I don’t regret using the styrofoam, though using a denser foam with a higher PSI rating would probably be better if you had a lot of heavier adults jumping in the pool. For my kids it’s perfectly fine, but if I’m in the pool I can feel it compress a bit. If I had to do it for a larger pool and cost wasn’t a factor I’d probably go with the tougher pink insulating foam next time for a few extra bucks and greater piece of mind.

As a side note, it cost me about $80 for the 5 styrofoam boards, which to me was comparable in cost to getting enough sand for the area, but a whole lot easier to work with then re-leveling for sand. It would have cost me $150 to get denser rated pink insulating foam, and for my kids pool I couldn't justify the added cost. If I was setting up a larger version that was 4 ft deep and was worth more, I'd recommend using 25 PSI insulating foam if its available to you in your area and I think that would work great for an easy smooth surface. Hope this helps.

@@Type5Reviews do you have a link to the sheets and what size did you get. Thanks for the video

The sheets are 4 ft by 8ft which makes them really expensive to ship if you can even find them on Amazon. Instead you can go to your local hardware store and look for foam insulation boards that are 1.5 inches thick. Here is a link to some that I would recommend from menards. www.menards.com/main/building-materials/insulation/foam-board-insulation/owens-corning-reg-foamular-reg-r-7-5-polystyrene-foam-board-insulation-1-1-2-x-4-x-8/270815/p-1444450490231-c-5779.htm?tid=-723543014411144&ipos=9

@@Type5Reviews thank you!

As long as you don't have a dramatic slope and a lot of peaks and valleys in the ground, it should work.

Where did you get the foam board?

Same question 🤔

​@@karenlamm7339Home Depot. Just search for, it's easy to find.

I agree!

CD

You still have to vacuum if you have a sand filter.

🎉🎉 CC

Thanks. Our kids have been enjoying it a lot since we’ve set ours up. Glad that you found the video helpful.

Not just a sand one but a bigger one if not sand

Just bought this one. the 14' x 33" round version. Have you set it up yet? Any tips?

Nope, not yet. In the final stages of my leveling process. I'm not using sand. Just a landscape rake, a shovel, a really long level attached to a 2×4, and my wheel barrow. I use my hose to slightly soften the dirt so I could smooth is out with my rake. When I finish, I'm gonna use 3/4" interlocking foam mats then put a liner down on top of that. Then I'll set the pool up.

Yes it might be a pain but so is using sand. We just set up an 18x48 pool & used sand & ughhhh is all I can say lol. We had a ton of leveling to do though so that was an even bigger pain. My husband talked of using foam board in the beginning but we went with a big load of sand. I think putting any pool up is a headache if it’s not going on an already perfectly level concrete slab. I’m just happy our’s is done & currently filling with water at the moment! Here’s to hoping it’s level & lasts us a long while!

I have a sprinkler system spraying on my pool as well. That combined with the kids splashing last year meant a lot of water lost around the base. But fortunately water is really heavy and the pool didn’t move at all, so I’d say you don’t have anything to worry about on that front.

Just painters tape that I hand on hand to keep the boards from moving while I laid everything out.

I bought mine at Menards, but Lowe’s or Home Depot should carry them.

Is the pool completely filled? I went around and readjusted the legs a little as the pool was filling up. Once it was completely full the liner presses against the legs and keeps them pretty much in place. Assuming the liner on the bottom was straightened out when filling too the legs shouldn’t be an issue. But before the pool is filled if you pull on one leg, others would definitely move.

I actually kept mine up all winter with a cover and winterized it. But that’s completely up to you if you’d want to take it apart and store it.

just leave 3/4 water in it so it can have room to fill from rain and expand from the ice

For a 12x24x52” pool, assuming you filled it all the way to the top you are right that it’s about 70,000 lbs of water. But that water gets spread over the area of the base which is about 41,000 sq in so if you divide out the pounds/sq in you get about 1.7psi. The pink Owens Corning foam board is rated at 15psi so you really wouldn’t get much if any compression from the water weight itself. For my setup, using the cheaper styrofoam board with a weaker psi rating hasn’t been much different. However if I get in I can tell where my kids may have “pushed off” when jumping around in the pool as the cheaper foam can get a bit dented over time. But my pool is only 30” deep and on a deeper pool less force would be exerted by a person jumping up since the water would displace them more, if that makes sense. My paver stones also haven’t moved much at all either since setting up the pool. All this to say either way if you go level with the paver bricks or set them slightly lower than the foam I think you’ll be fine. If I did mine over thought I’d just use the pink higher psi foam and still go level with the bricks. Hope this helps.

@@Type5Reviews it does thank you very much

Working on the video now. Should be up in a few days. Stay tuned. 👍🏻

I already subscribed

I picked up the foam boards from menards, but Lowe’s or Home Depot should also carry them. I also have several more pool videos over the past 2 seasons and will be opening it up this season and it’s still doing great.

I live in northwest Indiana, but I left my pool up all winter last year and it held up just fine. If you don’t have a place to store the foam and don’t want to pick it up off the ground you could at least place a paver or something heavy on each foam board so they don’t fly away with any strong winds if you take the pool down.

@@Type5Reviews awesome, thank you!

The foam boards come in 4ftx8ft sheets. For an 18ft round pool you’ll need 12 1/2 boards, so basically 13 and I’d cut a few in half to offset the rows like bricks. Good luck.

What pool do you have? I’m looking for a 24” pool. I plan on using horse mats from tractor supply store.

I bought the 24’x52” Funsicle pool. We had a summer waves pool and used sand under it but it just didn’t seem to get even. We bought a new pool because the one we had was only 15’ round and with two almost preteen boys, I was needing more space for them to rough house and not get adults wet.

I went with foam boards because I wanted to put blocks under the legs and didn’t want to dig the ground out for the blocks. And it made for a nice surface under the pool as well. If you decided on going with a foam base I would recommend the higher density pink foam as it would withstand the “roughhousing” a little better. The cheaper styrofoam is still holding strong but you can feel it compress under your feet if you are larger. And even with the larger pool I still think 1.5” blocks and foam would be just fine since the weight is distributed over the whole surface. But if you don’t mind leveling, sand for that much area may be a cheaper route. You could place you blocks down where the supports would be and spread out sand even with the height of the blocks. Just another thought.

You’re right. Out from the pool and into the pump, then out from the pump and into the pool.

That depends on how much you mean by “slight”. I wouldn’t want one side to be more than a couple inches off at most personally. You may be able to get away with it but you could always dig out the high side an inch or two and add it to the low side. Leveling the ground to me is the part though that takes the most work. Good luck.

Foam boards and pool are all still going strong. About to open it up again for the 3rd summer now after surviving 2 winters with no issues.

I didn’t take any measurements. Instead like I show in the video I laid out the top section to find where the legs would be then placed the pavers underneath.

I’ve been through 2 seasons going on a 3rd this year with no issues so far from doing the foam. I haven’t noticed any algae or smells either. If I did it over the only thing I would change would be to use a higher density pink foam board instead of the softer white foam board since the stiffer board would be less likely to compress under your feet.

Most of the frame of this pool is made of plastic and not conductive. The cord has a built in GFCI and since it’s not considered a permanent pool I do not believe it has to be bonded for code purposes, but of course you should always check your local codes.

Nope. Plenty of splashing over the edge and the pool has held up just fine so far.

@@Type5Reviews thank you! I’m setting one up next weekend I will be doing the pink thicker as you suggested to another commenter. Great video

I used 1.5 just because it matched the width of the pavers so I didn’t have to dig the pavers down at all to support the legs. 0.5 would be helpful to protect the bottom of the pool from anything sharp, but you’ll have to adjust if you are supporting the legs with bricks.

The foam board is still holding up well. Though if I did it again I would go with the higher psi rated pink Owens Corning foam board. And I have nothing against sand either, I just didn’t want to do the extra work of leveling all that sand.

@@Type5Reviews thanks for the advice buddy. Subbed and liked

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Try home improvement stores like Lowes, Home Depot, or Menards. They should all carry it in stock. My biggest thing was getting some that’s the same thickness as the bricks I used. It can be pricey though.

I picked mine up at my local Menards, but other home improvement stores like Home Depot or Lowes should carry foam boards.

True now that I’ve been using the pool for over a year I just keep the caps off. But I’m sure the caps were probably included for safety reasons and the screws would just keep kids from taking them off.

Try at a slight angle while pressing the middle of the metal leg end to make it a bit smaller to fit into the black plastic piece. They are definitely a tight fit.

At a minimum you have to run your pump enough each day to turn the water over in your pool at least once. So your 10 ft pool holds roughly 1200 gallons and that pump is probably rated around 300ish gallons per hour, so 1200/300 = 4 hours. I would probably still run that small pump for 6-8 hours though. That combined with staying on top of the chlorine levels and ph will keep the pool clear.

They are 12x12x1.5 inch concrete pavers. I picked them up from Menards, but Lowes or Home Depot should carry them as well.

@@Type5Reviews awesome thanks!

No issues so far. It’s been up for a year and the foam is still good. If I did it again though I’d go with a higher psi foam base though.

The sheets are 4ft by 8ft so you’d probably need 8 of them.

I don’t have any experience with using a pad underneath but assuming you level the area properly and there is nothing hard underneath I’m sure a pad would be fine. I wanted to put blocks under each of the support legs and the foam made it much easier than digging the ground out from under each block.

I hope that you figured it out but in case someone else is having this issue. What I did was have my mom help me lift up the next two connections so that it was easier to connect the last one.

@@daniellarodriguez8930 yes I did thanks! I just had to pop all the pins out that I had put in the connectors and that gave me enough room to get that last connector on lol then it was easy to finish.

They are used to plug the inlet and outlet holes if you disconnect the hoses. You can see me use one in my chemical video.

@@Type5Reviews Thank you for the response. Subscribing now.

Some frame pools have holes in the frame to add plastic style pins that would help lock the pieces together. The newer intex frame pools don’t include the pins as they don’t need them, but I believe the holes are still left over from the manufacturing process.

@@Type5Reviews I wonderd why my replacement pool still had holes. And they even changed the pole brackets to plastic rite?

Yeah the tee’s that the frame pieces connect to are plastic.

Depends on how uneven your ground is. Mine started fairly level, so that saved a lot of time. But it still took over an hour to level the dirt then a couple hours to lay everything out and get to the point where I was filling it with water. Then it takes about 6 hours or so to fill with water for this size. And plenty of people set these up without blocks or foam and just put a tarp underneath. I didn’t want to have to worry about the legs possibly shifting/sinking over time so I went with the blocks.

​​​@@Type5ReviewsDo you think the legs could rest directly on the foam board if you were using the higher rated PSI stuff? Or would the feet on the bottom of the poles end up sinking into the foam?

From the inside of the pool with the cover screens screwed off, you place them over the hole and the water pressure keeps them on.

Menards, but Lowe’s or Home Depot should carry them as well.

The legs don’t really move much. If they are being rowdy the sides definitely bow in and out.

The foam is still going strong this year. But if I did it again I would choose denser foam.

Hmmm..like a 2 inch

Yes 12x12x1.5”