Take down and store hard sided above ground pool each season.

[magicman]

New to the forum and looking for some opinions.

We're thinking of purchasing a hard sided above ground pool this year to replace a soft sided pool. We live in an urban neighborhood so the lots are small. When we had the soft sided pool we would put it up in our driveway for the summer and take it down in the winter so we could have access to the driveway and park the cars.

My question is, how practical is it to setup a hard sided pool for the summer season and then disassemble it at the end of the swim season and store it? I'm pretty handy, so I'm not concerned about setting it up or taking it down.

Can the liner be easily removed and re-used each year if we were to do this?

Also, I'm thinking about getting a pool with resin supports and top rails because I would assume they're more durable and could withstand a few years of being assembled and taken part (I thinking scratches won't cause them to rust).

We'd be looking at a 15' or 18' round pool.

Thoughts?

 

[Trick]

If I understand correctly and this is a conventional AGP then, the liner cannot be removed and re installed, it will shrink.

 

[CJadamec]

Stay with the soft sided pool if you are going to take it down every year. A conventional hard sided pool it designed to put up and left in place it will not handle being taken down and reassembled many times.

 

[Casey]

Stay with the soft sided pool if you are going to take it down every year. A conventional hard sided pool it designed to put up and left in place it will not handle being taken down and reassembled many times.

I whole heartedly agree!

 

[Teald024]

Magic, Welcome to TFP!

It sounds like your use of a pool would lean toward soft sided pools. As others have said, hard wall pools aren't made to be taken apart repeatedly. The liner itself isn't suitable for removal and reuse. You could get one up/down/up and then that's it, it would need to stay up. Soft side pools are a lower cost option and made to be taken down for the winter. There are many owners of soft side pools that do upgrade the equipment to a larger pump& filter to make maintenance easier if that is part of your concern.

 

[magicman]

Thanks everyone! That’s actually what I kind of figured (about the liner). Sounds like we should either commit to keeping it up all year or go back to a soft sided pool.

my concern with soft sided is how poorly the hold up with kids crashing their bikes into the side. Everyone we’ve ever owned lasts two seasons, max.

Are hard sided worth sacrificing the space?

 

[CJadamec]

If your are committed to the pool and get a lot of use out of it then yes the hard sided pools can be worth it. If the space where you are going to put the pool gets used for something else most of the year it might be a tough argument about how to use that space.

 

[Teald024]

And just throw this out there, neither softwall nor hardwall pools will tolerate abuse. Both are susceptible to damage if you abuse them.

There are countless owners on this forum that leave soft side pools up all year long, even build decks around them. They can and do last for more than two seasons.