Above Ground Pools

[Greg Cole]

Anyone here adventurous enough to have assembled an above ground pool or broken one down for a move and reassembled it?
In my quest to do everything my darn self, I am putting together info for buying an above ground pool in the rather near future. Life seems predicated to keep me in the Mid West awhile longer... and summers here will be more tolerable with a pool in the back yard....
Maybe I am trying to be too cheap here and should just buy a turn key package... but this place is about the only idea I had for advise on this subject. The sales guys tell me I am nuts, but they are selling their services as much as the hard goods IMO. I have a friend less than 2 blocks away who has a bobcat to make the heavy work no so heavy.....
Anyone with any experience, please chime in. If I should buck up and have them do it, tell me (that way the LOML isn't the only one who thinks I am NUTS and don't have to do everything on my own!).

Thanks,
Greg

[John Shuk]

My brother got an above ground pool for free. The deal was you take it down and away and you can have it. We put it together with some of his friends and it really wasn't bad. He has been using it for many years now with no problem.
We did the leveling of the site with shovels and a transit.
It was suggested by a pool supplier that he not try to reuse the liner that he got with it. "You'll never get it to fit right." was what they said but he tried it and it worked. He made a point of keeping it wet. It really isn't rocket science.
That said 13 years later and with a back that is not doing too well I might opt for the company to do it.

[Lee DeRaud]

Not that big a deal, really:
Redneck1.jpg

[Scott Lingle]

We got an above-ground a while back. Went and picked it up in our pickup, set it up over the following few-days. Like John said, brother-in-law and I levelled the site ourselves with a transit and shovels, oh, and a skid-steer - gotta have power equipment for the entertainment.
When I was done with it (read: tired of buying chemicals) we took it apart and set it up at my brother-in-law's house. He got a new liner though.
Other than that spend some time getting the site prepped right and it really isn't a big deal, just follow the directions. Now if it were in-ground, different story.

Good luck,
Scott

[Joe Pelonio]

There are differences in size, this sounds like a big one. When we lived in CA
I put up one that was small, 3' deep and 12' diameter, and moved it a few years later when we moved. It was fine another several years until a bad rainstorm caused water to build up on the cover and the additional weight bent the metal supports and it collapsed.

I wish I had one today, it's supposed to be 93 and then 100 tomorrow. I don't think the goldfish would like to share their pond with me.

[Greg Cole]

Hey Lee,
Tried that one in highschool... but add in a few more bodies and some "canned refreshments".
Was great fun and we managed to get a few "loops" in the good old home town before the blue lights dropped my tailgate and ripped the "liner".
All in the name of a good time, but I can't imagine trying that in this day and age (then again this was "ONLY" 12 years ago)
When the pool idea didn't go over, we opted to make the pool site a moving patio... until we determined sitting in lawn chairs in a moving truck bed was inherently more dangerous than sitting in a "pool". Aluminum lawn chairs & a steel bed.... and maybe an exaggerated corner or 2.
On a serious note...Thanks for the input from you who chimed in, but that didn't make the decision any easier... it's almost tempting.

Greg

[Tim Morton]

I'm thinking you can do it. But I am not sure you should. Install will cost you about $500-$1000. For that you will get 2-3 guys working for one entire day. They will level the ground and bring in sand, that took my pool guys most of one morning to do. Then they set the pool in place and assembled the structure...this was in place by around 3pm. They then messed with the liner for about two hours and were "just" adding water too the pool around 5 when I came home. By 7pm they were packing it up with plans to return in the morning to meet the firetruck pumpers "just in case" anything went wrong during the fill. I had contacts with the fire chief and got him to come out that night with water to get it about half full to save the pool guys a trip back in the morning. We all had a few beers while 30 trips were made to fill it.

If i had to do it over again seeing it done , I would pay again to have it installed. You are going to pony up 3 grand for a pool...i would go the extra mile to have it installed by a professional. (with references)

[Rick Gibson]

I did it about 25 years ago, the hardest part was leveling the ground other than that it went pretty well. Did most of the work myself. Today I would pay to have it done.