wood walkway around pool

[wmmallette]

I am about to start setting the coping stones and pouring the concrete around my pool. I have an 18'x43' Tee shaped pool with steel walls and a vinyl liner.

The coping I am using is 12 inch by 36 inch bluestone pavers. What I wanted to do was surrounding the coping all the way around the pool and from the pool to the equipment pad, is lay a 3 foot wide path of wood decking. My purpose was that the wooden path would be directly over all my plumbing. If ever I had an issue down the road, I could take up the wood, dig down, do what I needed to for repairs or additions and not have to break up concrete to fix anything or ad anything later.

Someone who has built pools before seemed unsure of this being a good idea. He said that it may cause problems with water draining through the ground and getting under my liner causing the liner to bubble up.

Here is a sketch of what I want to do:



Any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks,.... Mickey

 

[PoolGate]

I think it is a great idea. My builder had to do this for one of their recent builds do to some wacky zoning/watershed permitting issues that prohibited a concrete deck to be poured. End result was really nice. Not sure if it was a concrete or liner based pool but I think it was concrete.

 

[JohnT]

I'd consider a composite material rather than wood. It will last much longer, be less maintenance and won't get slick.

The water in the ground around the liner will be there whether the deck is concrete or wood. That's determined by drainage, climate and soil conditions.

 

[wmmallette]

I agree JohnT on composite.

I am just trying to see if anyone has any valid reason to think that keeping that 3 foot wide path open for the wood may cause me water issues on a liner pool. Our really for any other reason. My plan would be to lay weed barrier on the dirt, then set the treated lumber that form the edges and middle supports for the wooden planks path. I would compact dirt at slight angle to channel water away from the pool, then the top inch or two I planned on pouring small gravel up to the top of the form lumber to be just under where the planks will be laid. My point just that I wasn't planning on there being any empty space under the deck boards for water just just collect like a channel.

Does that make sense?

My pool install for anyone who may have seen some of my construction threads has been an adventure that caused me to fire the installer mid way and take on much of it myself, which has been great for cost and my education and understanding my pool. But for months sin ce last fall, my walls have been set and the dirt that I backfilled has been sitting all winter to settle and compact properly. As it has been during those months, it basically has bad a trench around thew top of the walls around the perimeter of the pool. In my opinion that is as much as water could possibly "pool" around the top of the walls in as loose of soil as there would have ever been. All this with no pressure of 30,000+ gallons of water pushing against the liner - without any tape or foam on the seams of the wall panels. And water has never seeped through.

Therefore, I have always just assumed that with (1) the dirt now having compacted over about 6 months, (2) the tape on the wall seams and (3) the liner installed with that pressure of the water pushing against the walls, that it should be that much less likely for water to seep under the liner.


Maybe I am over simplifying it. Any installers that have thought would be helpful.

-Mickey

 

[wmmallette]

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