pool didn't go up today....

[Trimom]

It rained, hard, last night - and this morning.

The 4 guys I had coming to help will be back on Thursday, so it looks like that will be the day.

Actually, the rain was a blessing. We found out that a 3 ft. section of where the wall is planned to go is VERY squishy. When you step in that area, you sink about 1 1/2 inches until you hit solid ground. So I assume the pool would have sunk that far....

My plan is to put patio blocks under the rail for that 3 ft. section. Will this work, or should we move the pool? (Please don't tell me to move the pool, please, please, please)

[sevver]

I don't think that the rail really carries any weight. The vertical supports do. I would not worry about it. It will dry up by Thursday, and once you get sand in there and backfill the pool you will no longer have a problem with water directly getting there, it will absorb into the ground evenly.

[matt4x4]

Your rail/upright and top plate do not carry any wight, they just stiffen up the structure, you can leave your pool full and remove all the uprights and top plates without adverse effects - however, frost heaves saturated soil drastically, so if the soil there has a tendency to get very wet, if frost comes, your wall WILL push up in that area, this causes all sorts of repercussions you don't want to deal with, like the liner pulling off the top, the wall buckling and probably many other things.
You may want to put proper drainage before building the pool (like a ditch filled with big o tube and gravel draining to a lower part of the yard).

[Trimom]

Matt,
Thanks for the heads up on the water! After a close investigation of the site, I discovered that the cause of the squishy ground was the gutter downspout. Finally, something involved with the pool that has an easy fix. I just bought a downspout diverter.

As far as pool installation goes - it is slow going. We have 14 hours of work invested in putting up the braces, and we have 5 of 8 finished. The ground is so hard, I may as well be digging with a teaspoon, water just makes it hard and muddy. But I have faith we will eventually get done.

[matt4x4]

Thus my reason why I tell people to use screenings (crusher run, or whatever else it's called) I have attached a site cross section explaining how i built mine. We have COLD HARSH WET winters here, and it has not moved at all.

The way I did it was,

1. I got the site relatively level, about 3" below final grade at most (on avg it was 2"). (dished towards middle)
2. Added screenings for a 3 foot wide ring so the pool wall sits centered on it.
3. Unsed plate compactor and water to compact - leveling the ring the whole time - very easy to do with this material.
4. Moved sand inside ring.
5. Set up bottom track and wall
6. Taped on vapor barrier 1 foot up on wall and let cover onto screenings about 1 foot into pool. (not shown)
7. Built cove from sand
8. Spread sand out evenly keeping dish of 8" deeper in center
9. installed liner (not shown)
10. Had fill brought in and backfilled around perimeter, keeping slope from pool to surrounding grade, compacted this and seeded grass. This extra fill was done over most of the slope of the screenings (gray in pic) to also make sure they can not wash out during heavy storms - (backfill around pool not shown on pic)

The reasons i did it this way were,

1. I didn't want to kill myself - I have nothing but solid clay where I live.
2. Screenings (stone dust no bigger than 3/16th) will pack to almost concrete like consistency and pretty much stay that way.
3. It gives a MUCH better/precise surface to work with/on, much easier to adjust, real easy to set patio blocks into and level (which I ended up not doing)
4. allowed for a better slope away from the pool.

I can also tell you that this proceedure will endure just about anything nature will throw at it, I've watched as my pool filled with 4 inches of water in less that an hour without so much of a piece of screening moving, my skimmer ran over for about 3 days as of late - the area under it is not affected other than being wet, the screenings there are still compacted rock hard.
It's endured winters with 4+ feet of snow - which turns into a lot of melt water.
I've had the pool surrounded with a lake of water due to my creek located 40 feet from the pool breaking it's banks severly and flooding the flat lawn the pool sits on with 6-10 inches of water - this condition will stay like that for a week in spring, 2 days if it's a freak summer storm.

Anyways, that's about it, as far as I'm concerned, this way is bulletproof, and for the minimal amount the screenings cost, it's such a time/back saver and you end up with a more precise level surface.