I don't have any long term experience with the Intex pools, but after a little over a month of use I am very pleased with our 18 x 48 inflatable ring pool. I found this forum before purchasing it so I've been using the BBB method since the beginning and the water is sparkling clean. The only thing I did to get started was buy the pop up pool start up kit at walmart and once that was used up switch over to bleach. The startup kit came with a perfect sized bottle of conditioner and a little chlorine to get started and I was in and swimming in no time. I do leave the pump running 24/7, feeding through the skimmer, and so far so good. I am still planning on cutting back a little at a time once I purchase a timer as long as the pool continues to sparkle. The skimmer will shift a little on the inflatable ring occasionally, not sure about the framed pools, but I just check on it once in the morning and again when I get home from work and shake it out if needed and it seems to work great. Someone posted they used a piece of foam under the skimmer clamp to help keep the skimmer in place and I do plan on trying that out. My pool is eating about 2 or 3 ppm per day here in the Texas sun currently so I just dump in about 4 to 6 cups of ultra bleach each evening.

Overall, I spend maybe 10 minutes a day checking the chlorine and pH level, adding bleach, and shaking out and making sure the skimmer is straight. Other than that I do rinse out the filter once or twice a week and I did replace the first one after three weeks, not because it wasn't still rinsing clean but mostly just because I've read they can get holes in them and I wanted to be safe since they are so cheap. I read somewhere about a guy saying he had purchased an expensive filter with the same dimensions as the Intex filter at a pool store and used it and just rinsed it out as needed. I saw one at the local pool store for $37 that looked identical to mine but since I didn't have the exact measurements and because I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $37 for a cartridge which I can get at WalMart for $5.95 without knowing why it was better I decided to pass for now.

The ladder seems a bit shaky but fairly strong. We've had two peoples weight on the ladder, over 300 pounds combined and it seemed to have survived just fine. The pool came with the deluxe Intex kit, with the vacuum that plugs into the skimmer and I just get in the pool with my goggles and snorkle when it needs vacuuming and cool off while I clean the bottom with the extension pole attached but collapsed all the way. It seems to suck up everything I can see. We did buy a net with a finer mesh than the one that came with the pool but we almost never have to use it because the skimmer runs 24/7 and seems to do a great job.

As far as the pool being level, I can only say that 3/4 of an inch slope is perfectly safe for the 18 x 48 inflatable ring pool. I had to do quite a bit of chopping into a hill in our back yard and the dirt was almost like chipping into brick (very packed, very dry, very hard clay) so I decided to build up on one side as i cut down the other side. The laser said I was perfectly level once it was all done and I had driven the riding mower around in circles for a while to pack it all down. I then raked and smoothed the surface and lightly watered it for a few days to help it settle and proceeded to set up the pool. Well, dumb old me forgot to check it again with the level before putting the pool up and it had indeed settled or at least it settled with a few tons of water on it. Once the pool was almost full I decided to check it with a tape measure because the box said water level 42 inches on the side, 41 on the top and in the instructions and I was going to squeeze out every last inch of depth I paid for That's when I discovered the 3/4 inch difference from one side to the other. Visibly, you can't tell it, but with a tape measure you know it's there. Oh well, it isn't causing any problems and you can't see it so I'll just fix it this winter probably. The pool appears uniform, you can't tell even from inside the pool, and is very stable. It shows no signs of shifting to the low side at 3/4 inch difference. Oh, and I wouldn't go more than the 42 depth with the inflatable ring pool or 40 or 41 especially with kids because the top does seem to start getting a bit too easy to mash down where water can run over. For us, with our first child only still on the way at the moment, we push it to the max and just stay off of the sides.

Overall, after the first month, I am very pleased with the Intex pool and at $297 from WalMart you can't beat the price. I still have my eyes on a monster 20 x 40 above ground oval but that is going to mean ALOT of chopping into the hill behind our house and that is something that just couldn't happen before summer was over.