I so remember the days last summer when I had paneling laid down on the ground to walk to the pool so we weren't covered in mud!
The pool turned out great! Hope you and your family enjoy it for many summers!
im working on forming for the concrete as we speak. It hasnt been easy. I had to go get 3/4 in plywood for the forms as the pool is 22 inches above ground, which is a 7 inch step up from our porch. We are doing a monolithic pour with a footer on 3 sides (pool side and ends). This footer will be 12 inches wide and 20 inches thick. I will build up the rest with dirt and sand before compacting with a plate compactor so the rest of the slab will be 4-5 inches thick. Its costing me $400.00 in lumber just to form up this thing. luckily, im looking at 800.00 in concrete (approx 7 yards) and a hundred bucks to each of my father in laws two laborers for doing the pour. So ill be into the concrete for about 1400.00. We may stamp it to for a couple hundred more if my father in law can lay his hands on the stamps.
hopefully when the concrete cures, I can get the plywood between the concrete and pool out.....
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the concrete will be 5 inches away from pool top rail to allow for room to stretch a new liner in the future. I am toying with 2 different ideas to fill in the void between pool and concrete.
Idea #1. Trax decking. It is 5.5 inches wide and I would only need 2 16 foot 4 inch boards. I would then put 4x4 posts in the ground every 16 inches, not concreted, that way they can be removed later for liner change, and attach the decking to the tops of the 4x4s to fill in the gap.
Idea #2. I will have some extra sand left over, I thought about shoveling it into the void within about 7 inches of the top rail and watering in it and letting it dry out for several days to pack the sand nice and tight. Then I would get some pavers (3.5 inches thick each) and do a double row of pavers in the void. Then down the road, when the day comes we need a new liner, Ill just pry the pavers out, have liner installed, and put pavers back.
The only thing about idea #2 that is of a bit of concern to me, is that I will have essentially buried my pool all the way up. Granted, its sand that will be about 10 inches in width between the concrete and pool for about 15 inches in depth, and I cant see for the life of me that putting much of any weight on the walls, but to winterize every year, this pool will have to be drained 1 foot down to get below skimmers and returns. So the sand would be pushing against the pool wall with no water on the other side.
