Setting up the swimming pool

I usually have a fairly strict separation of topics between my personal blog and my homestead blog: the personal blog is for short posts about personal stuff, and links to my homestead and Dejal blogs, and the homestead blog is for longer posts about animals, gardens, and building projects.

But they’re my blogs, so I can bend the guidelines if I want. This post is something I’d usually cover on my personal blog, but I wanted to do a longer post, and it kinda relates to a building project (the pool deck), so I’ll let it slide. Let’s not make a habit of it, though, eh.

Anyway, the topic (as you might have surmised from the title) is setting up our above-ground swimming pool. Something I do each year, for us to enjoy for something between about 5 and 15 swims between late July and early September, before taking it down again and storing it in our workshop for the rest of the year.

Speaking of my personal blog, you might recognize a cropped edition of this picture from my most recent What’s It Wednesday post: the poles and supports for the pool, as stacked in the back of the shop:

The two solar panels are also stored back there, somewhat rolled up:

But the first thing I bring over is the pool liner. Here it’s folded up on my cart. It’s rather heavy and bulky, but each year I’ve been getting better at wrangling it (or maybe all this homestead lifestyle is improving my muscles?):

Then I bring over the poles and supports in two cart loads:

Along with tubing and pool floats:

Some of the components next to the pool area:

The steps we got last year live next to the pool deck, being weather hardy and rather heavy, though the two buckets of sand, used as weights for the steps, were stored in the shop:

Once everything is on hand, I spread out the tatty old tarp as extra protection for the pool liner (I really should buy a replacement):

Then I lay out the pool liner, carefully positioning it based on some nails in the ground I added as markers last year, to ensure proper alignment with the pool deck. I also move the steps onto the liner, and insert the poles and supports:

A closer look at the supports:

The assembled (but empty) pool:

I then add the sand buckets under the steps, suspended from it, and position the steps in the right place, on a protective mat:

The skimmer, not yet connected:

Another view of the steps; notice that I’m starting to add the water; it takes quite a long time to fill:

The steps are screwed to the pond deck:

The pool continues to fill overnight. In the morning, it is pretty much filled:

It’s a lot of water, but our well can handle it, and the water is returned to the ground when we’re done with it.

Here are the sand filter and pump:

And the solar heaters; the water flows from the pump via the filter, then through the solar panels, warming the water from heat from the sun adsorbed in the black plastic:

The completed pool:

It just needs a few hot days for the water to warm up from the cold water out of our well, to a bearable temperature.

Now it feels like summer!