We have installed a large above ground swimming pool, so thought I would share the best way to get it setup and some tips we learnt along the way.

The swimming pool is by home leisure it is a 18ft circular pool that is 42′ deep, the top is made up of a inflatable ring, the sides are made of a tough 3-ply laminate made of 2 sheets of heavy PVC Laminate with a inner grid sheet made of nylon & polyester, it is very solid, it has to be to take the amount of water in it at over 4000 gallons. It came complete with a external filter pump, pool cover, ladder and a maintenance kit, This pool has a RRP of £299.  The picture above is from the advertising from the retailer we brought from. This is classed as a easy up pool, the box shows 5 simple steps, but isn’t as easy as makes out if your ground isn’t perfectly level.

Where I was installing it the ground wasn’t by no means level and not really good solid grass, so the first thing that had to be done is to mark out the area needed and take up the turf. This was done by measuring the to the centre of where the pool was going to go and putting a stick into the centre with rope measured out to half the diameter ie 9ft in this case and painting a line by rotating the string to give a 18ft diameter circle shape, Then the hard work started of taking up the turf. On this ground was harder than i expected as in some major parts there was a lot of large stones/bricks under the turf.

Once all the turf was up, it is then the job of leveling out as much as the soil as possible, the best way I found to do this was to but some stakes around and then some string across, think of slicing up a pizza, once the string was attached I leveled the string with a spirit level. the string was approx 2 inch of the soil level, so you could see the level. Then you remove the larger bumps in the soil and fill in the low points. This doesn’t have to be perfect as we was putting sand on top of the soil to make perfectly level. But the more you can get this level the better as you wouldn’t need as much sand.

Once we had leveled the soil as much as possible and taken all of the stones of the surface and that are protruding out of the soil, This is particularly important that all sharp objects are removed. It was then time to put the sand down, now because we did this over the bank holiday weekend, didn’t have time to get sand delivered, so we got bags of sand from a local supplier, now we used approx 35 bags of building sand. If would have thought in advance definitely would have got the sand delivered as would have been cheaper and easier.

I started putting the sand down and leveling off, this is best done by starting one side, putting sand down as you go and with a large spirit level pulling the sand and checking the level as you go. And making sure the level was correct from left to right and top to bottom. This is very important that this is level as this is the last base for the pool to sit on.

Now the sand was level was the time to start getting the pool setup, the pool comes with a ground sheet to go underneath the pool, so once the we was happy the sand was level the ground sheet goes down over the sand and then the pool on the top.  We started to set the pool on on not really a warm day, but still was ok to stretch it out.  I would Recommend doing this on a warm day so that the pool liner is more flexible. We stretched out the pool and flattened the base of the pool as much as possible. Once this was done the top need inflating with approx 75% of air. Then the water started to go in, at this point we had to try and get the bottom of the pool as flat as possible, by gently kicking the liner to the sides by getting in the pool without shoes and socks on.

Then we just had to leave it filling up for the start of filling up approx 10hrs we put some plastic garden chairs inside to the pool to hold up the inflatable ring, this was just until the pool gained its shape and to make sure water wouldn’t run over the ring. It took around 2 days to fill up to a good level of water. Once most of the water was in we then fully inflated the top ring.

The external pump filter attached to two pipes that connect to valves on the side of the pool. Be warned that the cable on this pump / filter has only a 1.5mtr lead, so we had to get electrics down by the pool, I had to use 25mtrs of electric cable that was feed through a solid plastic pipe and buried into the found with 2 eternal sockets around 3mtrs away from the pool.  This was then connected to a RCD circuit breaker into the existing outdoor electrics.

This was all the hard work done and then all we had to do is treat the pool water with the chemicals that we had brought to get the chlorine and pH levels correct, this is easily done with a water kit that contains all the chemical treatments you need and test strips to keep checking the water. We found that it is worth running the filter for around 2hrs before you are going to use the pool Don’t use the filter while you are in the pool. Cleaning the pool of debris is easy with the supplied net and water vacuum to clean the bottom of the pool.

We used to the pool for the first time a few weeks after it was all up and running and because we had amazing weather the pool was really warm all through out the day. It is a great pool and once all the effort is done getting it right will give you loads of pleasure throughout the summer, that is as long as we have good weather throughout the summer

TIP

We had the pool up for a good few weeks and used it a few times, but we then hadn’t used it for a week or so and the water was completely pea green. It went like this for a few reasons : we hadn’t topped up the chlorine levels (hadn’t done this as the level was bit low but because we wasn’t using it I didnt think it mattered) We had a good down pour of rain over a few days, so introduced fresh water and another reason we hadn’t put in the algaecide chemical.

Now because was so green, the water couldn’t be cleared up using chemicals, so the best thing to do was to empty it fully and clean, now the outlet valve at the bottom is there to drain the pool, you would attach a hosepipe and let it drain using gravity to your drain, but because I service fish pools for a living, I put one of my powerful pumps in so could empty quicker, then using pressure wash cleaned it fully out then filled back up again.

So as you can see from the above, it is very important to keep up with the chemical levels even if you think you arn’t going to use it for a few weeks, as if you don’t you have the hassle of cleaning it fully.

Hope anyone reading this find this information informative and helpful, if you have any comments please leave them.

A good few week ago the daily mirror newspaper was giving away Lego racer cars each day, this was either collect at most tesco or toys-r-us stores each day or collect four of the vouchers printed in the paper and send of a cheque for I think £6.50 inc postage and package cost. There was 6 cars in total and then a box to keep them in, also paper printed play-mat and then on the final Sunday was a a4 sheet of stickers of all the cars.

The models were Lego 7801, 7802, 30030, 30033, 30034 and 30035

I collected the four cars and box and play-mat, I  know most people will take the so called Micheal out of me collecting these lego cars, but as a kid I used to love playing with Lego, I used to have loads and make all different type of things, the best I can remember was making 2 different largish cars (around a ft long) with a friends of mine, and we used to race them along the road, we even made them with great suspension system, and bumpers with springs in to take any impact.

I also loved when I went to Legoland Windsor a good few years ago think was for my stepson’s 13 birthday and also my nephews birthday, I myself wasn’t really interested in the rides was the mini model lego village that was great, I would love to go again. See I’m a big child at heart

So it was fun collecting these cars and building them each day, even thought they are small was great fun, it also make me think how much the Lego pieces have changed since I was a child, with a lot better pieces than I had to play with

I most wanted them to have to play about with macro photography, I would have done this sooner but my my brother had done so great pictures of different Lego scenes so didn’t want him thinking I was copying him www.darkslidephotography.co.uk

So have a look at my albums of some of the pictures of the different lego racer that was given away with the daily mirror by clicking on the link below or going to my photo album link above.

Just thought I would share this,  there is a art exhibition at the Chasewater visitors centre at the moment, with some great art work from artist Richard Boote. Aswell as other artists Steve Eastwood & Mark Lippett

The artwork by Richard is very abstract and makes you think about what you are looking at. Each piece of art work has great detail and the colours on most just jump from the page, One of my favorites is “the language of creation”  Which is the sample at the top of this post, With thanks from Richard for giving me permission to use the image here.  Another collection of my favorites are “Alien Abduction phenomenon”  The art work is mainly pen and pencil and is very detailed, I’m no art critic but these piece are well worth a look and I really did enjoy looking at this artwork. I also like the work by the other artists but was really drawn to Richards work.

The Exhibition is running at the Chasewater visitors centre until 11th April 2010, Richard will also be exhibiting at the gatehouse theatre in Stafford In October see his website for further details.

http://www.richardbootefineart.co.cc/

I would definitely recommend having at look at his artwork, as I think they are beautiful piece’s of art, I myself used to be into this type of drawing and because of seeing Richards work as given me inspiration to again get back to my artistic side, well hopefully

Just had the chance to upload and organize more photo albums on picasa, I have uploaded over 200 photos from the fast year or some on various subjects please have a look and see what you think. I will be also uploading these to my flickr account soon.  All the pics have been re-sized to a lower resolution so can keep on expand all my albums within a reasonable size.

I am using picasa instead of putting the albums direct on here as easier to maintain the albums, goto the following link to see my new photo albums

http://picasaweb.google.com/kswebdesign.co.uk

KS Web Design is a professional company that can supply full website design and computer consultancy at very competitive rates, Our computer onsite support covers West Midlands and South Staffordshire areas.

Check our updated website for full details.

www.kswebdesign.co.uk