Swimming Pool Saga

I really, really like to swim. Actually that’s not really true. I really, really, really like to float. I so enjoy laying on a float in a lake or a pool. I just find that so relaxing. So, last summer, I talked Les into buying a  pool, not big or fancy or expensive. It is big enough for me and a couple of friends to lay on floats, big enough for the grandchildren to have a great time swimming and playing in, just big enough.

Well, we worked very hard it putting up last year. First we pulled all the grass, treated the ground, leveled the ground, spread the vinyl out as smooth as possible, (which turned out to not be very smooth, after we filled it, it had a lot of little ripples in it). Then, we began to fill it with water. We pumped the ring around the top with air and, as the water went up, the inflated ring went up just like it was supposed to. After the pool was filled with many thousands of gallons of water, we realized that the inflated ring had a hole in it, not a big hole, but it did leak air. Since we had already filled the pool with water, we chose to keep the defective pool, and put a patch on the small hole. Les patched it, but the leak was on a seam and the patch did not work well. Every day we pumped up the ring, enjoyed the pool, pumped up the ring again, and so forth.

Another thing was that the ground was not quite level. It wasn’t real bad, but if the kids held on to the low side of the pool, the ring would drop down and the water would flow out.

We had a great time with the pool, although we had to be a little careful.

At the end of the summer, we decided to take the pool down and start over this year.

So, the first of May, we leveled the ground again, this time really, really level. We spread out the vinyl (this time we really got it smooth!) We put some water in the pool, and we pumped up the inflatable ring around the top. The ring immediately began to lose air. During the taking down, storing, and putting it back up, it had gotten a lot of little holes in it. We used the little vinyl patches that came with the pool, we used heavy vinyl from the shop to make patches. We used the vinyl glue from his shop. We used heavy duty waterproof duct tape. The ring kept drooping.

Today, we decided to fix it with a little creativity.  Les made slits in the ring, and we stuffed it…with styrofoam, packing popcorn, sheets of plastic crumpled up, Walmart bags. IT WORKED. The ring is full, although a little lumpy, and the pool is up!