We Finally Dug Our Ground (Pics)

[AGP18by33]

Hello again.
Our progress from tonight is:
We checked our inventory again. Since we have had some missing parts.
All ok so far. We even counted the wall screws.

We duck taped all the bolts on the straps that will be under the sand. We doubled up on this. We already had to buy a new liner because my Aussie "Roo" thought the other new one was a big bag of blueberry Purina or something. Set us back ~$350.00. (Old posts with this story).

We found the lowest block laying on the ground that we laid out using the rails.
We dug it in and leveled that using a regular level. We leveled in every direction even diagonal. We will use this one as a point of level for the transit.
Tom brought over his laser transit and we set in 2 other blocks. It got dark and we couldnt see anymore.
DH just loves that thing cause it beeps. He is 12 all over again.

While using the transit stick...I had the other level and used it to make sure that the transit stick was straight up and down and not leaning backwards or forwards. Then...since some of them are actually a bit below ground level, I place another block on top of that and made sure that it was straight left and right and back and front and diagonal in both directions.

Pictures are in my photo book at yahoo. I am glad people are following this and that everyone is keeping tabs on our progress. I know that if we are screwing up...you guys will let us know. We feel very safe in doing this with you all having our backs. Huge thank you to all.

Link to pics:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/veteri...m?.dir=a97bre2

You know there will more tomorrow. I think we are actually obsessed with this thing. We can't seem to stop to take a break for a day.

The best part of all is that I lost 4 lbs in 5 days.

Thanks,
Rhon

[tenax]

nice work , rhon! as i've followed through all this i can relate..from a roofing standpoint..did my 3500 square ft of shingles roof myself this past may and everyday it was back up on the roof..2 nails in my foot, carpal tunnel in both hands, my bad back to start with , cramps, 2nd degree sunburn..but by god, i was a madman and got it done..i may have had a wee bit more motivation as everytime something was aching and sweat was burning my eyes, i thought of the 15,000 dollars in labour i saved doing it myself (boom province of alberta..it's charge whatever you like days for contracting..if you can even find someone to do the job) i celebrated in a small way after it was done by promptly ordering a pool heater, new pump, pool vac, piping, solar cover and reel and chlorine generator..3,000 dollars later i feel like i had a darn good meal keep the faith and keep sharing your good stories..i suspect you'll also feel like i did when i put on the last shingle..elated..but the aldrenaline will just be gone..and you'll enjoy that vacation so much knowing you did it yourself and that you're going to be swimming in your new pool. (my wife reminds me often that pools, at least in our area of the world, are pretty decadent) darn right

[hrsdennis]

hey Ronda, you got me a little red faced on that one. I could have sworn all those blocks were set and level. Looks like they will be soon though.

Here's a tip surveyors us to keep the sticks level. Use a rocking motion. Lean the stick away and bring it forward. You will see the arrow, the line and then the arrow. Or just listen for the beep tone if you can stand that noisy thing, I shut mine off. Anyway, that truly gets the stick thing down to a one man job.

Keep it up, Dennis

[AGP18by33]

Yeah that beeping gets annoying. I had the tone turned down on it.
We got 6 more blocks done tonight. That laser transit is awesome.
Sure does make things alot easier for us. It's pretty easy to set up
too.
My question though is that we have been leveling the blocks in all directions
with a regular bubble level in addition to the transit. How important is it to really do this? Should we just be focusing on the "depth" level with the transit and if we only do that...will the weight of the pool uprights level out the blocks, left to right, and front to back from the weight of the water?

Another thing I am worried about is one side of the pool is on a sandy clay soil and the other side is clay and rocks/stones. I am afraid that one side will sink.

And one more for the road...we got all the rails for the oval ends. They sent us 24 white painted rails. We should of had 12 of those with a Plastisol coating to prevent corrosion. The painted ones are for the top of the wall and under the ledges since they are not exposed to the elements like the bottom ones. I called CS and also emailed them, hubby also called and left a message too. Since we will be ready for the rails soon, and we don't have them...is there something we can spray on them like Rustoleum or something to protect them?
I realize that they would have to be roughened with sand paper and then primed but is this something we can do and still be safe?
This isn't the first thing the pool company has messed up on. We are currently awaiting our sheet metal screws (we need panhead and got some other kind of sheet metal screw), a truss head bolt, 2 decorative covers that go over the uprights on top, and 4 of some other screw.

Needless to say...if we have to wait for our rails, above ground pools will be obsolete by time we get them. I was so angry when I saw they were not the proper ones...I dropped that "f" bomb so many times that I need to go to Church TWICE on Sunday, crawling on my knees and beg for forgiveness for the stuff that was flying outta my mouth.

I cannot believe the incompetence of some pool companys. Anyways...sorry about all the questions.
I didn't get pictures tonight because I was filty from head to toe and my camera was in the house. Will get some tomorrow though as we will be at it all day again. We are both off and DH is going golfing Sunday.
I can handle that wall by myself right???

Rhon
>^..^<

[AGP18by33]

Well today we set all but 4 blocks. Yeah...almost done. Then the REAL digging starts.
When our ground was dug, the bobcat didn't get it perfectly level which we expected that due to the ruts it creates.
Now when we put in our first block, we used the one that seemed at the lowest point and dug it into the ground level with the surface. We used that block to level the rest with the transit. WOW the high spots are unbelievable. We have some blocks that are probably 6 inches in the dirt. Granted that they are level
but they are deep. It seems the center is higher than the ends.

That is too much dirt to shovel out with hand shovels, plus it is hard compacted clay, so we are gonna get my dads rototiller to break it up and then screed and shovel out the loose dirt.

Any other ideas???
Sorry no pics but we are so filthy from head to toe when we are done.

Has anyone else ran into this problem? If so how did you deal with it?

Thanks
Rhon

[AGP18by33]

Hello.
We got all the blocks done today and they are level. Next we dug the trenches for the rail and outer straps to lay on the ground. We also added some small gravel in there for drainage.
It rained today and our soil is all clay and man does it hold the water. We didn't want our bottom rail and outer straps sitting in water so thats why we put the gravel down.
The gravel layer for the rail is less than an inch but it has to be better than them sitting on clay ground.
Now we just have to dig out some of the center so it is level with the top of the blocks.
We have to wait until it dries out though so we can use the tiller in there. I hope we don't regret not using some crusher run under our 2"x8"x16" blocks for the uprights.
Updated photos are in the photo book. Heres the link again:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/veteri.../ph//my_photos
Any advice or opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks
Rhon

[hrsdennis]

Hi, after spending some time on you photo site I think I would have done the leveling a little different. This is to late for you but it may help others. I would have got the ground, overall, much closer to being level before starting the blocks. I would level the ground to well within an inch before touching the pool parts. Your only option now is to remove a lot of clay from the pool area the hard way. In the beginning stages you would have had options of crusher run fill or machinery for digging.

You are doing a great job, don't get me wrong. I just looked at all of that leveling that still needed to be done to get the entire pool area at or below block level, my heart felt for you.

You will make it I know and thanks so much for the pictures.

Dennis