Intex Metal Frame Pool

[tbelle]

Hi! Could someone please tell me how to level the ground for one of these or the 18' x 48" easy set. My husband said he is not going to do it with a shovel, whatever. My yard doesn't have slopes etc., but there are spots that are uneven by a couple of inches and there is a ridge that runs through my backyard and the neighbors.

I called someone today and he wanted 350.00 to level a few inches for 18'. The pool is only 300.00. Contractor told me to just spend 150.00 and put down few inches of sand. I still want the grass gone. That would be one big pig sty.

We were originally going to go with a 24' x 54", put down the small deposit to hold the sale price and hubby talked me out of it because we definately need to move in 2 years and he was not building a big deck for someone else since we need to move. Neighborhood is going downnnn. So to compromise until then and to get my 7 years and myself through the summer, I said fine.

I would appeciate any help.

Thanks

[everclear75]

I ended up building up a sand pad on where my pool sits. The sand pad measures 17' round. My backyard had a 9 1/2" drop from the top of the pool would sit to the bottom of the pool. I used the green metal landscape edging around the sand, and then shoveled and shoveled and then I shoveled some more..
Once I had enough sand, (4 yards of bank sand was used), I leveled it with rakes and a long 2x4 piece, And then tamped it all down. Filled in the dips and craters with more sand and tamped all that down again! Before the pool was installed on the pad, i layed down the provided tarp. Then installed the pool on top of all of this. After everything was said and done, I had about 6" between the pool and the edging. I tucked the excess tarp back under the pool. And then for landscaping effect, I layed those white landscaping rocks, over the tarp/gap. I'll post some pics tomorrow or so, so that people can get a visual
description of what I did.

[DCR]

If your asking if you can get by with uneven ground, I would say yes I bought one of these last year, and I did pretty much like the video shows I just walked around and picked up sticks and rocks, and I had no problems, and my ground was uneven by at least two inches.

One thing I would do is when your looking for rocks I would take off your shoes and walk around bare foot. It's better find them with your bare feet before you set the pool up, then after.

[tbelle]

For those of you who didn't remove the grass, what did your ground look like in the fall when you took down the pool. I'm asking this because about 4 summers ago when my son was 3, I got sick of emptying this little pool he had and left it in the same spot for 2 weeks. When I lifted it up, it had rotten, yellow grass and maggots underneath. It was disgusting and smelled horrible horrible horrible like a pig pen. We had a party that week for my son's bd and no one could go in the back yard because you could smell it from the door.

What tool did you use to remove the grass???

Thanks, Teena

[darenjones]

I for one, removed all of the grass, and as many roots as I could. I set one up before (a 16' pop up) on the grass with similar issues.
as far as the tool/
a shovel, heavy rake, and leaf rake, a few afternoons, and i was done.

I don't intend on taking mine down (I do live in fla, so our winter isn't that long) mainly because I don't want to have to pay for the water again, I would rather pay a few dollars in chemicals to keep it clean during the winter rather than go through all of the he!! in putting it back up!
just my 2 cents.

[tbelle]

Thank you, grass definately has to come up.

[DCR]

I did not remove my grass last year, and yes when I took the pool down what grass was left was dead and rotten smelling, actually smelled like cow poop, which explains why they smell the way they do, but the smell went away pretty quickly, and the grass never came back. This year I just tilled up the hard soil got rid of all rocks, and raked it smooth.

[DreamGaz]

I have a good 6 inch slope in my backyard. I borrowed a tiller and tilled the area. Lots of raking to clear and level the area, tapped down the pool area, and then put down the tarp and set up the pool. The tilling, raking, and tapping took about half a day, after that the pool set up was easy.

[tbelle]

Thanks!

I called Home Depot and Dixie Rents and they both rent a small sod cutter.
My brother-in-law also has a tiller. Tiller would be free, sod cutter would be 80.00 for a day.

Now I'm worried about the cats. Someone posted that a cat popped their pool. We have "stray" cats that come out at night; they like to sit on our fence and I'm sure everyone else's also. Argh!!!