Flowable fill is fine and is a great backfill in this case. Make sure it's a delivered fill it will come right out of a concrete delivery truck. I'm happy to read you got them to move on this. I didnt wanna push you hard but sometimes you gotta play hardball with ppl and getting corporate involved usually works. This hack is destroying LPs name amd making them look bad. I hate to see installs go like this it gives us a bad rap. Every trade has its corner cutters but pools have a bunch. Feel free to email me directly, send pics, etc. if you have immediate questions I'm happy to help out. Glad your on the right track now
Fiberglass Pool Install
- Thread starter robertwest
- Start date
Robert:
What part of MD are you in? I am in Frederick County. We have a Leisure pool as well - RPS did out install about 9 years ago.
What part of MD are you in? I am in Frederick County. We have a Leisure pool as well - RPS did out install about 9 years ago.
Thanks @jimmythegreek ! We're on Day 3 - the pool is being power-washed, and the crane is waiting to get situated. Fingernails about to be bitten.
@jimmythegreek So the tentative plan is to fill the bottom part of the side walls' back fill with #57s, then use flowable fill in the next 12" to get under the main bench, then return to #57s for the rest. Is this layer cake approach okay?
Also, since they dug around three sides to get the pool out (with the one long edge being really wide), the amount of gravel needed to refill is astronomical. The builder wanted to put a plywood wall in the void and fill one side (next to the pool) with clean gravel and the other side with earth and excavated dirt & gravel. I put the kibosh on that idea and just told the consultant to have the builder calculate the cost to fill the whole thing with #57s and if it's not much more, I will pay it. I just don't want a plywood wall and 2x4 bracing apparatus buried in the back yard... Plus, that adds another area to have to concurrently back fill while the water is going in. Are you in agreement?
Also, since they dug around three sides to get the pool out (with the one long edge being really wide), the amount of gravel needed to refill is astronomical. The builder wanted to put a plywood wall in the void and fill one side (next to the pool) with clean gravel and the other side with earth and excavated dirt & gravel. I put the kibosh on that idea and just told the consultant to have the builder calculate the cost to fill the whole thing with #57s and if it's not much more, I will pay it. I just don't want a plywood wall and 2x4 bracing apparatus buried in the back yard... Plus, that adds another area to have to concurrently back fill while the water is going in. Are you in agreement?
I will try to put this as delicately as possible so as to hopefully stay within TFP guidelines. I have been in the excavation business for over 30 years and have worked with some pretty clueless people. In that 30 years I have never heard anyone wanting to use that approach towards a backfill operation. This really speaks to the caliper of the person you are dealing with. The entire area should be filled with the number 57 stone up to 12 to 18 inches below finish grade depending on what is going on top. How big of an area are we talking about? they really shouldn't have had to go any more than 8 ft past the edge of the pool to perform this operation.
They certainly didn't go 8 feet past. I'll pop in a picture of the void (the pool is back in on the new base as of EOD today and both the consultant and I confirmed it is level). It took a couple of tries, but they did the right thing - lifted it up and out, adjusted the base, and reset until level was achieved. No dragging the pool like last time. It was worth the financial pain to pay the consultant to be an advocate that called the shots.
Agreed, that idea of building a wooden wall in the void to save money on gravel was just cockamamie.
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Wow...this guy is a real clown. How does he think that a plywood wall would hold up underground. I wouldn't pay him an extra cent...it is his responsibility to fill the hole with an appropriate material. If he overdug that is his problem not yours. When this is done, you need to post the name of this company so that no one else on here uses them ever.
monoptn
Bronze Supporter
I'm glad you are on the right track, and sorry you have been through this ordeal. My pool builder was not perfect, but he was close. Heck, we completely changed the pool model the day before the dig.
One of the funnier/sad things from today... Consultant asked the temp worker (that the pool company hired) to rake the gravel away from the wall. He knew what a rake was, but he didn't know how to use it... He started raking with the top edge down and the tines facing up. I looked at the consultant and said, "He doesn't know how to use a rake." He said, "I'll go show him."
This is the bench edge that was dragged sideways into the wall. Notice the mud lines on the pool, where it was against dirt w/o backfill. This and the huge voids (where the clean areas are) were part of the problem. The other was the disturbed base from dragging the pool (see picture above). Not sure if you can see it, but there is a left to right slope in the base due to dragging it left to right and thinning the base toward the right.
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Regarding the overdig here is what my fiberglass pool shell manual said:
"In the case of significant over excavation on the sides of the pool or in seasonal high water or poor drainage areas, you may want to mix 10% Portland cement with the backfill for stabilization."
"In the case of significant over excavation on the sides of the pool or in seasonal high water or poor drainage areas, you may want to mix 10% Portland cement with the backfill for stabilization."
We're using flowable fill (which, from what I understand, is a slurry of gravel and runny cement mixture), which should do the trick; but I'll let the pros chime in.
After following this thread for a while I’m now a bit nervous for my fiberglass dig that is set to start next week. Glad you are finally getting things headed in the right direction.
When our fiberglass pool went in the process took 2 1/2 days. I wasn't able to be home but I did set up a cheap camera and watched from work. I also had a good friend go by and watch the pool get unloaded and set. Luckily we did not have any of these issues but I would recommend you just stay on top of what is going on and catch it before it gets to this point. I give Robertwest credit because if my install went like this I don't know if I would have handled it this well.
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Its not that much stone looks like two loads extra max that's 400ish in my neck of the woods delivered. At this point I agree with just eating some material cost amd having it done the way it should and your guy on site is pretty knowledgeable.
I will say that you can cut backfill with plywood I do it all the time on retaining walls but it has to be worth it cause it takes time. We use 3/4 plywood with 2 4" holes on the top long side. You stand on long edge amd use excavator to dump stone on one side and earth on the other. You run the compactor over it like crazy a few inches at a time amd use a strap to the bucket amd slide plywood up and keep going. You can go up to a foot deep with a sheepsfoot roller and the clean gravel needs little compaction its 90% out of the bucket. No wood ever gets left behind and 2x4s are not needed
Make sure the flowable fill has 2 hours to setup before topping it. It's like a sandy slurry and very wet but dries super fast. Some is going to migrate into the clean stone so you want some dry time for the top stone to not push it out or settle it where you cant see it. Make sure they pressure test lines before finishing the backfill and it stays pressurized until they are done. Have your site guy watch them reconnect the plumbing I have a feeling they are gonna try a sloppy repair job it's a real pain to do a nice job on something like this
I will say that you can cut backfill with plywood I do it all the time on retaining walls but it has to be worth it cause it takes time. We use 3/4 plywood with 2 4" holes on the top long side. You stand on long edge amd use excavator to dump stone on one side and earth on the other. You run the compactor over it like crazy a few inches at a time amd use a strap to the bucket amd slide plywood up and keep going. You can go up to a foot deep with a sheepsfoot roller and the clean gravel needs little compaction its 90% out of the bucket. No wood ever gets left behind and 2x4s are not needed
Make sure the flowable fill has 2 hours to setup before topping it. It's like a sandy slurry and very wet but dries super fast. Some is going to migrate into the clean stone so you want some dry time for the top stone to not push it out or settle it where you cant see it. Make sure they pressure test lines before finishing the backfill and it stays pressurized until they are done. Have your site guy watch them reconnect the plumbing I have a feeling they are gonna try a sloppy repair job it's a real pain to do a nice job on something like this
Ahh...that makes sense. But from reading the rest of this saga, do you think this guy will actually compact earth as you would do?
Luckily I’ll be home for the entire process. After having done research for a year now, I know what to look for. After meeting with so many builders I quickly figured out that cheap isn’t quality. I’ll be starting a thread soon about my build.
Apsuhead
Bronze Supporter
- Apr 27, 2020
- 501
- Pool Size
- 19250
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-9)
@robertwest Any updates today? I've learned a lot following this thread ?
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