Want to see our clay??

[hoffmans]

Hello All, Hoffmans here.

Well-- it is finally time.
Pool has been sitting in boxes in the garage for several weeks waiting for dry weather.
The pool is an Artesian 33' round.http://www.sunenterprises.com/ultima.htm


Yesterday a guy came w/ his skidsteer and transit.
Heres the pics:











Yes it is level but it is bumpy, he couldn't get his tire tracks out b/c the ground is clay- all clay- and it is moist clay.
The west side is dug down 2 1/2 feet the east side only a few inches.

We don't exactly know how to get it smooth. Those tracks are big/hard & solid.
No way will it rake out smooth.
Any advice?

Should we:
Tamp it w/ a gas tamper?
Use a sod cutter?
Use a slicer?
Cover it all w/ sand? ( manufacture instructions say "do not use sand to level")
Make a pool-krete bottom?
Wait a week for the sun to dry out the surface then try something, what something?

Any ideas?

Thanks guys,
~Hoffmans

[ChuckD]

Heh, the first two shots looked like you had a strip mine going, or something.

I'm wondering if thoroughly wetting it down to loosen up the clay and then a roller might do it.

C.

[GraceByDesign]

Hey, I have no advice, but am wondering if you live in our area... looks like they took slabs of stone out in the strip-mining shots!! Our yard is about 50% clay and 50% stone.

In my experience, wetting down clay only makes it worse! It just gets stickier...

[hrsdennis]

Hi Hoffmans, glad to see you are getting started and look forward to following your progress.

At this point I think Matt and I would both agree 100% that a few inches of crushings smoothed and packed would be the perfect cure for that lovely soil you have there.

Don't level it with sand, but crushings are perfect. Best of luck, Dennis

[sevver]

Limestone screenings or crushings would be perfect. Either that, just attack it with something, likely a shove and shave off all of the high spots and toss them on the pile you have. It sucks, but it may be worth it in the end, and remind yourself that it doesn't last forever. I suppose that a compactor would work, don't use a jumping jack type compactor if the soil is moist clay though, it will just dig in even more. Rollers on wet clay tend to just turn things into a waterbed, and if you vibrate with it you are sunk. Personally, if I had access to one, I would go with a gas compactor, second option, the shovel.

Good luck.

[hoffmans]

Thanks for your advice Dennis so happy to have you.
Thank You Sevver and Carl.
So grateful for everyone's advice.

Yesterday (Tuesday) Tom went to the concrete place. They had no Crusher Run so he got Masons Sand.

Yesterday (Tuesday) We tossed a little bit of the Masons sand down to fill in the tire track ruts from the skidsteer. The sand is about an inch thick or less.
*Rain rain rain all day today (Wednesday)

Here's the Plan:
Step 1. This wkend rent a Tamper/ Jumping Jack or whatever they have & tamp down where the ring will go.
Smooth out middle.
Step 2. Check for Level.
Step 3. Lay out ring and plates to get a visual of where they go.
Step 4. Pour mini concrete footers instead of using patio blocks.
Step 5. Get some heavy black plastic or whatever and lay that out as extra barrier/weed block/peace of mind?.
Step 6. Happy Bottom on top of that.
Step 7. Install ring and plates on top of plastic and Happy Bottom.
Step 8. Read manufacture instructions for the rest of the set up.....???

Hows that sound? Good Bad Ugly?

CarlD- We had the same idea! Tried the water. Put a little water in a small area- opps, didn't work at all.
No harm done tho.

Sevver- Thanks for the heads up on the Jumping Jack! I will call around tomorrow (Thursday) for the Gas Compactor.

Thank You All so much,
Hoffmans

[NWMNMom]

You are going to level/smooth it with Masons or use it after you get it smooth? We put that down under the liner but the base HAD to be level and smooth before putting it down. Masons is very fine and any lumps, divits and bumps will definitely be evident after the pool is filled - too late to fix it without draining.

The best advice anyone ever gave, and one of the most important things when putting in the pool is to be sure your base is level and smooth.
First off, we had a mixture of clay and gumbo where we put ours.

We used a loader bucket, then a blade grader (behind the smaller tractor) to smooth it as best we could, which really works nice. We could not get crusher run, limestone chips or anything like that in our area, so we put down class 5 (they use it to make parking lots solid) Next we rented a plate compactor to get it nice and smooth AND solid all over. It was cheap enough to rent ($40 for 24 hrs) and it does a VERY nice job - you could drive on that with the tractor without making ruts - it hasn't moved a bit over the winter either and we get deep frost.

[hoffmans]

Ok well....
it rained all Tuesday and Wednesday all day and night.

Friday we are getting the vibrating plate tamper.
Hopefully the little bit of masons sand we added will only help us work out the rainy clay substrate we have now.
The tire tracks have softened up from the rain so maybe this will make for easier smoothing and tamping on Friday.
DH says the sand will not be used as a leveling agent, there isn't even enough of it. And we wouldn't want it wash away in the future, so there is very little there. Praying it will mix nicely w/ the wet clay and make a good compound for us to work with.
We can only go forward from here.
I guess blood, sweat & tools are what it is going to take to get it flat, smooth and level.

~Hoffmans

[matt4x4]

Sorry I'm late to the party!!!! - But yeah - What Dennis said!
We are all clay as well, about 50-80 feet down, the only thing that changes is the layers of color!
Yes, screenings are the best, also really help with the drainage around and under your pool, the more you can get the better - clay really soaks up moisture, primarily when it's wet season (makes sense right?) and then the winter freezes that and heaves it like crazy. I would recommend at least half a foot of the stuff under your walls for a width of about 3 feet (1.5 to either side of the wall) - then put your mason's sand in the inner circle and shape it like a saucer, you can probably get an extra 10 inches depth in the middle that way on a 33 foot pool, I got 8" and could have done more on a 30 footer.

[matt4x4]

Try calling gravel pits or just the local soil trucking outfits, concrete plants usually only have or get what they use and screenings/crusher run are rarely used under/in concrete, pits and truckers might have more access to a more diverse selection of materials.