Toyman's done gone off the deep end...

Not really, but just a little bit. 

I've been kicking around having a pool for a while. A place to spend a hot summer afternoon. Maybe a little exercise. Since the craziness at work is going to put a kibosh on vacation this summer, I started looking in to them in a little more detail. 

Spending tens of thousands of dollars on a in ground pool was out, so that left me with above ground. I'm still not sure I want to have this headache in my life, so spending three to five thousand on a above ground was out as well. 

I was willing to spend a grand on a trial run to see how it goes. 

Then it came down to the pool and where to put it. Blocking the shop was out, and it and the driveway to it, take up most of the back yard. I decided to put it in the side yard beside the shop. That meant building a fence. 

Lowes fence panels and some 4x4s made short work of that a couple of weeks ago. It's not 100% done, but good enough to get the pool installed. 

The ability to swim some kid of lap for exercise was important. That meant a super cheap, shallow, round pool was out. The cheap Walmart pools also have some pretty atrocious reviews. So we moved up market a little bit and settled on a Intex Ultra Frame 12' X 24' X 52" pool. 

Then came the leveling. Which was a bit of a PITA. The instructions state it has to be exactly level, and after pulling out my site level, my yard has a 4" slope were I decided to put the pool. It turns out my yard is 4" of sod laid on top of mostly clay. To say it wasn't fun to level is a understatement. But since the pool was already ordered, we soldiered on and got it done. 

Walmart.com had the best price on the pool because they would ship it to a local store for pickup for free. It showed up last Thursday in 3 boxes totaling 418 pounds. My younger sons and I stopped by and filled up my 4 x 8 trailer with it. The boxes looked like they had been through the war but the contents survived. I will say that Walmart.com had the best communication of any company I have ever ordered from. I got emailed when the orderer started processing, when the order shipped, when each box arrived and when one of them was delayed by several hours. I was truly impressed. 

Sunday we finished up the last of the leveling, cut the wood pads for the legs to land on, and my youngest son, daughter and I started setting it up. For some reason I didn't take many pictures. 

The pool went together very well. Everything fit well and the quality was very good considering the price. After a couple of hours it was time to start filling it. 

The pool holds 8400 gallons of water. It took right at 10 hours to fill with two hoses running. I looked into getting the water delivered by truck, but that was $600 compared to $16 filling it out of the hose. 

Naturally the kids and grandkids couldn't wait that long. 

I was amazed at how much the sides bowed while filling it. 

My youngest son took care of topping it off this morning while I was at work. 

Naturally by the time I got home we had a nice thunderstorm going on. 

I decided to go ahead and get the saltwater system rather than using chlorine. I added 200# of salt to the water as we were filling it. The sand filter and saltwater system are pretty straight forward. In the long run I think it will be much better than using chlorine tablets. 

That's where things stand at the moment. I have some thoughts to make it more user friendly and a little less industrial looking. I'll add those as I get them done. I'll be interested in seeing how well this holds up. Some of the reviewers have had them for 3-4 years. If it makes it that long, I'll be happy with that. 

not what i expected..  but a good adventure none the less.

I suspect the next thread will be Toyoman builds a jet boat for his pool....

Confused.

The thread title references a deep end. I see no deep end.

I’m glad you didn’t build some multi tiered pond setup with waterfalls and landscaping. I’ve seen a couple of those in photos online and fall in love every time. I’d love to have a swimmin’ Hole in the back yard. This pool looks like a nice compromise. 

Looks good. Above ground pool is more fun than no pool 

Interesting. A decade ago I threw out one of those inflatable ring pools and decided in short order that I didn't like caring for it. Plus the ground wasn't quite level and it began to slowly roll over. Eventually it did.

But now, several years later, I can't help but look at my back yard and think it kind of needs a pool.  If you don't mind my asking, how much did this whole affair set you back? I don't need something quite that big, but it is an entertaining idea.

In reply to ultraclyde :

The pool kit was $800. That included the pump, filter and a cheesy ladder. I added the saltwater chlorine generator for another $110. The smaller pools go down in price quickly. The round pools are also a good bit cheaper than the rectangular versions. 

Now get some mini R/C boats:

https://www.amazon.com/Volantex-Vector-Multicolor-Waterproof-Speedboat/dp/B00LZV3VWC

I would LOVE something like that as there is no place convenient for me to swim laps nearby (there are places with pools, but they're either REALLY expensive to be a member of, are way out of my way, or aren't open when I would want to be swimming). Unfortunately our yard is a SERIOUS incline and there's no way something that big would fit without lots of money spent on grading with heavy machinery. :(

Have to say, I ripped out an aboveground when I moved into my house.   I was way upside down in time spent maintaining it vs enjoying it. Wife and I went in the pool maybe once a week or less.  Was spending $60+ a month in chemicals, $300 a year in additional homeowners, and facing upcoming major maintenance (liner replacement).

No regrets.   If my son wants to swim, he can make friends with someone with a pool or we will get a membership to one.

Awesome job! I bet your kids appreciate it! Make sure to remind them of all that effort every single time you need chores done ;)

Nice. My inlaws went through a few ring pools before settling on a 15’(?) above ground from Walmart.

i can see the length being nice for laps over a round. 

Wow!  That's crazy cool.  Enjoy!

Good call.  We have an in-ground pool. Above-ground pools get your family 80% of the fun of an in-ground pool (90% for smaller kids) with so, so much less expense and hassle.

Congrats!  Pools are fun.  Since I put a saltwater system on mine 9 years ago, I have spent almost nothing on it.  I can't imagine not having one now.  

We're in the process of putting in a significantly more expensive in-ground setup that replaced a failing above ground that came with the house. 

You guys will get a lot of use out of that, and I wholly endorse the salt setup.  We had it on our last pool (it was a 10k above ground, I used the $125 Intex chlorinator) and I never had to adjust anything other than when I added some salt after spring setup.   The water was just always clean and good to go other than normal skimming and vacuuming. We liked it so much we got it set up on the new in ground as well.

Your kids will love that and so will you after a summer day in the garage or working on the lawn. Really cool how that went together!

We're also in the pool process. We're having our 20+ yr old fiberglass lined pool (pool is probably close to 40 yrs old) water blasted and re-coated with pebble technology. On top of the pool refit we are having a TON of pavers put in, moving the hot tub (40 ft of underground 220 line), adding drain lines and hopefully installing an outdoor kitchen. At least we are almost done with the demo and ready to start rebuilding. I may do a salt system after all this work is done. My equipment was working fine so if I can hold out on it for now I will.

In reply to Toyman01 :

My future son-in-law has had one for 4 years. It goes out at the start of summer and nearly every day his three daughters are having a ball enjoying it until it goes away after school starts. 

Excellent  value and while it may not be horribly expensive  it certainly seems to be fun! 

dculberson said:

I’m glad you didn’t build some multi tiered pond setup with waterfalls and landscaping. I’ve seen a couple of those in photos online and fall in love every time. I’d love to have a swimmin’ Hole in the back yard. This pool looks like a nice compromise. 

I want that so bad for my turtle. She is getting too big for her 40 gallon tank and a 90 is hard to find and expensive. 

+1 for going with a salt system.  Build a deck around it and it will feel like an in ground.

Robert, have you looked at Endless Pools?  Bigger than I thought, but half of Toyman's size.  A swim treadmill.

hobiercr said:

I may do a salt system after all this work is done. My equipment was working fine so if I can hold out on it for now I will.

The good news about this is that you can seamlessly switch from chlorine to salt by just adding the chlorinator to the output line of the pump.  That's what I did with my old above ground.   Since all the chlorinator will do is split the NaCl into its base sodium and chloride, it won't hurt having some chlorine already in the system when you start.   You cannot go back, though, without dumping out all the water.   What I did with my old pool was let the chlorine level come down to the low end of the scale 1-2 ppm, and then I added the salt then turned on the chlorinator the next day.    You still use the same stabilizer as you would have with regular chlorine.  

As far as I'm aware, the problem is if you were running baquacil(sp?) or a bromine based setup.  Those you have to drain before you can convert.

Here's the one that I got.  I'm a bit of an evangelist for these, but I battled my pool for two years, and every time I thought I had it all balanced we'd leave for a week and it would be green when I got back.  After I put in the salt system, it was clean from day 2 of being opened until I closed it with absolutely no chemical maintenance.

How “Salty” is the water in the saltwater systems? If I get a mouthful of water will it be like having ocean water?