levelling ground for new above ground pool

[Miskatonic]

going to go with the intex pool i was talking about in another post, thanks to everyone for the comments on that. So, well, next thing is we need the level area for it. Our garden is big enough but it's a lumpy, grassy mess so we're going to poison the grass and weeds in the area that's marked for the pool then build a small brick edging area, cover the internal area in portland cement then try to level it off with a water/cement powder mix. Does this sound okay, anyone have any experience of putting down a cement flooring ? Some people say sand is fine but everything on the intex site says sand is a no no and that concrete or level earth are much preferable (with concrete supposedly being the ideal).

Any help as to how to get things level, mixtures to use etc and general hints and tips much appreciated

 

[JohnT]

Unless you strip the sod, you will never have a stable surface. Even poured concrete isn't put on top of sod because it will settle and the concrete can crack.

Stripping the sod, then scraping it level using a laser level to guide you is much simpler.

 

[Miskatonic]

you mean scrape up the surface turf level and even it out or ??

- - - Updated - - -

we were going to rake it all out and get the lumps out, with regards to grass there's not much it's just tufts and very dry, powdery earth that's quite compacted. If we rake all this up and even it we're looking to put a covering of portland cement then pure cement/water mix over it to level things off. Hopefully this would be okay, can't really think of another way to do it. Also, we'll be doing it all by hand as it's impossible to get any machines to our garden, sadly :-(