- Jun 13, 2011
- 7
Hi everyone. We are doing a DIY 20x40 inground vinyl lined steel wall Grecian pool install. I will post pictures of our step by step progress as we have learned much from looking at others but in the meantime we are in desperate need of advice. For our base/bottom we went with a sand/Portland cement mix with a ratio of 6:1. We have an acquaintance who was previously in the pool business so we hired him to lay the base this past weekend. We did the mixing, had some hired help for transporting the mix into the pool, and he basically layed the whole thing in 14 hours on Sunday – LONG day. While it was wet everything was looking good but the next morning it was obvious we had major problems. We had trowel marks like crazy, rough and uneven areas throughout and large breaks along the bottom of all areas where the wall meets the bottom as well as at the top and bottom of the slope. Unfortunately our guy is only available on weekends and us wanting to get this thing done right and get the liner in, we decided to hire a professional concrete installer to come out and get our surface smooth and ready for the liner install. This time it took 2 guys 7 hours to do. They patched the bad areas and went over the entire surface (except they skipped the bottom of the deep end for some unknown reason). These guys seemed to use more Portland in the mix and went over the surface with a wet sponge after each area. Again, it looked great wet so we paid them but then after everything was dry it still has major issues! Now some of the breaks are filled in but the entire surface is rough and bumpy– somewhat similar to a popcorn ceiling. We also have large areas that are VERY rough and uneven. Along the edges of the shallow end (the only surface that was actually good after the initial install) they failed to go all the way to the edge so we have 1/8†ridges in many areas. They also rounded out one of the corners of our deep end so we now have one corner of our Grecian pool that is essentially round. It is very frustrating to have paid to have this done twice and still not have a usable surface. Perhaps we are looking for too much but our research indicates that the base should be a smooth surface. Any advice on how to correct this would be greatly appreciated!!!!