Last Year My wife and I were given a 27' above ground pool. This pool is at least 20 years old. We paid someone to put the pool up for us and ran into a few problems along the way.

1. The track around the pool was rusted and could not be used, no one in the area had a track to fit the vertical legs of the pool.


Our installer told us that we could put the pool up without the track, providing we bury the walls deep enough and support it with the surrounding dirt. So that is what we did and as we filled the pool up with water the original liner that came with the pool collapsed twice on us. Soooo, we bought a new liner.

The pool survived the winter and is now completely filled with water. The questions I have are simple.

1.) The hole we dug for the pool is not level. The pool is 4-7" deeper on one end of the pool than the other. We thought this would be OK because the end were the new deck is is the shallower end and our young children would be most comfortable near the deck. Is this safe , will it cause the deeper end to be more unstable as the side of the walls considering there is no track?

2.) Is there anything we can do to reinforce the sides to prevent them from collapsing.

3.) My wife will be off during the summer and will be spending most of her time in the pool with our 2 year old daughter. My concern is for their safety.

Do we need to be concerned? Is is true that the force of the water against the sides of the pool will maintain the pools stability and will someone pushing against the walls inside the pool cause the pool to cave in?

>Moved from Forum Help<

I am afraid you have created yourself a monster of a problem. The track was needed and the support of the soil is not sufficient. Also the unlevel poll has much more strain on the deep end wall and wall colllapse is possible. The pools stability was based on the fact that stress was evenly applied in all direction on a thin metal skin, you no longer have that balance. It is 20/20 hindsight now but I would have advised you to not install this pool or at laest have it installed correctly.

I agree u have a huge problem now. However the areas of concern I have are different Han the other comment.

Questions- how deep in the ground is the pool?
Is the 27 inch the height of the water, or the metal walls?
Are u worried about the deck being next to the shallowest water... If someone dives in it has increased chances of injury.

We put an above ground pool below ground... Leaving 10inches exposed without a base track.

Installation suggestions.
Drain water
buy a 10 foot 2 x 4. Make sure when u buy it is absolutely straight
buy a 2 foot long or longer level
buy 50# of sand or more
remove liner
dig so that bottom of pool at edge is at least 14 inches deep
Check that the bottom is level with the 2x4 and level
fill in holes with sand or line bottom with sand

IMO if the sides are at least 1/3rd of its height buried in the dirt then the walls will be fine. Its also my opinion that the physics of the water being deeper in one side doesn't increase likelihood of collapse if the pool is deep enough... I would be worried about spinal injury


Good luck