meezy

Friend of ours has an in-ground pool, had it for many years and has been giving me advice on ours. I'm an above-ground pool newbie. He seems to have three chemicals he relies upon - liquid chlorine, clarifier, and baking soda. Well, I've not had the chance to use baking soda yet, as my Ph/alkalinity has been fine, Ph has been a little high actually, just got it down to normal. But he says that baking soda keeps his water "silky smooth" and this makes me wonder what the heck he means. Water is water, right? How can any pool water feel different than another pool's water because of what you put in it?

I'm not sure it really matters, except that your pool floor will probably feel smoother with the masonry sand. We used masonry sand for ours, but we had a pool when I was growing up in the 70's and I'm absolutely certain my parents installed it with what we called "creek sand." The brown play sand. It worked fine. So as has been said, it's a matter of price and availability.

Ditto what Jason said about Craigslist. Last year I called around all over and like you said, all I could find was inground pool installers. Also there is a large chain store that sells aboveground pools and they have installers, but said that their own pools came first, and if their installers had time they might get to us. Yes...we went an entire year with the pool kit in the garage. Boy, was that a sad year. Actually it wasn't just the installer problem, we had other issues to address to get the site ready. Anyway...this spring I posted an ad on Craigslist asking for installers. We got several replies but ended up going with a guy who posted his own ad there offering "swimming pools installed cheap." Turned out he was an installer for the above mentioned chain store but did his own jobs on the side and charged us about $100 less than the chain store would have. Go figure!

About the septic... A septic tank would not just empty itself over time. If it was full, or partially full (and totally full is their normal state of functioning) then chances are it is still full 15 years later. If I stopped using our septic system (and believe me, I would LOVE to stop using it and connect to city sewer instead) I would not just leave it as is - I would have it pumped and filled in. If the lines leading to the system are compromised - cracked, etc. or if the lid to the septic is cracked (it happens, in fact we just had to fix ours) then rainwater could be getting into that tank and making it overflow. And chances are after 15 years your leach lines aren't good, so consequently you're getting sewage sludge bubbling up. Yuck. Since you obviously want to use that part of your property, I highly recommend - if only for your peace of mind - having a septic maintenance co. come out and locate the tank, pump it, fill it in and seal it off properly. I also highly recommend ditching the test strips and buying a full test kit with tubes and chemical droppers. They don't cost that much and the results are much more accurate and easier to interpret. I am a newbie to having my own aboveground pool, but I grew up with one and we had a hot tub for several years that I maintained.

We just did this. Probably a little steeper hill than yours, but similar. We did hire a contractor to excavate and build a nice retaining wall, which is backfilled behind the wall with gravel to facilitate drainage. We have a lot of drainage problems on our hillside, because we get water collected from property above us too, and this project helped us to direct it a bit. In the process we also installed a new drain pipe. Your project may not be as complicated, but I highly recommend installing a retaining wall. If nothing else, it will make your area look a lot more neat and tidy. Here is a photo of ours: Good luck with your project.