Levelling a piece of garden

[littlebasher]

Having experienced the joys of a smaller 10" pool thingy last year, the Mrs has decreed that this year well be needing a larger one

So, take this picture



I need to remove the turf and get that area as level as humanly possible. I had planned to use bury level lengths of wood into the ground around the perimeter and then level to those

Is there an easier way i wonder?

Thoughts?

[littlebasher]

desolate said:

what sort of pool?

One of these

[littlebasher]

davgar said:

hope you are not on metered water

Alas i am, however.

Next door isn't, and he's out all day................and i have a really long hose

[littlebasher]

desolate said:

Shouldn't need to be dead level, should it?

providing it's "about right" I would think it would work. If it was really uneven, you could make it a feature with a shallow and and a deep end.

The instructions claim that there can be no more than 2cm height difference between either end. It goes on to warn of the consequences if you get it wrong - which may or may not involve the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.

I can't dig it out either, as the ground has to be undisturbed. Which means lots of horizontal cutting with a sharp spade

[littlebasher]

battered said:

Looks level to me now. It's a pool not a space probe. If you measure the levels at opposite ends how far off level is it? If only a few inches, I'd just go for it.

Hard to visualise in the pics, but the ground does slope there. The piece of carpet is where last years pool lived, despite my best efforts at leveling the ground, the water was 6 inches deeper at one end compared to the other. Plus i made the mistake of leveling with sand under the carpet, which washed away as soon as the kids started using it.

[littlebasher]

hornetrider said:

Council thread >>>>>

I thought the round ones were council....this is Oval, it's the subtle differences that count!

[littlebasher]

Chris Type R said:

Are you going to heat the water as well ?

Not electrically !

I have a couple of heating pads from the last pool, they should raise the temp a degree on the hottest days! Mind you, it never seems to bother the kids, just the adults who won't want to get in

[littlebasher]

dickymint said:

Basic physics - water will find its own level!........just trim the top edge to suit.

[littlebasher]

For those that are interested, 50 wheel barrows of garden removed left me with a nice level area ready for the pool

[littlebasher]

It was at this point that i discovered that the land must have been previously used as a broken glass storage depot. I figured that the thin liner of the pool probably wouldn't appreciate this, so had to shell out more money to cover the area in these

[littlebasher]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you 'poolmageddon'

[littlebasher]

CoolHands said:

Awesome! Although I detect it is 2 degrees out

I just pray that the ground is firm enough to support it !

Still, on the other hand it would be more useful as a sunken pool

[littlebasher]

Fortunately, all my services run to the front of the house.

[littlebasher]

hotchy said:

Id deck around that and build it around the sides to make it look more friendly to the eye.

My Mrs has already included that on my 'to do' list

First come the heater though...anyone got a air source heat pump for sale !

[littlebasher]

4Q said:

I've got a solar hot water panel you can have, I'm just down the road in Chesterfield.

Thanks for the offer 4Q, i did try with something similar ( one of these), but all it did was slow the flow to the point that the filter stopped working!

[littlebasher]

dmsims said:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-SWIMMING-POOL-AIR-SO...

Offer them £500

There's a couple of complete pool setups for sale on Ebay that come with a heat pump. I was thinking of winning one of those and paying, loading the heat pump into the car and then doing a runner leaving the pool behind!

[littlebasher]

8-P said:

Although it doesnt look like much I bet there was a skip load, literally of soil there. How long did this take? Did you get a skip / digger or was it spade and wheelbarrow etc?

There's not quite enough room to get a mini digger down the side of the house, so it all had to come out by hand. I took 50 full wheelbarrows of soil out to get that level.

Luckily my daughter lives a few doors down and has a really shabby garden, it now features a large pile of mud.

[littlebasher]

Sheepshanks said:

So what happened to:

littlebasher said:

I can't dig it out either, as the ground has to be undisturbed.

You're quite right, wasn't dug out from above instead it was all cut out horizontally. Made it considerably harder!

[littlebasher]

Doesn't really need it in this glorious sunshine, but heat is now available!