Dug too deep, is this recoverable?

[newtopoolsga]

We marked out the spot for our Intex Prism 14’ and my husband spent 2 days removing the sod and trying to get the initial level done. Problem is, we think we have dug ‘too deep’. It rained this week and now there is water pooled around the edges of the circle and the ground there (where we would be installing the pavers) is very muddy and at the perimeter seems to have sunk to form almost a moat! It seems if we put pavers in here they would move at the next rain.

Before rain:

After rain:

Did we dig too deep and cause the outer perimeter to be permanently soggy and unable to hold the pavers? If we keep digging deeper to get the center of the circle sand depth to be the same depth as the newly lower ‘outer edge’ I am worried the same will happen at the next rain.

Or perhaps our yard is too wet to support the pool.. We are in Georgia, the ground is mostly clay and lots of small rocks.

Thanks in advance for any advice.. May be a pool for sale soon.. ?

 

[scout123]

Mine looked like that after we got rain. I just waited for it to dry out and dug in my pavers and put my pool up. We've had tons of rain since (I'm in North Georgia and we've had flash flooding rains the last few weeks), and everything has been fine. My pool is a 15 foot intex and even after all those rains with water standing in my yard the pool is still perfectly level. It's not ideal to have water around the base of a pool, and when I finally get to do my permanent AGP, I'll be putting in a french drain system to help with drainage, but for this temporary pool I'm not going to worry about it. The water eventually dries so it's not staying wet, and once this rainy period finishes, it stays dries. That's been my experience the past 3 years with my intex pools. I'm in no way an expert on this, but I think you'll be fine.

 

[Maddog84]

Dude that looks amazingly done. How did you do it? Like what leveling did you use a 2x4 or laser level?

 

[newtopoolsga]

Thank you so much for the reply, I have hope again! We had another massive storm this morning but looking to be dry from here over the weekend so I will plan to get back at it.

 

[kellyfair]

I’m jealous. You guys did a much better job than I did!

 

[newtopoolsga]

Ha well thanks, I’m afraid it’s still a work in progress. It looked like this on Friday after yet another massive storm:

I was determined to work on it over the weekend so fashioned a siphon with my garden hose to drain it. That worked pretty well and so finally started rough setting the pavers. Taking ages but working on it a little at a time after work this week:

 

[Casey]

You'll be glad you took the time to do this correctly. It looks good.