drop them in place only getting my arm wet. Well...once I started to lower the ziplock bag into the water...it got down about half way (and even though I thought I had all the air out of the bag) it burped. When it burped...it opened up the bag and I had a LARGE cloud of sand mushroom out into the water. Once all was said and done...I had a couple large coffee cans full of sand to clean up from the bottom of my pool.

My advice (unless someone has some better advice) is to lower the bag of sand into the water while you have full control of the bag and "zipped" top. If your husband doesn't mind cold water...just have him do this while he's in the water.

Have fun...and stay clean

dan