Installing Intex Metal Ultra Frame 18 X 52 pool in a yard that tends to stay wet.

[bartleby1]

We had a smaller metal frame pool in the past but it began to leak and the kids are getting bigger so we are looking to replace it with a larger one. Problem is, that the larger one would have to go farther away from the house and the back area of the lawn where the pool would go tends to stay wet and mushy. I'm afraid it may sink or not stay level due to the wetness of the ground.

So, is this a valid concern or am I worried about nothing? And, if it is a problem, is there any way to fix it? Our yard is quite small so there is no other place to put the pool.

Thanks!

[PoolDoc]

When I processed your membership, I looked up your address on G-maps. (I do this to exclude hackers and spammers, who usually don't use addresses that fit the rest of their profile.) Anyhow, you appear to have neighbors with functioning above-ground pools, both immediately south of you, and also 1 lot NW of you. I can't tell if their yards are at exactly the same level as yours, but it appears they might be. My thinking is, if it works for them, it oughta work for you.

That, the ground around heavily used AG pools tends to get soggy. If you can get some soft mulch, and create, say, a 22' raised circle around the pool, that surely wouldn't hurt. This picture, from one of the AG gallery threads, should give you an idea. You may want to browse through the whole thread.

[bartleby1]

Thank you for the response. Many people in our neighborhood do have above ground pools and although most of the yards appear to be the same level, we have had a definite problem with our back yard staying very soggy, especially the back maybe 8-10 feet of the yard to the back fence. When my husband replaced the fence last year, his holes for the posts were filling in with water as he dug. We're not sure why this is but our yard definitely seems wetter than most others around here.

So, in your opinion, if we created a circle of mulch to put the pool on, that should prevent the pool from sinking unevenly? Would mulch be better than dirt of some sort? I'm so afraid that once we start filling the pool with water that it will sink unevenly into the soft ground and therefore not be level. The mulch should prevent that?

[PoolDoc]

I don't think the mulch will guarantee that it won't sink - I wasn't considering that. I rather doubt that it will, but if you have a very high subsurface water level, things get unpredictable. Having a raised mulch bed under the pool should make it easier to level the pool, and to keep the water from puddling in a single spot. But there's no way to prevent some of the consequences of adding water to ground that's already soggy.

The good news is that, compared to other pools, sinking is far less of an issue: if there's a problem, you can fairly easily take the pool down, correct it, and then put it back up. Setting up an 18' Intex, once you've done it, is probably not more than a 2 hour job for 2 people.