Missing parts.

Written on 9/10/2020 by Guest

About ten years ago, my wife and I purchased an eighteen by thirty-three foot above ground pool inexpensively during an end of the year clearance sale. It has taken us a while to get this project moving forward because of logistics so it has been stored in various locations in the ensuing years. We've gone through a couple of those "easy pools" in the interim. (* Do Not fall for the cheap pool that has windows in the sides. Once the windows start to leak, it is over) Finally, this year we able to move ahead with it. When checking through my parts lists, I came up short on two of the caps that attach to the top of the side supports. I had little hope in acquiring these exact parts and began planning on fabricating them myself in my home shop.

I was taking measurements on one of the existing caps and noticed a number stamped into it and decided to do a Google search on the pool model. Much to my surprise, I got some hits and found this store. The online catalog looked like they carried parts for every pool under the sun and I found exactly what I needed. Yay for that. This saved me hours of time, and trials and errors finishing this project. Thank goodness this shop was there.

As far as pool builds go, I would not recommend anyone taking on this type of project flying solo but I did. I had a little help from my kids but not much. My goal was to have this up by Memorial Day but with weeks of rain, or weeks of temperatures in the high nineties and one hurricane, I got finished up two weeks before Labor Day. The biggest amount of time was spent on making sure that the bottom and rail foundations were level and waiting for things to dry out after torrential rains. The tale of this build became an epic saga among my friends on Facebook with pictures and joking about my setbacks. The effort paid off. It is now full of water, not leaking, and level. The liner has zero wrinkles in it, smooth as a baby's behind. My kids and four grandsons have been enjoying the foreshortened season. Grandma is a happy camper. I'm considering building a DIY wood fired pool heater just to extend the season but so far the solar cover has worked well. Persistence equals success.

Were these instructions helpful?