Moving A Partial Inground - Help!

[Oshawapilot]

Greetings everyone - glad I found the forum and I'm hoping everyones expertise can lend some insight for me.

Our neighbours across the street have graciously donated their partial inground pool (and decking, and filter, and gear...EVERYTHING) to us this spring, with one caveat - we do all the work to make the move from their backyard to ours.

So, this weekend the epic adventure begins. I've already started to tear down the deck, the pool is mostly drained, and I have 4-5 friends showing up early Saturday to help. Here's the task at hand:

The pool is probably 15 or so years old but has been meticulously maintained. The liner was replaced 2 seasons ago and is in good shape, and I checked today and it's still very soft and supple, so that's good news. Sand filter and pump were replaced only a few seasons back.

So, I have all sorts of questions related to the teardown, and more importantly, the setup again in our backyard...so I'll toss them out and any insight/info everyone can give in response would be MOST appreciated! We're new to the world of pools (currently have a hottub though), so I'm starting from scratch.

Disassembly:

• How are the stairs attached to the liner? Glued? Will we find a screwed-on rail or something under the trim I see and it's just sealed with silicone or something? I'm a little worried that we will inevitably disturb this seal and have problems when we go to put it back together.
• Anything specific we should avoid doing when it comes time to release the liner and get ready to move it? I'm thinking/hoping of gently folding/rolling it in on itself towards the center of the pool and then flopping the roll up into the stairs themselves....and then using the stairs to actually cradle the whole thing while we carry it across the street to our backyard.

Reassembly:

• I have access to a mini excavator, so I plan to do as much as possible myself. Our backyard slops gently towards the rear of our property line so I figure that the pool will need to be countersunk about 3 feet at one end, and perhaps only 1.5-2 feet at the other end...but I'm fairly confident I can get the hole dug just fine, and most of what comes out of our backyard will be disposed of in the resulting hole across the street.
• What's the best base to put down before starting to reassemble the frame itself...or should it just be placed directly on firm packed and leveled soil and backfilled? Some pool places I have spoke to insisted on providing something for the braces to sit on, whereas others have indicated that just placing the whole frame on hardpacked soil and backfilling is adequate enough to ensure the frame remains stable.
• Inside the actual pool area itself...preparation? Materials? It looks like (having peeked down a little between the frame and the liner where the pool currently sits) that there is foam or some sort of material shaping/supporting the bottom of the liner - presumably trying to rescue/move/re-use as much of this as possible is ideal?
• And most importantly of all - should we just hire a pool company to reset the liner for us and not piss with the process...and possibly botch it up? Since of course the holes are all existing in the liner already (skimmer + 2 returns, NO drain)...everything will need to be perfect otherwise we'll end up with ripples (bottom too high), or stretching and tearing (bottom too low), correct? ....OR, is it really not that hard as long as the preparation is done properly and I'm just fretting about things too much in my head?

Anyhow, I'm sure more questions will popup, but that's a start - thanks everyone!

[brianthepoolman]

What brand name of pool is this? Does it have steel tails on the top and bottom? Does it have wood walls?

[Oshawapilot]

Not sure on brand, honestly - it was installed before our neighbours bought the house, so they weren't even the ones who installed it.

The frame is all heavy gauge galvanized steel, no wood whatsoever. Not sure what you mean by "tails", but I'm assuming you mean bracing/legs? It does appear that it has support braces every few sections of the frame, but they don't appear as large (at least based on what I can see above the soil line) as what I saw on some of the newer semi's I looked at elsewhere. I think this was built perhaps using a lot heavier gauge steel versus many of the newer models, hence (perhaps) less requirement for the bracing legs (and more sheer strength) versus the newer ones that use lighter steel.

I could be off base - I'm really not sure what I'm going to find once we start digging in order to free the base, hence why I'm asking questions here.