New AGP sides bowing

[somedaypool]

My unqualified guess would be that your pool is not imminently likely to fail. Hard to tell angle from a picture though of course.

For reference my pool is 18' round and if I hold a string against the the top of the worst outward leaning post, with a weight on the bottom of it, the bottom of the string hangs 2" away from the post. Mine has been standing that way for a year, can't say I've tested it with cannonballs off the roof but it's been fine for regular swimming otherwise.

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We moved some dirt around and it doesn't seem like it's a low spot as much as it's pushed in somehow.




Is it possible the foot is broken? I don't know how you would tell unless you took it apart. I tried calling pool factory but I just get a busy signal. I'm not sure if their site is done or what the deal is because you can't submit an email to them either.

 

[hwy17]

I don't think the foot is broken, there's two things going on there. One is the upright is leaning because the pool isn't perfectly round, it's slightly oval. Two is the slight bucking at the footing because there is more pressure on the paver than the ground around it - the paver is a high spot.

Both are common installation errors, I have a bit of both on my DIY pool. Neither are good, but they're not necessarily fatal.

 

[somedaypool]

Thanks so much for your reply. I finally got in touch with pool factory and here's what I think it happening. Our landscaper in leveling the ground brought in a ton of sand and then compacted it with a compactor and that area has the most sand whereas the others are mostly on clay. We tried to explain to take away the ground instead of lay down dirt but there seems to have been some translation errors and we were hoping it would just be ok. The people at the pool factory said it was due to settling and while you're correct, not necessarily fatal, is not fantastic and may settle more over time. The fact that the pavers have sand under them and there's so much sand everywhere means the settling is probably going to get worse and it's almost 1.5 inches off level anyway. My husband and I talked it over and we really want to start off right and not have to do this again. Because the pool is at a low spot in our yard, water is going to end up there when it rains (and kids splash) and the sand will probably wash away more as time goes on. We decided to drain it, take it down, and scrape all the sand away, relevel, and bring just a little bit of sand in the middle to make it smooth (we have the cover for the ground anyway). This will make us both feel better about its structural integrity and we can move it a few feet further away from our shed which I think will look nicer in our yard anyway. We haven't installed the plumbing yet so hopefully we can still use the same liner and while we are not looking forward to doing all this again, are feeling better about doing it correctly this time. Thank you all so much for your input!

 

[kimkats]

So are you saying you have NOT cut the liner yet? If that is the case then you should be able to reuse it.

I like your thinking----------do it again and make sure it is right/correct. You will sleep much better at night. I have a sad for you for all of the work you have done that need need to be redone though

 

[somedaypool]

So are you saying you have NOT cut the liner yet? If that is the case then you should be able to reuse it.

I like your thinking----------do it again and make sure it is right/correct. You will sleep much better at night. I have a sad for you for all of the work you have done that need need to be redone though

Thanks kimkats. No, we haven't cut the liner yet so we hope to reuse this liner. This has been such a mess but I will feel much better having it done right. We have a handyman and his helper that are going to do most of the heavy lifting and building while my husband directs so I'm hoping it won't be as much work this time. Also we have a better idea of what we are doing. Today and tomorrow we are pumping the water out to the street. Let's hope the second time it goes better!

 

[somedaypool]

Well we drained the pool to all about about a foot of water left. That's happening now. What we've found were three of the resin bottom boots are broken. I don't know how normal it is for those to break. I have to call the pool factory tomorrow and see about getting some replacement parts before we can put everything back up. I'm wondering if that's why it reacted the way it did when it was slightly out of level was because those were broken or if we did something to break them. Has anyone had the bottom boot break on a resin pool?

 

[kimkats]

Say WHAT???? Pics please. That is NOT normal at all!!!!

 

[somedaypool]

i don't know if you can see it but this one was the one that was the most broken. The other two you can't see as clearly until we take it down.

 

[kimkats]

Well it looks like it is still able to hold the rail in place but it is kind of hard to see to know for sure.

 

[somedaypool]

Yeah that picture is as good as we could get. If you zoom in, you can see how the plastic has sheered off. I'll take some more pics once it's disassembled. Either way, I don't think we'll be able to use them again.

 

[kimkats]

will be very interesting to see just how bad they are compared to the other ones! Not fun or good at all

 

[somedaypool]

I figured I'd update and add some of my question here instead of starting a new thread. We had to take down the pool. We ended up with 7 broken boots that had to be replaced. We hired a handyman and over $1000 later had it leveled and added a layer of decomposed granite under everything and the ground was solid. We added drainage around the pool to a lower part of our yard since it's at the base of the hill and even simulated lots of rain with the sprinklers and nothing moved (pool was up without water).

Well...we filled up the pool and sure enough, it's about 1.5 to 2 inches off level. At least this time it's leaning towards my hill and away from my neighbors yard. I thought I would show some picture so someone could maybe reassure me that it's not going to fall (at least not right away). We can't afford to take it down and put it up again so we figured we'd live with it as long as it lasts. My question is, if the pool shows signs of falling, what am I looking for?

Here are the photos of the bad spot.



The mud around it isn't contributing to the sinkage because under the pool itself is DG. I am wondering whether it looks worse than it is from the window of my house since it's kind of it in a low point in my yard. I noticed the one post that seems like it's not on anything. Not sure what happened there since they are all on pavers. That floating one is to the right of the post by the ladder so I don't know that it's contributing to the bulging post on the other side but what do I know. Also the 2" out of level is a guestimate. I haven't gone out there with a ruler yet. Will it settle more as time goes or at what point is it stable? The handyman said to just keep an eye on it. I think after all the time (and my money) spent, he was kind of bummed too that it wasn't perfectly level and was bulging in that spot. Any feedback would be great.

Thanks!

 

[kellyfair]

Please check the level rather than estimating. You could be way off.

That one that appears to be floating… there’s really nothing holding that up? You can slide a paper plate or some other thin item under it?

 

[somedaypool]

Please check the level rather than estimating. You could be way off.

That one that appears to be floating… there’s really nothing holding that up? You can slide a paper plate or some other thin item under it?

Thank you so much for responding. I went out and did some more measuring and found it was about 1.75" off at the worst spot. I'm doing my best to measure from the outside of the pool. I could probably get a more accurate reading if I was inside it.

There are three of the boots that appear to be floating in various locations around the pool (not all in a row). I put a ruler under it in various positions under them so you could see. The ruler goes in about 4 inches towards the pool and can go completely under as you'll see in the pics. I also found one that was curled under because of course I did right?Ugh this is worse than I thought. I don't want to come across as one of those people that's unwilling to fix it and willing to live with a dangerous situation. We've just been dealing with this pool for months now. There are no installers in our area so the best we could do was hiring a handyman to put it up and it was very expensive. The anxiety this has been causing is such that if I had known this would be this much trouble, we would have just stuck with grass and using my in-law's pool. I won't get into all the random stuff that went wrong trying to put it up. That's a tale for another day . Any info or insights anyone has to how to fix this or if it's safe or unfixible or if you want to purchase a used pool to put up in your yard, let me know.

 

[kellyfair]

I’m wondering if it is just the fit of the foot that makes it appear to float. Track itself is firmly on bottom plate on paver, right?

1.75” isn’t optimal. How are you measuring the level?

 

[somedaypool]

I can't get the ruler any further under the pool so I'm assuming that the track is good. I'll go out and check it again to be sure.

I put the ruler to just touch the surface of the water and measured against the bottom of the top rail. Should I be doing it a different way?

 

[magiteck]

Is the actual track on solid ground? And it’s just the upright that’s got a bit of space? I’d feel better about it if that’s the case.

Edit: Kelly is quicker than me.

 

[somedaypool]

I would feel better about that too. My husband is going to check with a putty knife and make sure it's good.

 

[kellyfair]

So you went around to each upright and measured where the water hits? Water seeks level, so that works.
I’m struggling a bit to see exactly where the bulging is. Is that where the level is most off?

 

[somedaypool]

It's on the section to the right of where the ladder is. It's the lowest spot is where it's bulging which makes sense. Could it be because it's out of round that I'm having this issue? Obviously there could be some settling but this is a LOT of settling. The ground was scraped and leveled and everything was perfect before the enormous weight of the water went on top of it. It just feels kind of fruitless to level at all if the weight it going to change the ground.

The upright on the right is vertical. The one on the left is very much not. It's hard to capture in a picture. The picture below you can kind of see the bulge.