We Finally Dug Our Ground (Pics)

[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

[AGP18by33]

You are so very right. We are still moving along nicely though. And guess what??? We not only got our missing parts package from Swim N Play today, we also got the oval end bottom rails too. We called them last Monday or Tuesday about the missing bolts...we called them on Wednesday regarding the rails and incidently left a message with the part number on their answering machine.
Well today...Everything came in. AND IT'S RIGHT. You cannot believe how happy I was with that quick service and it didn't cost us a dime.

So anyhow about tonight. My daddy let us use his rototiller and DH tilled the high spots inside the pool (which is like 3/4 on a slight uphill grade), then used a long cement rake to rake all the dirt and hidden stones that popped up to an area that I can shovel out. This being done...you would not believe the difference in the level already. Also I shaved down the "plateau" that was in front of most of the blocks so now we just have to make another pass with the tiller and we are level with the tops of the blocks.

The mistake we made was not being out there with the transit stick while Tom was digging. That would have told us that we were slightly uphill on the length of the pool. One side is level but it gradually goes uphill.

I dug a small trench between the blocks (shown in the last pictures) and put some small size gravel in them for the rail to sit on. I did this because when it rained the other day...I realize the rail would be sitting in water. Even though they have a Plastisol coating on them, I was just imagining those thing corroding at the speed of light. I cannot believe how long it takes clay to drain and dry out. It takes forever.
Do you think this is a good idea with the gravel because I went to Lowes and asked for Crusher Run and they had no idea what I was talking about. I know there is another name for it but I can't think of it.

Also, after the pool is done, we still have the surrounding area to grade out yet. We have a large dirt wall close to the buttresses on one side. Brian wants to do a retaining wall but we would still have to dig out to "push it back" about 2 foot.

I would like to say that I am happy to have the blocks level first so now we know that when the "pool" area dirt is down to the top of the blocks, we then know that it is level as well BUT you are right...it shoulda been done the other way. My only justification is that I am losing weight rapidly with all this digging. Plus with the parts error, we wouldn't have been able to put it up anyways.
Right now from the looks of things...we should be starting the actual build in about 2 days. So we are not that far behind. But your right and don't tell my DH I said that because he will expect that from me all the time. ;-)~

Thanks again for your insight and helpful hints.
Rhon

[hrsdennis]

It all sounds good, especially the right parts. Always a good thing. Just one more thought. If you are using sand for a cove I think I would go with the plastic strip under the cove area to prevent any sand from settling into the rocks below the rail.

For anyone else following this thread, I am unable to get into the picture file from the link above. The link on page 2 works fine.

Hope to see more soon, Dennis