Back-fill On The Outside

by George
(Fortson, GA)

So we just installed a 24 ft AGP. Half of the pools bottom rail is about 4 inches below grade where I had to dig down to reach level ground with my low side.

I am wanting to place river rock around the perimeter and was wondering, do I need to back-fill with dirt before laying the stone or would it be okay to just back-fill with the stone?


Hi George. I would use enough dirt to cover the bottom rail at least. This gives the pool just a little extra support and also helps to make sure nothing washes out from underneath it.

The river rock is an excellent way to landscape around the pool. It offers good runoff so hopefully the outside of the pool area can stay fairly dry, and not be sitting in water all the time.

Weeds and grass tend to grow wild around an above ground pool and this is not at all good for the pool liner if they happen to grow under and up through the liner. I recommend using black plastic around the pool before your landscape rock. If plastic is not used you may spend a lot of money spraying weed killer on the area. But do what it takes to keep the grass and weeds away from the pool.