I love that your pb is wanting to get done whatever work he can with the weather. Most of them use it as an excuse to do nothing. The waterfall looks great!
Blank slate/Pool build in Maryland
- Thread starter Captchaos
- Start date
We have a patio! We’re very happy with the way it came out for the most part. We don’t have a date for plaster yet.
We have some tumbled bluestone left over from the coping and will do stepping stones for now. The deck will eventually be enlarged, but we aren’t sure where the steps will end so we didn’t want to put in a sidewalk. There is also a grade difference so we didn’t want to do a bunch of work and box ourselves in on a deck design either.
I like the idea of waiting to see how things work out in real life. How will you use the pool the most THEN see what works best for you and your family. Good idea!
Kim
Kim
Let’s talk about sod. Hopefully PoolGate is still watching this thread as I saw a thread from last year he started with similar questions.
Lots of fill dirt was brought in to build up the deep end and there is a significant grade. The pool builder is bringing more dirt in to reduce it (at least that’s what we talked about a couple weeks ago...) but there is just no way grass seed will not wash down the hill just like the dirt is now. You can see the water flowing down the house side too from where they sprayed down the patio to expose the aggregate in the drone pics above. So this means we should use sod, at least on most of it. I can probably get away with seed down in the field but I don’t really know how much sod is.
As I'm sure everyone else before me who has built a pool knows, the stuff we added put us over budget so now we’re trying to save where we can. We had a good thunderstorm today and water and dirt washes down the hill like crazy so I want to get started as soon as possible. I figure I value my own time at a couple hundred bucks a day mostly due to time constraints and having to also build a fence. My concern with doing it myself is the prep work before laying the sod and how long it will take to do. Do I need to bring in top soil too? I sure am tired of bringing in dirt. The dirt that was brought in was fill dirt so I don’t know how good of a base it is for sod.
I'm pretty over this project and want my yard back.
Lots of fill dirt was brought in to build up the deep end and there is a significant grade. The pool builder is bringing more dirt in to reduce it (at least that’s what we talked about a couple weeks ago...) but there is just no way grass seed will not wash down the hill just like the dirt is now. You can see the water flowing down the house side too from where they sprayed down the patio to expose the aggregate in the drone pics above. So this means we should use sod, at least on most of it. I can probably get away with seed down in the field but I don’t really know how much sod is.
As I'm sure everyone else before me who has built a pool knows, the stuff we added put us over budget so now we’re trying to save where we can. We had a good thunderstorm today and water and dirt washes down the hill like crazy so I want to get started as soon as possible. I figure I value my own time at a couple hundred bucks a day mostly due to time constraints and having to also build a fence. My concern with doing it myself is the prep work before laying the sod and how long it will take to do. Do I need to bring in top soil too? I sure am tired of bringing in dirt. The dirt that was brought in was fill dirt so I don’t know how good of a base it is for sod.
I'm pretty over this project and want my yard back.
My grandfather only laid sod on 6-8 inches of topsoil when he did his sod for the business. He was nuts about the thickness of the topsoil also. Used to stick a yardstick in the soil as the guys raked and if he still saw red he would yell them to get back and add and redo. Sod needs a ton of water to stay moist to thicken. The extra good topsoil helps to keep the sod moist. Without moisture it produces more weeds. Sod is more susseptable to weeds vs seed grown grass. Don’t know why but it is.
Sod is great. U just have to prep properly. His topsoil always came from swamps that was then mixed with Pete humus and mushroom mulch. That is just how he did his topsoil. The dirt makes or brakes the sod and seed personally.
When i I did my yard my dad had me seed on 12-16 inches of topsoil. Ya I know nuts but my grass is Better than a pro baseball field. It never gets dry which helps to keep is green in low rain times.
Tipsoil Il is the key with sod.
Sod is great. U just have to prep properly. His topsoil always came from swamps that was then mixed with Pete humus and mushroom mulch. That is just how he did his topsoil. The dirt makes or brakes the sod and seed personally.
When i I did my yard my dad had me seed on 12-16 inches of topsoil. Ya I know nuts but my grass is Better than a pro baseball field. It never gets dry which helps to keep is green in low rain times.
Tipsoil Il is the key with sod.
- Jun 7, 2017
- 9,307
- Pool Size
- 29000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Jandy Aquapure 1400
Couple things you can do.
1 - seed it. I can tell you from experience, seed will adhere to the side of the hill. If you have streams of water rushing down that will wash it out but you need to direct the water so that doesn't happen. We had no issues at all with grass washing away. And we have a big grade and a big hill! We had 25 yards of dirt brought in to level our hill some but still ended up with a close to a 40 degree incline. They compacted it all with a tracked skidsteer and threw seed on the end of last year (by hand). This year the seed is awesome. It grew strong and deep and I can already use my tractor to cut it. I can only go straight up the hill and then back down and do the next strip though due to the incline. We had this all done at a cost of $3500. He said sod on the hill would be more problematic since it would be hard to pin it requiring a lot of pins and cutting would be worse since the sod would want to slip with that grade hill with any weight on it.
2 - sod. Sod is very easy to lay yourself. We got a ton of sod from home depot (probably 2 pallets) and put all of it down ourselves including on hilly parts in the entire pool area. You will need those wire landscaping staples that are like 8" long to pin the sod so it doesn't slide. We did some ground prep work like putting a couple bags of dirt first but that really isn't necessary. As long as you lay the sod tight to the ground and water, water, water, it will take.
3 - Terraces. Our landscaper talked about terracing the hill behind the pool. This was the most expensive option and we chose not to do it because of the price. I think it would have been something like $7500 total for 3 terraces top to bottom with enough room to get my tractor on each terrace. Not a do it yourself unless you have heavy equipment.
4 - retaining wall. We though about this but did not end up going with it. Over 4 feet (I think) is supposed to have an inspection since it is considered structural. We did build a couple of small walls within our pool area to augment the landscaping and they turned out really good. It is not hard at all as long as your base layer is done correctly.
FYI: Our final pool inspection failed because the area behind the pool was not properly graded and seeded to prevent erosion. #1 above was the solution to it and the inspector said it was great on the 2nd visit.
1 - seed it. I can tell you from experience, seed will adhere to the side of the hill. If you have streams of water rushing down that will wash it out but you need to direct the water so that doesn't happen. We had no issues at all with grass washing away. And we have a big grade and a big hill! We had 25 yards of dirt brought in to level our hill some but still ended up with a close to a 40 degree incline. They compacted it all with a tracked skidsteer and threw seed on the end of last year (by hand). This year the seed is awesome. It grew strong and deep and I can already use my tractor to cut it. I can only go straight up the hill and then back down and do the next strip though due to the incline. We had this all done at a cost of $3500. He said sod on the hill would be more problematic since it would be hard to pin it requiring a lot of pins and cutting would be worse since the sod would want to slip with that grade hill with any weight on it.
2 - sod. Sod is very easy to lay yourself. We got a ton of sod from home depot (probably 2 pallets) and put all of it down ourselves including on hilly parts in the entire pool area. You will need those wire landscaping staples that are like 8" long to pin the sod so it doesn't slide. We did some ground prep work like putting a couple bags of dirt first but that really isn't necessary. As long as you lay the sod tight to the ground and water, water, water, it will take.
3 - Terraces. Our landscaper talked about terracing the hill behind the pool. This was the most expensive option and we chose not to do it because of the price. I think it would have been something like $7500 total for 3 terraces top to bottom with enough room to get my tractor on each terrace. Not a do it yourself unless you have heavy equipment.
4 - retaining wall. We though about this but did not end up going with it. Over 4 feet (I think) is supposed to have an inspection since it is considered structural. We did build a couple of small walls within our pool area to augment the landscaping and they turned out really good. It is not hard at all as long as your base layer is done correctly.
FYI: Our final pool inspection failed because the area behind the pool was not properly graded and seeded to prevent erosion. #1 above was the solution to it and the inspector said it was great on the 2nd visit.
- Jun 7, 2017
- 9,307
- Pool Size
- 29000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Jandy Aquapure 1400
Also! Don't put ANY Grass under the fence line! OMG what a friggin' nightmare to cut the grass! You can't use a weedwacker the line chews up the bottom of the fence and gets wrapped around the posts. What I am doing now is I bought a bunch of 1x6x6' pressure treated boards which are the exact with length to fit under each section of fence with the ends notched to keep them in place. I hand cut all the grass as low as I can get it and use a portable jug saw to notch each end and placed them under the fence. I am not even close to being done but I can see already this is a GREAT solution!
If possible too don't put any grass within the pool area. When you cut it it's a mess in the pool. I have grass coming right up to the concrete deck and after cutting I use a blower to get rid of most of it but some always gets in the pool. I am looking at ripping out a lot of it and replacing with stones. The grass is ok accept for the parts that come right up to the deck. Cutting that part is what makes the mess.
If possible too don't put any grass within the pool area. When you cut it it's a mess in the pool. I have grass coming right up to the concrete deck and after cutting I use a blower to get rid of most of it but some always gets in the pool. I am looking at ripping out a lot of it and replacing with stones. The grass is ok accept for the parts that come right up to the deck. Cutting that part is what makes the mess.
Can you show us a pic? i'm sorta a visual learner when it comes to pool stuff and need to see what you mean....
Maddie
- Jun 7, 2017
- 9,307
- Pool Size
- 29000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Jandy Aquapure 1400
Can you show us a pic? i'm sorta a visual learner when it comes to pool stuff and need to see what you mean....
Maddie
You can see on the last pic the difference between having and not having the wood.
Thanks Jim. This is a pretty wild estimate but based on the size of the patio, I am estimating there is about 4000-6000 square feet to repair, so that would cost a fortune. As much as I would like to do that it would probably double the cost of the pool project.
There is some top soil mixed in but they didn’t scrape off the top layer and save it like I have seen them do before excavation in other build threads. Sadly my property was formerly a farm so there was plenty of good soil on top. Further, all of the fill dirt that was brought in was put over top of formerly untouched grass so the project became larger than just the excavated part. On top of this, the dirt is washing down the hill with all of the rain we’ve had and increasing the scope with each raindrop.
The first couple of loads of dirt that were brought in looked like pretty good dirt but subsequent loads weren’t as good and of course the good dirt went in underneath. I was wondering if I can get some thick cut sod and use that instead of spreading top soil first. I have access to some farm equipment and can rake it.
Thanks for the detail here. I was assuming that sod was the only option for the hill. In my pictures it is very hard to see the grade of the hill so I’m sure your pictures are the same. I didn’t realize your grade was so steep. Doing some searching I see that Home Depot has some soil erosion prevention blankets that have straw embedded in and are biodegradable. I see these used a lot now that I know what they are. Maybe this is a solution that I could do myself. I think then I would need to bring in topsoil though. I would hate to go through the effort and expense of seeding for none of it to grow well.
Sod would be nice but I’m surprised to hear that it wouldn’t stay on the hill well. We may still do sod around the pool where it is flatter.
Your experience is interesting. I thought about the hassle of trimming the grass under the fence but didn’t consider that it would damage it. I even saw in a Lowe’s review that someone said their trimming didn’t damage the fence at all. I thought about putting river rock or mulch under there but then I’d need some sort of edging too, and we are looking at about 230’ or fence so that would be a lot of work too.
You can see on the last pic the difference between having and not having the wood.
It looks like the entire fence (not just the posts) is almost touching the ground. Every install video I have watched said to install it so that it is two inches above the ground so you can cut the grass. Do you think that would make things easier? If yours is almost touching the ground as it appears, I can see how that would be a HUGE pain to deal with.
- Jun 7, 2017
- 9,307
- Pool Size
- 29000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Jandy Aquapure 1400
In Montgomery County the code is a pool fence has to be no more than 2" from the ground. That is what drove it being so close it failed the first time. The fence guys came out and pounded the posts in further.
Also the thinner the sod, the better quality it is. I know that sounds counter-intuitive but that is how sod is graded. And sod will grow on just about anything. We put sod on dried out ground that was mostly hard packed fill dirt and it grew awesome thick and full like it had always been there. For sod I would not worry so much about ground prep but for grass you want nice fresh topsoil.
I’m sure mine has to be less than 2” from the ground too. Are your posts cemented in? I’ve heard about some sort of stakes that can be used under aluminum fence posts but I can’t find them other than attached to short decorative fence.
I read the same thing about sod earlier. Thinner cut apparently roots better than thick, which can sometimes not root at all.
I read the same thing about sod earlier. Thinner cut apparently roots better than thick, which can sometimes not root at all.
I snapped some more pictures to show the grade difference. You can also see that the grade in the front was actually built up a little higher than the back so if we can get enough dirt, it can be sloped nicely. I think we probably need another 40-60 yards of fill dirt for that though.
Those pics do show the grade well. Yeah I would try to slope it some more so it will not quite as *exciting* to mow LOL
Kim
Kim