[BSD]

3 years ago we installed a fiberglass pool, unilock wall and patio at our home. While heating the pool this spring with an external solar heater a pipe somehow slipped out of the pool and pumped water down along side the pool. It only pumped about 18" of water out, but it was enough for disaster. The result. Our 16x43' pool popped right out of the ground. The only difference between fiberglass pools and fiberglass boats is the side the water is on.

In case anyone was wondering, this is why I needed a Kubota L48 ASAP in the classified section a few days ago.

Here are two pics from the first day. we took off the cover and started pumping more water out. We don't want extra weight in it any more. We're afraid it might crack in half since its tweaked pretty good. We then peeled up the coping & patio on one side of the pool. We're stacking the pavers on pallets and shrink wrapping them and storing them on-site.

The game plan is to use the kubota to move materials and dig the close side by the lawn. Then after my cousin gets back from his honeymoon in a few weeks he'll be bringing his CAT 317 Excavator over and we'll lift the pool out and walk it down the yard and set it down. Then we'll use the CAT to dig the far side of the pool so we don't have to rip up any more of the patio then necessary. We're also going to add at least two systems to prevent this from ever happening again. One is going to be a plain old 6" drain pipe with some fingers around the bowl of the pool to collect ground water and move it away. The other will be an electrical sensor of some sort to detect high ground water and activate a pump to pull water out. We're also looking into a basement waterproofing system my friend installs. Basically a fully automatic sump pump to prevent basement flooding, only we'll use it to prevent another float.

More pics as I take'm

[jwholden]

The links to the pictures were removed pending a decision from the site administrator. Please feel free to post them here, that sounds like a very interesting situation.

[BSD]

sorry about that. i'm uploading them to another site now.

[BSD]

Lets try this again...

[PSUscaper]

I can't see how you are going to fix that and not end up re-installing that entire patio. By the time you dig that out and reset the pool it is going to be a mess. I'm sure your going to get subtantial cave in surrounding the hole.

Also, resetting the pool to the exact level it was at before so it lines back up with the brick sounds like a task I would want nothing to do with. Your also going to end up with all sorts of settlement issues in the future.

that just plain sucks. Nothing else to say. I've heard a lot of rumors of those fiberglass pools popping out of the ground, but never actually saw one in person. Now I did!

You may be able to salvage some of the patio, but I don't think it is ever going to be the same again.

How's the plumbing? I would be afraid that where the pipes go into the pool they got ripped out, and possibly cracking the shell where the go into the pool.

[Fine Edge]

You really need to try some type of pressure test on all of the plumbing at some point. most larger pool companies should be able to give you guidance on that. I'd also be afraid of what is actually happening to all of the other plumbing since the pool popped out of the ground. A slight crack in another area would be even more disastrous for you after it was all put back together.

Sorry to see that happen to you. Good luck and keep us posted.

[BSD]

Originally posted by PSUscaper
I can't see how you are going to fix that and not end up re-installing that entire patio. By the time you dig that out and reset the pool it is going to be a mess. I'm sure your going to get subtantial cave in surrounding the hole.

Also, resetting the pool to the exact level it was at before so it lines back up with the brick sounds like a task I would want nothing to do with. Your also going to end up with all sorts of settlement issues in the future.

that just plain sucks. Nothing else to say. I've heard a lot of rumors of those fiberglass pools popping out of the ground, but never actually saw one in person. Now I did!

You may be able to salvage some of the patio, but I don't think it is ever going to be the same again.

How's the plumbing? I would be afraid that where the pipes go into the pool they got ripped out, and possibly cracking the shell where the go into the pool.

We pulled off all of the patio on the lawn side and the stones that are lighter on the other side of the patio. The discoloration is from the winter cover. We removed the top course of the SRW and we're going to bury the first row with the Item #4 base material to try to avoid re-setting that. We removed the diving board concrete footing, as well as the ladders. We're in a little bit of a holding pattern until the CAT 317 shows up to pull it out. There are some more odds and ends we can do, but most of the prep to remove the pool is already done after about 10-12 hrs of labor.

We're going to dig two trenches to pipe ground water away so this doesn't happen again, and we're also looking into another system. We might dig one of the trenches before the 317 shows up.

Re: Plumbing, it's still attached and appears undamaged. fortunately we used K-flex 1.5" pipe for the lines. So far, we haven't seen any spider cracks on the shell by the bulkheads. There wasn't much force on them when it pulled up because of the slack that's in the lines and also with the dirt shifting seemed to help it up too. We will pressure test the system when its out of the ground definitely.

Re: Patio. Yes, it is going to suck to get it back to the correct height. However we're actually going to fix one thing we did wrong when we first installed it. We had the patio too low, we thought it would be better to leave the shell exposed at the top with a ~2" gap to the patio, but it was actually a nightmare to mate the patio to the pool. There is a nasty beveled edge and lip that interfered with the unilock patio. We're going to sink the pool 5" down to that we can use a full nose coping stone to set on top of the shell to correct this issue. My biggest fear is a collapse while the shell is out of the ground. We had nasty cave-ins when the pool was first going in, we had like 21 days of rain in a month and we couldn't keep the walls up. My thought was actually to look at getting a gunnite pool installer to come and shoot the slurry on the wall to try to hold it back. As for setting the elevation. We have the dig diagrams from the factory still. Plus I have my Lazer transit that can aid in measuring the height of the shell and we can adjust the depth accordingly.

[BSD]

Here are some pictures from tonight.

[Raj Venugopal]

I can't see any of the pics...were they pulled?

[Lanelle]

The pictures are still in the thread.

[BSD]

Originally posted by Raj Venugopal
I can't see any of the pics...were they pulled?

The pictures are still here, they are linked from another picture site, so you may have to allow images from other websites in your browser.

[BSD]

The Cat arrived this week...
We made a 16' spreader bar to lift with the machine out of 3" steel pipe, with a truss and hook lift. The bar probably would have worked if the tub was sitting on the ground, not still in the ground with lots of surface area drag on the soil around it. We lifted it about 2' before it turned into bent horizontally. We reinforced it with some L channel, but it wasn't enough. We made another spreader with two 16' 6x6" RR ties bolted together and evidently that worked. (I wasn't present at the actual pool removal because I was working).

We were still pumping water out of it in the first picture. We used the water to float the pool up about 8".



This was cut with a sawz-all, it just shows the pool floating up


This is as far was we got with the metal bar, about 2-3' up.


The pool is totally out of the ground and sitting on the lawn right now. We have to re-prep the hole and then it goes back in and the patio re-construction begins. My dad says he made a video of the removal, I'll see if I can post that at some point.

[jamo1911]

Dude, I feel for you on that one. How did you make out in the end?

[sandim]

Ugh! What a nightmare! So sorry to hear about it!! I sincerely feel for you. Good luck. Amazingly, sounds like you're going into it with a good attitude.

[eastern1]

Something that hasn't been talked about, did you guys install the pool, or did you hire a contractor for it. I just can't believe a backup drain wasn't installed when the pool was put in. That is no fun.