Inground Pool Construction and Groundwater Issues

WATER-IN-THE-HOLE

It only happens rarely, but sometimes when digging inground swimming pools you may discover a high water table. Or, there can be issues with surface ground water, flowing towards your future pool. Don’t let this scare you, there are solutions for these that you can take care of yourself.

Dealing with Surface Run-Off around your Inground Pool:

If your pool area is lower than the ground around it you will need to provide a route for the water to go around, not into or under, your swimming pool. Small retaining walls with french drains can be installed, or you can dig a 18″ deep trench next to the pool deck and cover with a few inches of 3/4 in. stone. Top this with a perforated drain pipe and then another layer of stone before backfilling the trench, slightly lower than the surrounding ground. Now, when the water flows towards your pool it will hit your drainage area and flow around to the [lower] end of the pool. Another way to combat surface runoff water is to cut a swale into the ground before your pool patio. What this is would be a V shape cut in the ground with a pitch away to one end of the pool. The water would hit this and flow down and out the pitched end.

Dealing with High Water Table around your Inground Pool:

Water issues from a high water table, encountered during excavation, is the main topic of this blog post. It usually happens while digging an 8′ deep pool, and at 6 or 7 feet – you hit water. Usually you can pump it out and it doesn’t come back, but sometimes the water seems to come back in as quickly as you can pump it out. (Make sure that while pumping out this water that you pump at least 50′ away from the pool, to prevent “recycling” of the water back underneath the pool.)

De-watering Solutions:

If the water keeps coming in, even though the weather has been reasonably dry, here’s what you do. Keep digging! Over dig your deep end about 2 feet deeper than the pool depth. A trench should be dug, from the deep end floor, up the slope to the shallow end – also 2 feet lower. Then have your gravel delivery company bring you enough 3/4″ stone to fill in your over dug areas to within 2″ from your finished floor level. If the soil is very sandy and loamy you will need more gravel than if you have a tight clay soil, to keep the water flowing.

After the gravel is in place, we will use 1.5″ flexible pvc pipe to create a conduit for the water, while you continue to build your own inground pool. On the pool-end of the pipe, attach a check valve and a grate and run the pipe from the lowest part of the pool, out the bottom side of the pool, into the trench. Dig a trench outside of the pool, to the depth of the over dig. The trench will rise in level to about 1 foot below the ground. Continue to run the pipe to an area where you can connect it to a self-priming pump like an inground pool pump (such as the one that comes with your inground pool kit). Connect another pipe or hose on the discharge side of the pump, prime it up and turn it on. Shortly the pump will start pulling your underground water out of the hole.

How to Test for High Water Table:

I’ll admit it, there are some locations that make it difficult to build an inground pool. Low, topographically depressed areas, or shoreline areas that are actually below sea level. In severe cases, those who really want an inground pool can truck in enough fill dirt to raise the pool area up a few feet, so that ever-present ground water won’t be an issue. In most cases, however – the dewatering approaches described here will solve the problem.

auger

One way to test your ground water level is to use an auger drill to drill down to the level of your pool’s deep end in several spots around the proposed pool site. Do this when the soil has a relatively normal water content – that is, not after a 3-day rain. Instead of the auger, you can dig a 4′ deep hole large enough to stand in, and then use a post hole digger to dig down further to check for water. You may encounter some water at this depth, but it doesn’t mean that your inground pool project is going to be difficult or impossible to construct!

We’ve never seen a water situation that couldn’t be dealt with somehow. Even in the worst cases, the pool can still be built, with just a little more time (and money) spent on over-excavation and extra gravel.

A much less common occurrence is to hit ground water while digging the deep end. This can happen if your pool location is in a low depression as compared to the surrounding land, or if located beneath a hillside of any size. It can also happen after heavy rainstorms raise the water table.

In most cases, the water will subside, so my first advice is to just see if the water will recede back into the earth in a day or two, and then you can proceed with installing the pool floor, the liner, and adding water to fill the pool.

cover-pump-for-pools-aquapro

In some cases, the water won’t subside – if it keeps raining, or if the pool deep end is located within the water table. Start with a small submersible pump (you can rent one for $15/day), and connect 100′ of garden hose to run the hose away from the deep end as far as possible. Plug in the pump, and pump out the water in the deep end.

INGROUND VINYL POOL DEWATERING METHODS

INGROUND-POOL-DEWATERING-METHOD-USE-YOUR-OWN-PUMPS1

If precious days are passing, and weepers and leakers are continuing to fill the deep end area faster than you can pump it out, here’s what you do. Get on the phone, or online and place an order for 2-3 yards of the cheapest gravel, usually #57 bluestone. Jump back in the track hoe, or just start hand digging, and overdig the deep end hopper by 2′. So, if you have an 8′ deep end, overdig it to 10′, and then dig a narrow trench from the now deeper deep end floor, up the side wall, and out of the pool, just underneath the pool wall.

OPTION ONE: Place a main drain pot in the lowest spot of the floor, and connect a one way check valve with a short piece of PVC pipe. Then glue on a long section of flexible pipe that comes up to ground level. There you can connect your pool filter pump, with a male adapter. Fill the pipe and pump with water, and use it to dewater underneath the pool, until you get it full of water.

cheap-submersible-pumps1
SUMP-PUMP-IN-A-WELL-0METHOD-OF-DEWATERING-A-POOL1

OPTION TWO: Buy a cheap submersible pump with a long cord and place it in the lowest part of the overdug deep end. Cover with a few feet of gravel and run the discharge (garden) hose and the power cord up the sidewall trench and underneath the pool wall. The pump is abandoned underneath the pool after the pool is filled with water. It could be left in place, for pools with high water tables, but the motor will likely fail within a few years.

OPTION THREE: For a more permanent solution, for pools that are very close and level with large bodies of water, or located in a flood plain. Place a main drain pot in the deepest part of the overdig, and connect a pipe that drains to a sump pump well, or a plastic vertical cylinder that is accessed at ground level. Inside the well, an automatic sump pump is placed, which will turn on when water in the well cylinder raises the float sensor.

dump-truck

OPTION FOUR: Raise the pool! That is, bring in enough dirt, probably 20 yds or more of fill dirt, and raise up the earth in the pool and around the pool. This can only be done if you haven’t already poured the concrete collar around the pool walls. This is a good solution for installations where you know water will be encountered; pools on a shoreline, in a floodplain, high water table, or for a location that receives a lot of storm water run-off. Steps can lead up to the pool deck, which can be 1-4 feet above the surrounding area.

TEMPORARY POOL DEWATERING – OR PERMANENT?

After the pool is filled with water on top of your 2″ floor base material, that’s heavy enough to keep water back, and your dewatering solution, so useful during construction, will no longer be needed, and the pipe or hose is left buried underneath the pool.

water underneath the pool liner

In a few cases however, a liner can ‘float’, when water gets underneath the liner, and causes a large visible bulge, usually after periods of very heavy rain. If you think that this may be a possibility, due to a poor pool location, high water table, excessive water runoff or bad soil types…you may want to have the ability to dewater underneath the liner, should your liner ever ‘bulge’. Options 1 and 3 above are better to use for a permanent pool dewatering solution, but can be installed after a pool is already built, if needed.

Drainage: Another thing to take into consideration is ground water or storm run off. You want your pool elevation to be at least 6″ higher than the surrounding ground. Your entire construction area should be pitched away from the pool to allow good flow around the pool. This will allow water to run away form the pool and not towards it. If you have a hill behind one side of your pool you will want to cut in a swale and grade the land to divert the water around your pool.

Soil: Different soil conditions play a role in pool construction water problems. Clay holds water and is always wet, where other loamy soils or sandy soils tend to drain better.

Topography: The water table tends to follow the curve of the terrain. If your property is located in a very low, depressed area, topographically speaking, it will tend to have water table closer to the surface. The same may be said for pool locations that are very close to sea level elevation.

ROCKS

rocks when you dig a pool

Large rocks that have to be removed are another problem. The biggest problem is having a machine big enough to remove the rock or bust up a stone ledge in the pool area. Boulders that are larger than the bucket can be strap lifted – but if they are too large, they may need to be broken first, which may require a jackhammer attachment.

After a very large boulder has been removed, clean fill dirt should be put in its place and compacted or tamped to bring the floor or walls back up to where they need to be. This can be a lot of work, so another option is to “shave” off large boulders. I have had rocks that were so big, when I only needed to dig another few inches, and it was easier to jack hammer the rock, or “shave it” than to remove the entire rock, and then backfill the crater.

ROOTS

Large roots are another issue you may have with inground pool construction. You want to remove them for sure; but better if you can see where they are coming from and cut them back a good 10 ft or so from your pool area. Cut the roots within the excavation area only, and you are leaving yourself wide open for them to grow back within a few years, and damage the pool.

tree-with-deep-roots

If you saw my post about Trees around the Pool, you’ll know that I am absolutely opposed to any trees within 10 or 20 feet of the pool. Large trees, and their roots can cause more problems later on – to your pool walls, floors, liner and surrounding pool deck. Plus, do you really want to be cleaning leaves out of the pool?

Most excavators will slice through large roots with ease, so that’s not the real problem. The real problem are large roots that are cut off just a few feet from the pool walls and floors. Better to take out the tree, and poison the roots, or cut the roots back at least 10 feet from the pool walls.

How Can You Tell What’s Underground? There are no Apps or Divining Rods to help you know if there is underground water or large rocks in your yard. You can do a little investigation on your own, however. Do any of your neighbors have an inground pool? Ask what they encountered underground, did they hit water or rock? Do you have a sump pump in a pit in your house, or basement water problems? You may already know if you have a high water table. Also consider the topography and drainage of the planned pool area.

Your local building department may have an area map that shows water elevations, or the building inspector should have an idea of what’s generally expected to be underground in your area. You could hire a company that uses GPR or ground penetrating radar, but that could be costly.

And of course, if you run into any of these problems with an In The Swim Pool Kit, we are here to help you every step of the way, like we were with Lloyd Brown’s water problem during his very rainy pool construction week.

Remember that usually – there is nothing underground but tierra firma, with small rocks and surface roots. Large scale inground pool construction problems with rocks, roots and water are rare, and most situations are solved quickly and cheaply.

If you encounter water when you dig, do not worry – the In The Swim experts are here to help you with advice tailored to your situation. I’ve been involved in nearly 1000 pool builds, and we hit water about 10% of the time, but a true pool dewatering system is needed only less than 5% of the time.

One last piece of advice. Pay attention to the long range weather forecast before you begin construction. If you have some flexibility in your schedule, you may avoid hitting water if you dig your pool during dry periods of the year, and when the 10 day forecast looks mostly sunny. If you can get a week of fairly dry weather, you will have less chance of hitting water.

36 thoughts on “Inground Pool Construction and Groundwater Issues

  1. Hello and thanks for doing this Q&A. We installed our in-ground pool 9 years ago. Around year 5 or 6 we started seeing bulges in our liner around the perimeter, obviously water. We had a few people take a look and suggestions, which we did. We added seamless gutters and a drain to a retention pond. That worked some, but as the rains continue over the years, water continued to infiltrate. This spring we pumped out the liner (which of course over the years is now wrinkled) and the 3 big storms and water is back in full force. Any suggestions? I’ve heard some type of clay injection into the soil is possible.

    • Hi Pete, I have not heard of clay injection, but sounds feasible. It’s an alternative solution to directing the water away from the pool. Some call this issue a perched liner or a floating liner, FYI and for you to have additional keywords to search upon, which you may know already. Redirecting rain water away from the pool is key, as you also already know, this may involve some earth moving, or digging out and re-stratifying the earth, creating underground ‘rivers’ of gravel or french drains. Water is lazy, I like to say, and will take the path of least resistance. Concrete or asphalt is another solution sometimes, to make some areas impermeable, or to install large drains in strategic locations. I would suspect that injecting clay around the pool would / should keep water away from the pool walls, but may not be a perfect or permanent solution perhaps. Good luck!

  2. We are trying to bury a 15ft round above ground pool halfway into the ground. We dug down 2 feet and our hole is filled with water. We tried pumping it out today and it came right back in. Any advice??

    • Nikki, that wet soil will not be good for the pool, and shorten the life considerably. I would suggest building the pool on-grade, and then building a deck around the pool, either half height or all the way up to the top.

  3. K. Duncan

    I live near a river and there appears to be a high water table. In ground pool dig was done and at about 6 feet they hit the water table. Dug 18” further and put in gravel. Pool builder needs to put a temporary pump until the pool construction is complete; then the pump will be disconnected and left under the pool. How much should this cost?

  4. Hi,
    We are in a process to build a 18×40 in ground pool. The architect designed the lowest point to be at the center of the pool. All others pool I seen they have the deepest point in one end. Also the pool guy wants to install one skimmer and three returns. Is one skimmer enough for this size of pol? Thanks

    • Hi Mitch, a “Sport Pool” has the deep end in the middle. For volleyball games, etc. Then you put steps on each end of the pool, usually. One skimmer could be enough, unless you have a lot of trees around the pool, then a second skimmer could be useful.

  5. Hello we are putting in a 20×40 in ground pool. It’s been one issue after another, liner wouldn’t fit, but they proceeded knowing this. Come to find out the walks were numbered wrong, the pool kit is off by 3 and 1/2 inches. They proceeded concrete poured travertine coping on. They have finally admitted this to us. They have ordered a custom liner by a b measures? The off part is visible to the eye at steps part. Are there possible problems with walls being wrong at installation that I should be concerned about? I now know it will always have to have a custom liner.

    • Hi Debbie, it’s ok about being a custom liner, because all inground pool liners are custom liners. Most people may not notice the part being off, of course you will, but over time, you’ll get used to it. Should not be any structural problems I suppose, as long as there are no gaps for water to get into, behind the wall. You might get them to sign a document that states that they admit to the error, and if the error causes any problems specific to the error in wall placement, that they will provide a remedy, within a reasonable amount of time.

  6. Hi! I’ve searched on the Internet and have not seen this topic so don’t know which direction to take. Our pool has a brown sandstone finish like cemented gravel, natural color. We live in Florida and the water is too hot to swim in the summer, it’s like getting in a hot tub!! My daughter doesn’t think painting is a solution but I’m wondering if painting the gravel light blue would help? She thinks it can’t be painted.

    • Hi Mariane, sounds like a pebbletec surface. It would be best not to paint it, and even if you did, it would not affect the temperature. What you could do is install shade sails over the pool, use floating fountains to aerate the water, or for best temp control, install a pool heat pump ‘Chillers‘, which heats the pool, but can operate in reverse to cool the water too.

  7. Hi. I have multiple issues.

    1. We purchase this home years ago with a pool already installed. I have about hundred trees in my yard (exaggerated some but none the less, I have a lot of trees). Tree roots have apparently caused cracks in cement around the pool as well as a crack in the corner of the deep end of the pool.

    2. I have water leaking my yard and into the neighbor yard likely due to these cracks.

    3. I have stains in my pool likely due to leaves falling in pools and not being removed timely.

    4. The pool structure was built higher than patio so when there’s a heavy rain, all the rain water comes rushing to the patio area.

    5. Last but certainly not least, my husband and I are getting older and dealing with medical conditions/disabilities. We simply don’t have the time or energy for any of this. However, our grandchildren don’t want us to get rid of the pool.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    • Lisa, if you want to be sure the cracks are leaking, shut off the pump and dye test the cracks while wearing a mask or goggles. If there is a leak, plug the crack with either Pool Putty or EZ Patch #1 pool plaster mix. For leaf stains, try sprinkling pool shock over the area, or try EZ Stain Remover, or drain the pool and acid wash. For the patio, how about cutting the deck across where the water rushes, and installing a long drain channel, the width of the water rush, to carry the water off to the sides.

  8. Hi!
    I had an Aquasport pool installed about 3 weeks ago. It’s 4 feet deep. After a couple of days, I noticed a dent in the ground under the liner. This dent turned into 2 giant holes. The pool company came back and took down the liner today. All underneath the liner was water. They pumped out the holes that were formed and there appeared to be a 8” circle in the ground, opened with water in it. It’s most likely Is the dry well. They tried to drain it for over an hour and fill it with concrete. It didn’t work. The water is still coming out of this hole. Is there any way to fix this problem? Is it safe for a pool To be on top of a dry well? Any advice is welcomed. Thanks

    • HI Melissa, oh that’s horrible, sorry for the trouble. It is safe to be over the well, but unfortunate. The concrete should do the trick, eventually, but sometimes it may seep out the sides. Another tactic is to run a pipe from the dry well, underground, to an area downhill from the pool, or to some area where it can soak-in, or dissipate. Did they look to see if there is a pipe that leads to the dry well? It may be bringing water in, and this pipe, can be plugged or diverted perhaps.

  9. Susan Laughlin

    I don’t know if this is the right place for my question. But, I’ll go ahead with it. We have a 27’x 52 round pool that we put in the ground 6 years ago. Long story short, It rained and rained and rained, so we drained it due to an algae bloom we could not get rid of. And All Hell broke loose. First thing that started happening was the ground water, then the liner began to split, then because of the rain we had a MUDSLIDE on the outside of 1/2 the pool (by the deck). We can not get rid of the ground water, we dug a hole outside of the pool and that has helped. But, My question is if we use the gravel, will it hurt the new pad/liner? We are going to put in a bottom drain, if we could just ever get rid of the water.

    • HI Susan, that sounds really rough! Yes use gravel, topped with 2″ of sand, I assume you mean the pool floor. That should be fine, with a pad under the liner. You may stratify the gravel, using bluestone 57 gravel, then pea gravel, then sand. Good idea to put in a drain, in the drain you can put in an automatic hydrostatic relief valve, which can allow high pressure high water table water to enter the pool, rather than float the liner.

  10. Grant Bearden

    Hi Dave, I am currently battling an issue with ground water entering my pool through the skimmer collar. Have you ever heard of such a thing? My local pool store, they installed it, says I must have a busted water line somewhere, I don’t. If I did my well system will be always running. It appears the skimmer only seeps ground in the heat of the day and it’s so much ground water that I’m dumping nearly 500 gal a day to keep the pool from overflowing. My liner is mushy on the side walls all around the pool. Any help or advice would be great.

    P.S. I live in southern delaware and my water table is very shallow. My home well is only 23’.

    • Hi Grant, yes sounds like the water table. I’ve seen that before, once. Rare, but yeah. So to deal with it, you have to look outside of the pool, and take some measures to get water to go in other directions, away from the pool. It may be installing french drains, swales, gravel beds, outside of the pool deck. Look at how water moves around the property, and excavate and reconstruct, to get water to flow around the pool. Could be an easy fix, or could be very involved… good luck!

  11. Hi! During our in ground pool excavation a bobcat got stuck in our yard so digging has stopped. The clay in our yard is very wet, heavy and mobile. While hand digging in our shallow end so far water was found inside 2 holes in different areas assuming 5 feet below. Another hole we hand dug similar distance no water was found but hole began to fill up from clay walls. Please advise us of what may be going on and what we can do. Is a pool still an option and also will there be a lot of added costs? Any advice, guidance and solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

    • Ann, I’m sorry I don’t have any advice in this case.

      • Hi Dave,

        Do you happen to know the setback requirements for a dry well & in-ground pool? I’ve been told that having them too close can hinder the CO, as well as pool construction due to the settling of the dry well.
        Also was told for that reason we can’t build a patio on top of dry well.
        Thoughts?!

  12. Hello. I have to replace my liner. It has been torn and neglected for about 5 years. When I removed the liner and pumped out the water that was underneath it, I noticed clear clean water flowing back into the hopper from the back of the slope. Over night, it filled the hopper about 2 feet. I need to get the new liner in but the water is flowing in faster than I can set it. There is already a ground water drain but the pipe is at the base of the wall before the slope starts. Any suggestions on this?

    • Lanny, I would first look around the pool area, and the property in general, and see if there are any changes you could make to improve drainage away from the pool, such as areas where soil could be removed, or water stops removed so storm run-off travels away from the pool. Get a sump pump and start pumping the water as fast as it is coming in, and it should slow down. When the intake slows down enough, make plans for a quick liner drop, along with two truckloads of delivered water brought at the right time. Hopefully you can get water in the pool before too much water flows in. IF you can’t get it to slow down enough, then you can install a buried pipe or hose, just under the surface, starting at the area where the weeper is strongest, and run it under the wall, under the deck and to the surface, where a small pump is attached. Or you put a pump under the pool, in a pit of gravel with sand on top, and leave it running and pumping through an under-floor hose, under the deck and up to the surface. When the liner is done, the pump is unplugged and abandoned.

  13. Bill Oliver

    I came across a pool today that had a 8″ pvc pipe running the depth of the pool about 10″ of to the side today! The water level rises and falls with the pool water level. What is this pipe for?

    Bill Oliver

    • Hi Bill, not sure but may be an auto-fill? Or it could have been a dry well that was used for dewatering during pool or liner installation.

  14. Hi, after purchasing a house 3 years ago, I finally just got around to tearing out the bad liner in the in-ground pool. After pumping the water out for 3 days, I found a natural spring deposit in the deep end that has now significantly already filled up to 2 feet after just one day. Is there anyway I can utilize this spring and bypass even using a liner?

    • Yes, you can – using one of the dewatering methods discussed in the post. You have to pump it out faster than it’s coming in, and then install the liner quickly, and fill quickly, (from a truck if possible), and then the weight of the water in the pool “should” keep the water from coming in. Waiting for dry weather can also help. Assessing the flow of water around the pool is helpful, as well as some earth movement and redesign of the areas around the pool, to give the ground water an easier place to surface and run-off, away from the pool.

      • We are trying to install a pool and have hit groundwater. Is there a way to still do the gunite and it not end up cracking? We pump it out amd it fills up right after and the ground seems very unstable. Is it hopeless?

        • Naah, not a problem for an experienced crew, definitely not hopeless and dealt with all the time. But if your crew has never dealt with it before, essentially you want to blend stormwater management, with dewatering techniques. Usually you just overdig, and put a pump down deep and cover it with 2 feet of gravel, connected to a discharge pipe and a pump cord. Sometimes, just overdigging enough will be suitable, and will absorb the water and you can continue onward, and build your pool over the 6x6x3 pit of gravel you just created. Other times you will have to turn on the pump manually, or use a sump pump arrangement. Or you can drill / dig a dry well alongside the pool, to place a pump, and overdig and gravel fill to attract water, as the area with lowest resistance (gravel), and pump it out of there. Then you put up your steel cage, plumbing, lights, etc. and then you shoot the gunite, and usually after a few days you are fine, and the gunite will cure OK, just continue to pump, After a few days of curing, you can open up the hydrostats, and allow ground water to rise in the pool, just pump it out with a automatic sump pump, and then tile and coping, and then plaster or pebble surface. Then fill the pool. Then shut-off any buried pumps and abandon them underground. Good luck!

  15. Ashley ayala

    Hello and thank you for the excellent information. We live in Kansas and have very thick clay soil, we dug a trench around our inground pool to install 1 1/2” flexible pvc pipe from the skimmer to the pump, about 50 feet. We know we have a higher water level and have had basement flooding issues And have even had a tree in the corner of the pool area fall into the pool only to find it was wet and rotted out at the base of the tree suspecting underground water conditions years ago. Our problem is we just found the hole we dug around the skimmer to replace the pipe the next day filled with water and after dumping the water a few times keeps filling back up slowly and coming through the dirt and clay soil like it tiny streams or weeping through the soil. After reading your blog post sounds like we need to put in a trench with gravel and a French drain to divert water around the pool perhaps? Sounds like we need an engineer or someone to evaluate perhaps but not sure where to begin.

    • Yes, perhaps not an engineer, although they could help. Soils engineers are probably best, and could offer some suggestions, for as little as $250. Experienced landscapers could also advise on storm water management. There are ways, with swales, drains, gravel and perforated pipe, and stratifying soils and clays and loam, to help channel water in certain directions. Dewatering systems can also be used, where an underground pump is installed to remove water automatically, as it builds up. You could spend thousands of dollars – and I’m not suggesting that, but sounds like you may want to spend some time and some money, to improve the travel of the water around the pool. PS – use rigid PVC for the first 5-10 feet, connected to the skimmer, then go with flex pipe after that. It will last longer, if you don’t connect Flex pipe directly to the skimmer.

  16. Hi! We are recently in the third week of constructing our in ground pool. Our ground water is a beast! We installed pvc pipe connectors to three foot valves under neath gravel in the deep end. Every morning we wake up and boom water eberywhere in deep end. Even with running a submersible pump all night. Any idea what a next idea we could try . 5 steps forward 20 steps back lol

  17. I live in Northwest Florida and I recently purchased an “above ground pool” which, according to the manufacturer, can be completely buried in the ground. It has 52″ walls and a 50″ deep liner. I dug a few “survey” holes to evaluate the water table where I plan to put the pool and found the water table to be at 47″-48″. I’ve monitored these points over the past couple of weeks and they seem to stay at that level no matter if it rains or not. Do you think I will need a permanent drain solution to prevent liner float, or will the weight of the pool water be sufficient to hold the liner down in these circumstances?

    • Hi Jamison, probably you won’t need a dewatering solution for construction, but be sure that you do at least a french drain around the pool, to channel away underground water, and maybe some swales to further encourage surface water to take a wide path around the pool. Long term, too much moisture against the wall of the pool can be bad. Alternative to putting soil right up against the wall of the pool, many people overexcavate the pool by 3′ and then install a heavy duty wood deck around the pool, equal in height to the pool and to the surrounding ground.

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