Ground Cracking Under Above Ground Pool

by Joe Skerbinc
(Demopolis, Alabama, USA)

My 15' by 26' oval pool is installed on heavy clay soil. This soil will develop wide cracks when it dries out. When I installed the pool I put down a sand base and then Styrofoam then the pool liner.

Worked great until our August drought and now my sand base has literally fallen into the cracks! I drained the pool and I am thinking of putting 3/8 inch treated plywood down, then sand, then Styrofoam, then the pool liner.

Do you think this will work? Do you have any other suggestions? THANKS



Hi Joe. I do like your idea, it might work just fine. Concrete would also work, but probably a lot more expensive.

The biggest problems with doing something like that with an oval pool are the pressure plates. They are difficult to work with when using foam, concrete or wood. I wanted to use 4 x 8 foam on a pool I was installing for myself. It was a 15 x 30 oval with pressure plates.

I found some flat metal 4' wide and about 20' long and laid one on each side, over the brace channels, thus replacing the factory pressure plates. This worked just fine and gave me a flat surface to lay the foam over.

You could probably do something like this under your plywood. Hopefully it will all work out for you and your cracking clay soil will not cause you any more problems.