ladder and railing sockets in paver patio

[jhockman]

Hello, We installed a vinyl lined steel wall pool last fall. This spring we are starting the paver patio and I was hoping somebody could help me with information on installing the brass sockets for the ladder and railing. I am confused how to set these, since the patio will be pavers set in sand on a gravel base. I have hired a mason to install the bullnose coping, but was going to do the pavers myself.


My pavers are 2.375" thick
The brass sockets are 4" long.


How do I cement the sockets securely since the pavers can technically move since they are just sitting on sand? The three things I was thinking are:

• Pouring a cement footing under my pavers and put 1.625" of the brass socket in the cement and the remaining 2.375" of the socket sticking out of the cement and through the pavers, (so the tops are flush with the patio). Will this be strong enough? How large of a footing would you recommend? I could always tie the sockets to some rebar in the cement for extra strength.

• Shall I sink the sockets deeper in the cement so that the top of the socket is below the top of the pavers? This would make my railing and ladder a little lower than normal. Again, how much concrete would be sufficient?


• My other thought would be to pour a cement pad that is flush to the top of the pavers, but was hoping to avoid this as I don't want to see the cement pad in the middle of my paver patio. If I did this, how large of a pad would be necessary to support someone pulling themselves out of the pool on the ladder or leaning on the railing?


Does anyone have any suggestions or pictures of what you have done in this case? How much concrete / what size footing is sufficient to support the ladder and railing?

Any suggestions you have are greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

The best thing to do is to pour a substantial amount of concrete, but only have four or five of inches of it around each socket stick up to the top of the paver height. Further from the sockets the concrete can stay low enough that you can put a layer of sand on top and put in pavers on top of the sand that match up with the rest of the pavers away from the concrete. Just how much concrete you need to pour depends on what else there is that the concrete can tie into. If the concrete is not connected to anything substantial, it will need to be quite substantial on it's own.

 

[JamesW]

Also, make sure that the sockets are properly bonded.

 

[jhockman]

Thanks for the advise James and Jason.

I have the sockets bonded into the grid already, and now just need to secure them so they don't move.

I am thinking that it may be worth my while to pay the mason I hired to install the bullnose coping to also install the sockets. My pool installer recommended this mason and said he does a ton of coping jobs for him on steel wall pools. He is going to dig around the pool and pour a 1' deep cement footing encasing the top of the steel wall. This is for the bullnose pavers to be mortared to, but I assume if he extends it for the rail/ladder sockets, it will make them much stronger than me pouring a separate footing.

Once I talk to him, and he pours the footing, I will take some pictures and post them in case someone has a similar question.

Thanks again,
Jeff

 

[Sleeper-6]

I'm toying with this idea myself. I think I'm going to got he concrete block route, starting at the pool wall and going out about 6 inches further and wider on each side than the ladder sockets. The old section of concrete I took out there was a good 8" thick and about that size, so that's what I'm going by for size. When I'm done I plan on staining the concrete to match my pavers. I might even try to make a mini stamp of the paver pattern and see if I can get a close match. Not sure of that yet.