Bestway 12'x24' x 52" Site Prep, setup and Post setup changes and mods

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AusPhil

AusPhil

0
Jan 23, 2018
181
Canberra ACT
This might be a boring story but hopefully when we get further into the saga there will be some interesting modifications and tweaks to the AGP that people will find useful or helpful.
I really meant to do this as we did all the prep work but when it was clear that it was going to be slow I decided to wait... maybe not this long though :)

We live in Canberra, Australia, where summer temps can go past 40c (104f) in summer and drop to minus 7c (19f) in winter, pool use season is maybe 4 months depending how fast things heat up in spring

The story starts back in Jan 2018 when we got back from holidays in far north Queensland again enjoying every day in the resort pool and lamenting that we didn’t have one of our own to cool off. We got back in the middle of the mid-summer heat wave that we seem to get most years making it even worse.
The main back yard area slopes quite a bit as we will see a bit later however we have a concrete area at the other end that is relatively flat and could fit a 12’ round pool so off we trotted around all the likely stores that carry the basic Intex pools…. Five hours later not one of the stores had any stock of 10’ or 12’ versions, found a single 15’ but it would be too big, guess the summer had been hot, that ended that idea and we retired to the air conditioned comfort of inside... Whilst disappointing it may have been a good thing as in doing a bunch of google searches I ended up finding TFP and started reading intensely.

Now all the stories of 24’ 27’ etc larger AGP’s really started to push me to put in the largest we could fit. Sounds somewhat familiar to many I guess.
We have a requirement to have any pool fenced here and we are allowed to use the boundary fencing as part of this however the existing fence was overgrown and certianly not up to code to use so it needs to be replaced.
Here's how it looked from above
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
and looking up the yard
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Autumn and winter seen me undertake a clear fell of the bushes and shrubs growing in the garden beds along 50m (150’) of boundary fencing. It certainly change the look of the yard
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
I was lusting after a 16x32x52 as bigger is always better but laying it all out on the ground showed that realistically a 12x24x52 was going to fit neatly and still allow room for fencing around the outside.
The overhead photos may make it look like the area picked is relatively flat but nope not a chance with over 600mm (2’) fall from diagonally across the area this was not going to be a simple dig it by hand type job… so let’s go find a bobcat person to level it out. The only way into the yard for a bobcat is via the long driveway of the neighbour over the back and through the fence that needs to be replaced. So sort of lucky we had a reason to rip a section of fence out
This photo gives a good idea of the slope right to left and from the back to the front
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Next Post...... Lets dig some ground out......
 
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Well the forest around the yard is cleared and it was time to level the ground, for a period of time I really thought that some hard work with a cultivator would be enough till the reality of that slope took over so lets ring around so local bobcat guys.
First contractor came out, gave a quote and then never showed up on the day, failed to answer calls so instant drop and ring another contractor. A little more expensive but he did arrive as promised. Eight hours later through rock infested clay we had a flat area. They were supposed to lay down a couple of inches of crushed gravel fines as a final leveling base but ended up supplying standard sub-base used under concrete slabs with larger pebbles all through it…. Can’t take a trick as it was spread out before I caught the mistake so I let it ride figuring a bit of sand over the top would be good anyway.
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Further to not taking a trick and despite them using a laser level the supposedly level area sloped around 2 inches right to left and had a high point in the middle so we had some more work to do.
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Looking at the area it was now obvious I would need to build a retaining wall so project retaining wall got kicked off. What fun it was to dig 600mm deep holes for the posts through the largely solid rock hard clay. I will admit the physical exercise has been good even if it didn’t feel it at the time.
By this time we are well into spring (October down under) with no end in sight to have all the prep work completed and a hot summer predicted.

To ensure we didn’t have a January repeat of not being able to buy a pool I ordered a Bestway 12x24x52 with 1600gph pump and sand filter late November by which time they were already going “on sale” so got it at least 20% off from memory. Figured that if the pool was sitting there in boxes I’d have even more motivation to get it up.
I’d read constantly on the site here it was important to put solid pavers under the legs to ensure they didn’t sink but buying anything thicker than 2” and big enough for the legs over here is essentially impossible so decided to make my own as we had the cement mixer, sand and gravel already from doing the retaining wall posts, so we made some forms up with 2.5” thickness figuring that we could mix these up to be high strength we would need any thicker.

For the technical we made up a water level so we could get an accurate level across the entire area and for all the pavers.
As we were going away for a couple of weeks in January we decided not to rush and finish off after we got back and maybe get the pool up to enjoy at least a few weeks.
By this time I had given up trying to level out the sub-base and raised clay/rock area and decided to just lay the pavers in the correct spots for the legs, thanks to one of the posters here who had posted the spacing required, water levelling them all then just backfilled with sand and tamping down.
All was going well till the cheap and very weather worn wheelbarrow decided to have its front tyre explode. Man are those things loud when the let go. Exit on wheelbarrow and a new one arrived a week later before we got going again. This was the point the tyre let go.... nearly finished carting sand
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Thanks to one of the posts here we got all the pavers positioned based on measurements from the post, the slightly larger than required size gave a little space for error :)
yeah, yeah i know right at the bottom the sand is likely to wash out but a proper concrete retaining wall will go in under the pool fence at this end and we will back fill with crusher dust.
By this time it’s now nearly the end of January and still stupidly hot.
All the normal options for under the pool used over in the US such as foam-board are either not available or just stupidly expensive as they are not readily available so in hunting around we stumbled across some cheap artificial grass that after a little use is obviously cheap but it does provide that little extra cushion under the feet so not regretting it.
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

coming up.... pool stand up ... just need to process a couple of timelapse videos.
 
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@AusPhil You guys are setting yourselves up for many happy pool years!
As you already noted, be sure there is a 'retainer' support around the sand before the pool is on it, any significant precipitation will erode it. ?
 
splashpad said:
@AusPhil You guys are setting yourselves up for many happy pool years!
As you already noted, be sure there is a 'retainer' support around the sand before the pool is on it, any significant precipitation will erode it. ?
Click to expand...
Well..... heat trumped doing the concrete retainer, we have had a few inches of rain in on storm that is about the worst we ever see and nothing has shifted so expect it to be fine for a few months, the artificial turf seems to have nicely protected things .... fingers remain crossed
 
Now we get a little less boring :)

Pavers down, sand down, all leveled and compacted, grass laid and joined, nice sunny day and we get to unroll the pool and leave it in the sun to warm up and get flexible.
Now didn’t think the whole grass over the pavers and how to position the pool legs when you can’t see the pavers scenario out very well so became real glad I had not pinned the grass edges down at this point

Flickr is still processing the time-lapse videos so i'll add them later
I was sort of surprised just how much i got done buy myself but there is no way to lift the rails and put legs in without a helping hand

Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Pool up and ready to fill, my hose outlet has a basic digital flow meter on it so figured that we could measure the amount of water going in with one little twist, the meter only counted 1000 litres before rolling back to zero, interestingly I ended up getting around 1000 litres per hour out of the garden hose.

The specs for the pool say 32,000 litres at 90 percent so settled down to expect around the same number of hours to fill, to my surprise at around 25 hours and 26,000 litres we were well and truly full enough, so I’ve pegged the volume at 26k or 27k as we might have got some additional flow overnight.

In all the fun of construction work we had ordered a test kit from CCL here in Oz so we could test properly and not get yelled at by the forum.

so nearly seven weeks ago on Jan 28 we have water :)
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
and nearly full...
Pool Dig by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
 
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I bow to you!! Your rock!! What great work you have done! That looks as level as level can be!!!

The dig really showed how sloped your yard is :shock: WOW! Thank goodness for a bobcat BUT gurrrrrrrrr on them not getting it level..........how did they "mess up" that bad with a level? Just glad your hands know how to hold a shovel.

I did laugh about the wheelbarrow tire letting go! My hubby got me one of those "never flat" ones as he got tired of hearing me fuss about having to air mine up all of the time so I overfilled it and BOOM it went :roll: No problems now hehe

Now do you know about cooling the water off with a sprayer? Here is a link to one someone built:
Skippy's New Fountain The kids love to play in it AND it helps cool the pool off. One thing to think about though is it does cause your pH to go up. Just be ready with some muriatic acid and you should be good!

Kim:kim:
 
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kimkats said:
Now do you know about cooling the water off with a sprayer? Here is a link to one someone built:
Skippy's New Fountain The kids love to play in it AND it helps cool the pool off. One thing to think about though is it does cause your pH to go up. Just be ready with some muriatic acid and you should be good!

Kim:kim:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link Kim, I hadn't seen that one... i've got something similar in mind but coming in from the end of the pool ... :( sadly it's already turning cold here so we may not even get in again for 6 months.
 
Next part of the saga, whilst I wait for Flickr to actually process my timelapse videos.

I’d read so much on various start-up processes but decided to completely wimp out and just use Triclor tablet for the first little while that would allow me to get chlorine and CYA into the pool over the initial month without having to think about it too much, I’ve been testing every couple of days to track how it was going…. As is often said “know what you are adding” and thanks to poolmath I knew exactly what I was adding and the planned 2000gms of triclor tabs would give me around 50 CYA which is roughly were I am a bit over a 6 weeks later J we have now swapped over to liquid chlorine. Used Borax to bring the Ph back up so have some borates in the water now. Every time i read or type borate i have bad visions of a weird man in a mankini!!!

With everything up and running we started to discover some of the genuine limitation of these types of pools with no surface skimming, time to visit ebay again and buy one of those "over the edge" skimmers, got the Bestway version delivered in a couple of days, now the fun began with the various suction side fittings, yep the strainer does unscrew once you remove the locked screw, thank you Bestway for it not being obvious, and the supplied adapter screws on to attach the skimmer hose.

Got to say once I modified the skimmer itself to be more buoyant this thing really does work well.
skimmer in action by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

As I have a 3D printer and love a design challenge we decide to make some suction side fitting that would allow some quicker changes inside the pool for vacuum hose skimmer etc and blocking one of the suction holes when vacuuming. It also became very obvious that the return back into the pool with a large strainer was not really helping with real circulation so off to the design software and printer to get some parts, hardest bit turned out to be matching the threads on the fittings.
Turns out Bestway at least seems to use standard BSF/DIN imperial plumbing thread sizes on most threaded fittings. Did try metric threads first but the DIN threads work better. This has made some of the further plumbing work to be shown really quite easy.
So first thing was a straight eyeball design that did increase the flow velocity and provided some benefit. Next up was a 90 degree version, tapered from 2” down to around 7/8, now this did start to get the water moving around. I then started to wonder if we could use the air multiplier theory and aerofoil design to create even more flow so back to the Fusion360 design software to see what we could come up with. I’m now in the third version that is working really well.
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
This is version two of the aerofoil design, don't have a close up of the 3rd version i'm using handy.
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Whilst it does stick out a bit the circular flow it creates is well worth it in my opinion.

And yeah those last two photos are actually taken underwater :)
 
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The dust storm:

It’s summer in Australia and dust storms are not unusual hundreds of miles further west from me but not so common here though we do get one every couple of years blanket the city and the one we got about 10 days into the pool being up was the worst I’ve seen in all the years living here.
It hit the city around midday and it was late that night before it clear, by the time I got home around 5pm there was zero flow out of the baby sand filter that came with the pool, instant back wash and an hour later it was blocked again…. A few more backwashes during the evening seemed to help but the sheer volume of red dust that had been dropped was never going to be cleared by this little thing, so back to ebay and a couple of hours later I had a 21” no name sand filter with multiport arriving by the weekend. How to plumb this in was going to be just a PVC jigsaw thanks to the seemingly standard threading on the Bestway hoses etc.
You can see the remants of the red dust staining the exterior surfaces in a lot of the photos!

The new sand filter

Fun and joy when two boxes arrived, one with the main filter canister and the other with the multiport and fittings.

As I plan to move all the equipment around 20’ away during winter everything is currently “temporary”. Can’t put it in the final spot yet as the tomato bushes are still growing and bearing lot’s of tomatoes for us to eat :)

So we unboxed and walked the main canister over to beside the pool and found the most logical spot for it then realised we should sit the thing on a 500x500mm paver, too late on a Friday to buy one so parked the project to Sat till we got a paver :)

Saturday off to the sand/gravel/paver place to get a paver then off to the local big box hardware (Bunnings) for the plumbing bits we are guessing will be needed including replacing the supplied ABS threaded filter bits with PVC ones, joining PVC and ABS with glue is not ideal and PVC pipe and fittings is easy to source. Disappointed to find the advertised 50mm pipe sizing is squeezed into a 40mm actual threaded port so just used 40mm (1.5”) threaded fittings and then stepped up to 50mm.

Also picked up enough Zeolite filter media to fill the filter. Stop yelling at me to use sand, buying pool sand is considerable harder to find than buying zeolite in Australia. Thanks to a tip/thread here I rinsed each bag fully by putting the zeolite in a bucket and using a hose the same way you would deep clean a sand filter

Positioned filter, added some water then added the zeolite and bolted down the multiport valve.

Photo below shows the final plumbing result. Key thing of note is that the Bestway flexible hose used from at least the 1600gph pump is 1.5” pipe with the union style fittings matching bog standard 2” BSF threaded male fittings, just needed to cut some new washers out of 3mm rubber. I did sand the face of the threaded male fitting to ensure it was flat for the washer.

The view along the pool
Pool Plumbing by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
We did use barrel unions for the filter leaving enough pipe so they can be reused when we move it during winter
Pool Plumbing by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
I thought it was smart to use the flexible hose out of the pump to join to the PVC piping
Pool Plumbing by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Same for the return side back to the pool
Pool Plumbing by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Yeah it's sort of a real mix of 40mm/50mm pipe and fittings but it all comes together :)

Now maybe the water flow gurus can work this out, the original little 16” sand filter had a pressure reading just under 5psi and the new 21” filter also ends up having the same reading using the same gauge (yes swapped gauges). Not sure if this can be translated to actual head in anyway. I have worked out that half of that is due to the custom outlet i have in the pool.

The poor little Bestway pump is not the highest flow unit out there for sure :)

With the filter in and running it was time to clean up all the fine dust silt that was left on the bottom of the pool, took about 5 vacuums before we seem to get the last of it and then we got another dust storm blow through though nowhere near as bad. A few more vacuums and the fine silt seems to be captured well in the filter, pressure has not increase by a discernible value on the gauge so very happy with the 21” at the moment.
 

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Suction outlets upgrade:

Reading all the AGP hard plumb threads on here this was something I planned to do when I moved the pump/filter but with a high confidence level that the small outlets was less than ideal and constant frustration physically blocking a port when needing to vacuum drove me to add some hard plumbed ball valves in line with the standard 1.25 flexible pipe and add an over the edge 40mm vacuum pipe. Great idea, worked well and lasted an entire week before we cut in some bigger outlets and redid the plumbing with 2-way valves.

The new 2” outlets are again designed in Fusion360 and 3d printed in ABS at 100% infill making them essentially solid ABS. Being ABS they were designed with standard 2” pipe thread for normal PVC threaded fitting match up.

Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

I can hear the chorus yelling why not just buy Hayward fittings…. Sorry neither easy to do nor cheap over this side of the big pond and it was fun to design and print these.

2" thread for the locknut, 2" internal thread on the inside of the pool and 3.5" external thread on the inside for the normal strainer covers from Bestway

Both were printed ready to go over the previous week and the first one was cut in on Sunday afternoon with the better half in the pool holding the bowl and me on the outside very nervously cutting the new hole. Talk about nerve racking and scared about leaks. Took away all the one week old plumbing so I could fit the new stuff in the same area. Got enough plumbing done to use the single outlet. The immediate change was that previous a single outlet would see the filter pressure drop a bit over 1psi or 20% indicating flow restriction on the suction side… didn’t happen now as expected.
Got the second one cut in Tuesday evening and connected up.

I had printed a marking template to use as shown below.

Outlet plugged and hose removed
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Template positioned ready for marking
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Line to cut around, as we had drawn this around the inside of the template it was just a simple matter of cutting just outside the marked like. One fresh razor knife blade and careful patience is all that was then needed.... this is hard just nerve racking the first time.
No pictures of the cut out hole but here is the new fitting installed
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

And with the right angle elbow attached
Pool parts by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

The jigsaw work continued with trying to tuck the piping in to the base of the pool a bit and ensure the 2-way valves were both out of the road and had enough spare pvc pipe to be reused.... Murphy decided to pay a visit as i dry fitted all the bits together to say "this leg will block you" so we had to get a little creative as you can see :)

pvc hard piping by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
 
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You are something else!!! I loved reading and watching all you did! The skill set is up there THEN having the tools (3d printer) = oh yeah!!!

We don't yell around here hehe we just give words of caution for things to think about and keep an eye on. You did GOOD using the tablets as a one, two punch to get your water levels where they needed to be. You used the tools (pool math) to get where you needed to be. Well done!!!

I SO happy to hear the z stuff worked so well. PLEASE keep us up to date on how it works over time AND make sure to take/share pics when you go to open it and clean it so we can learn with you.

THANKS for sharing this adventure! :hug:

Kim:kim:
 
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Well as the northern hemisphere starts to open their pools up at least for me swim season is over, water temp fell into the "i'm not getting in for any reason" range so we pulled the Bestway supplied black cover out to have a look. It has tie down points for each leg vertical where your supposed to tie the thin rope around each leg.
Back to Fusion 360 and the 3D printer and we have come up with some backets that allow us to just clip the cover on.
024389-X3310480 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

It's designed to slip right up to the top rail without pushing on the locking pins

Just to show off here's the printer doing a set of 8 ... about 7hrs print time :)
024390-X3310481 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
 
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