Hello! Looking for some safety input here.
Have had this above ground 15' diameter, 4' high Bestway pool up for the last 1.5 months in the same spot it sat the previous two seasons. When we first installed two years back, the ground was relatively level so we skipped perfectly leveling it and it's gotten by okay since then—slight unevenness, but never exceeding one inch and that wasn't a defined slope in one direction, just poles here and there being slightly offset from the others. This year, once it was filled, we noticed that it seemed to slope downward in one area more noticeably than the rest. I should have measured then but I didn't, so I can't say how bad it was to begin with. Today I noticed one of the poles is leaning very noticeably on the deep end (see the last image, pole leans to the left), which prompted me to measure: there's a 3" difference between the high and low water lines. If you look in the earlier photos, you can see that the incline is very gradual for more than half the pool—aside from a slight dip in one small area, it's less than an inch different on the left side (in the first two images), then it drops off faster where it's sagging. The part that's sagging lowest accounts for maybe 25% of the circumference, the rest is sloped less steeply at about 1".
My question is: do I need to fix this straight away or can it wait to be leveled properly next season? If straight away: is draining and leveling the ground the only way to do it?
Been reading online and I've seen different answers on the degree of slope that can be tolerated, and all that I've seen is talking about pools 10K gallons and upward, where mine is about 5K. Different sources say 3" and above to drain and level, while others suggest up to 3" is acceptable. I don't have patio blocks under the poles which is an error I will certainly remedy next season, or sooner if draining is the recommended course of action. Will probably leave the pool up until early to mid September, or perhaps longer if we have another unusually delayed fall here in the Seattle area.
Please let me know if I can answer any questions or send more photos that will be helpful in your analysis, and thank you so much in advance for the advice!
Have had this above ground 15' diameter, 4' high Bestway pool up for the last 1.5 months in the same spot it sat the previous two seasons. When we first installed two years back, the ground was relatively level so we skipped perfectly leveling it and it's gotten by okay since then—slight unevenness, but never exceeding one inch and that wasn't a defined slope in one direction, just poles here and there being slightly offset from the others. This year, once it was filled, we noticed that it seemed to slope downward in one area more noticeably than the rest. I should have measured then but I didn't, so I can't say how bad it was to begin with. Today I noticed one of the poles is leaning very noticeably on the deep end (see the last image, pole leans to the left), which prompted me to measure: there's a 3" difference between the high and low water lines. If you look in the earlier photos, you can see that the incline is very gradual for more than half the pool—aside from a slight dip in one small area, it's less than an inch different on the left side (in the first two images), then it drops off faster where it's sagging. The part that's sagging lowest accounts for maybe 25% of the circumference, the rest is sloped less steeply at about 1".
My question is: do I need to fix this straight away or can it wait to be leveled properly next season? If straight away: is draining and leveling the ground the only way to do it?
Been reading online and I've seen different answers on the degree of slope that can be tolerated, and all that I've seen is talking about pools 10K gallons and upward, where mine is about 5K. Different sources say 3" and above to drain and level, while others suggest up to 3" is acceptable. I don't have patio blocks under the poles which is an error I will certainly remedy next season, or sooner if draining is the recommended course of action. Will probably leave the pool up until early to mid September, or perhaps longer if we have another unusually delayed fall here in the Seattle area.
Please let me know if I can answer any questions or send more photos that will be helpful in your analysis, and thank you so much in advance for the advice!
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