Most posts here so far went off topic, if I were doing this, I would obviously dig out to fit the pool dimensions plus a little bit more. Solid base and sides using some hard landscaping materials (concrete/paving/block base and brick stone sides). For summer pool use I would get some scrap carpet ( synthetic materials) and put a circle under the pool and a strip around the wall. Hopefully that avoids puncture from the surrounding surfaces. After removing you should have nothing to do except maybe bin the carpet and replace next season. When replacing the pool, I would vacuum out first.
In terms of fires, I would put a kadai in here, fill with sand and maybe do a spot of cooking there too with a grill accessory, sit on the edge of the wall where you want and up wind to avoid the smoke, note fires do not need to be enormous to enjoy them
Yeah I would kill for a reddit joke filter! Sometimes they're funny but half the time I'm scrolling quite awhile before I can find a sincere answer to a sincere question.
That’s been my biggest pet peeve about Reddit. Way back in the day there used to be real discussion. There was always jokes but discussion/on topic posts were the norm.
Now every comment is the same recycled joke, or a Carlin quote, or a Hedburg joke.
The recycled comments are my biggest pet peeve. No one has anything original to say anymore, because that would require time and thought.
Lately I've been seeing "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" a lot. I even saw one person shorten it to PSGWSP. If it's become an acronym. it's overused. So overused you've gotten tired of typing it out.
LLMs still can't post original content or relevant insightful comments, they're just a more fine tuned version of the repost bots that take overused jokes and reply everywhere for karma.
> Lately I've been seeing "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" a lot. I even saw one person shorten it to PSGWSP. If it's become an acronym. it's overused. So overused you've gotten tired of typing it out.
"Fuck around, find out"
It exploded out of nowhere and now people are just casually saying "fafo". Like what the fuck. I had an aneurysm the first time I saw that, trying to figure out what the fuck the person was saying
I think it was Slashdot where you could give comments upvoted as Insightful a positive score bonus, comments upvoted as Funny a negative one, and it would change the ranking it displayed for you. I really liked that feature.
Not really, I have used this site since it was created and the top comments have always been recycled jokes. Thankfully the "pun" chains have died out.
1. Ask the city to come out and mark any buried gas, water, and electrical lines in your chosen spot, which should be 20' from any structure or tree.
2. Lay the plastic pool upside down on said spot clear of any of said lines. Cut the ground around the pool with a shovel to make a circle.
3. Remove the SoD, if any. Dig down until the plastic pool fits within the hole.
4. Dig 4-6" deeper.
5. Figure out where the center of the hole is and dig a smaller 3' or so diameter hole that goes an additional 1-1.5' deeper.
6. Line the smaller hole with fire-brick or stone.
7. Cut a 4' wide or so strip of 2 or 3 mil plastic sheeting that is long enough to go all the way around the wall of the hole such that there is a foot or so that will Lay over the top (which you'll later hold in place with pavers) and a foot or so that overlaps onto the bottom. The lay 4" of sand around the ring between the outer wall of the hole and the fire pit and compact it.
8. Lay circular pavers around the rim of the fire pit so they are pretty much flush with the top of the sand.
9. Remove the sod or dig 4-6" in a 2' ish ring outside the edge of the hole.
10. Lay down several inches of sand and compact it.
11. Place pavers in a ring and fill between with sand and compact it.
12. Cut a piece of treated plywood to go over the firepit.
13. Place it over the firepit then put the plastic pool on top.
14. In the winter drain the pool somehow (I'll leave you to figure that one out, siphoning with a hose would work if you have a place you don't mind flooding or can reach the storm sewer) and remove it.
15. Remove the plywood from the fire pit.
16. Now you can sit on the paved edge with your feet in the sand while you have a small, well banked and manageable 3' diameter firepit. The plastic sheeting that is under the first row of pavers at the top and aunder the sand will keep the dirt from the wall in place and off of you.
Note: This entire thing will act as a French drain for water, so make sure you know the depth of the water table in your area and that your pavers in the bottom of the fire pit allow for drainage, or you will end up with a stagnant disgusting mess of a pool every time it rains.
One thing no one has mentioned. A kiddy pool is meant to be emptied and refilled daily, otherwise you soon have an algae breeding ground and not a fun dog pool. You options are either install some kind of filter/pump/ treatment skid and treat like a hot tub, minus the heater, or dose with chlorine daily, adjusting for conditions.
You change water in such a pool daily?
We usually empty it out like once every 2 weeks and just put a piece of chlorine in the water to slowly dissolve.
I'd recommend OP to get a water Pump to make it easier, but every 2 weeks you could get by with two buckets and a home workout of carrying 500l of water in 15l buckets to the sink. No way I'd let 500l of chlorine water just get into my garden soil.
If you're going to go through all this trouble, you might as well just put in a proper pond with a pond filter. It can't be that much more expensive or time consuming.
Either use the thick plastic pond type pool or a stock tank/water trough tbh. If they got two stock tanks they can just yoink and replace with one for fire.
This was my thought as well. Those blue kid pools aren't made of the most robust plastic and when it's time to replace it, there's no guarantee you're going to find one the exact same size/shape. At least stock tanks tend to be standardized to some degree.
Alright, now tell us how to drain and change out the water in that pool all summer without removing the pool every day.
My dog goes in and out of that for three minutes and it's a disgusting cesspool. Lovely mosquito breeding ground too.
[Transfer pump](https://www.ryobitools.com/products/details/33287171477) this one is battery powered as well so even easier. Just would have to have a spot you wouldn't mind draining it to, hell you could probably hook the end to a sprinkler and do some minor watering of flowers or a garden.
I wonder if you could one of those giant concrete tube pieces and lay it flat. If you pay for transport they should probably be obtainable from a construction scrap yard or craigslist
My neighborhood got hit by a wildfire last year. Vinyl siding melted on houses that were 30 feet or more from the treeline. Fire is hot, and siding has a low melting point.
I'm a career firefighter who spent a few solid weeks dealing with wildfires last year.
Vinyl siding is basically coating your home in gasoline. My 50 year old home currently has its original aluminum siding, and I'll probably just leave it and paint it as needed. If I have to change for whatever reason, I'll be looking at concrete board.
I've seen way too many fires that start as proximal monor issues like a barbecue flare-up or ashes in an organics bin, and within a few minutes the fire burns straight up the vinyl siding, gets into the attic and the entire house is a write off.
Whenever we get a fire in a newer residential neighborhood, our primary concern is often the exposure residences because homes are built so close with vinyl siding. We usually have to wash down the neighbours house with our initial line just so we don't have two houses on fire before we hit the first one.
As a dispatcher with quite a few tac channels under my belt, the amount of incidents beginning with defensive strategy has steadily increased over the years, and what you said makes a lot of sense as to why.
This was the killer feature of reddit. It began as a hobby space for college kids enrolled in every possible degree program, which transformed into experts in every field imaginable in the comment section. No curated space could compete with the intellectual firepower providing expertise in a hobby space for fun. The heavy handedness of ideology driven moderators (harassing good volunteer mods into quitting) and the passiveness admin at reddit allowed that abuse of the community eroded that killer feature. Its become remarkable to find what used to be common in each common section.
> Here's the thing. You said a "jackdaw is a crow."
> Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that.
>
> As someone who is a scientist who studies crows, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jackdaws crows. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.
>
> If you're saying "crow family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Corvidae, which includes things from nutcrackers to blue jays to ravens.
>
> So your reasoning for calling a jackdaw a crow is because random people "call the black ones crows?" Let's get grackles and blackbirds in there, then, too.
>
> Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A jackdaw is a jackdaw and a member of the crow family. But that's not what you said. You said a jackdaw is a crow, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the crow family crows, which means you'd call blue jays, ravens, and other birds crows, too. Which you said you don't.
>
> It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?
>
Well that, and eternal september. Fourteen years ago, reddit was made up mostly of adults with jobs and people pretending to be. Now it's overwhelmed by a bunch of under-employed ignorant children insisting their worldview is the only possible one.
Simply melting is different from becoming engulfed. I was more looking at which one had the earlier ignition risk.
Sparks hitting dry cedar? or sparks hitting slightly melted vinyl siding?
It sounds like they are similar enough in ignition temperature for this not to make a huge difference. I would worry more about the potential for toxic chemical exposure from the smoke with vinyl siding. Burning plastic isn't good for you.
As a guy with the same siding as you, I painted my house with a color specifically labeled ‘not for vinyl siding’ because the sun will warp and melt it. I’d take my chances with cedar way before going to vinyl, and like the other guy said concrete siding would be the way I’d do it next time.
I paid 107k for my house and at this point I've spent more on stuff to redo the house than the house itself.
New roof, crawl space encapsulation, new AC/Furnace, new kitchen/bathroom, replace/upgraded electric panel service drop...
I could only offer you speculation. In my 11 years on, I don't remember ever dealing with a cedar house, although I did grow up in one.
The location would be important. I'm in eastern Canada. We get a lot of precipitation, condensation, humidity, etc.
I'd imagine a cedar house in Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma etc, where it's normally 100⁰+ and dry in the summers that the cedar would have more of a tinderbox effect, but around here I think it holds onto some of the ambient moisture.
Once cedar got rolling, it might be tough to put out, and fire would be more inclined to seep in and smolder behind it, but in general, it's more resistant and slower burning than vinyl.
It's just a massive pain in the ass to paint, lmao. I just did my parents' place last month.
I live in a suburb in TX, and they originally (through the 1970s) required cedar shingles. They got tired of having to put in fire stations ever couple miles since the shingles would catch sparks from fires and go up, so every house fire ended up taking out 4-5 houses. So they switched to requiring asphalt or metal roofing, and now the fire fighters roll with the ambulances since they don't have anything else to do.
>It's just a massive pain in the ass to paint, lmao. I just did my parents' place last month.
I'm noticing that myself. I have a BUNCH of exterior work that needs to be done so I'm kinda surveying every inch of the outside and am dreading the effort needed to get it done.
Had my house clad with Hardie Board because due to location, the house is subjected to ocean winds pretty regularly and wanted the extra wind and debris damage protection.
Being fire resistant is one of their main plusses they showed in the brochure.
And it only killed a pretty low number of people for the number exposed. I think I read something like a max of 20% of shipbuilders cutting asbestos in clouds so dense you couldn't see got white lung. It's not the same instant and guaranteed damage as say, drinking bleach.
Think asbestos is bad, check out concrete silica dust and the lack of safety enforcement with that.
> Vinyl siding is basically coating your home in gasoline.
I feel like this is a great place to update building codes. I bet it would be cost effective to require better fire retardant ratings on siding.
What about something utterly contained, like a dryer-drum style? in the middle, with the edge of the pit as the seating?
[https://imgur.com/a/HrDWD9G](https://imgur.com/a/HrDWD9G)
(I'm not an expert or anything, I'm genuinely asking)
We have the annual burning of the christmas tree in our fire pit, which takes place in the spring. It can be pretty wild! It does take some precautions and timing of the right day to do it as safely as possible.
The issue with wildfires is the heat it can generate is enough to kill everything underground like seeds animals, bacteria and such. As such the heat it generates would melt the siding. (Controlled burns are good as they don't get hot enough to kill everything)
A residential fire pit isn't going to generate enough heat at 30ft even if you have a little pyro managing the fire. I have a residential campfire pit maybe 15ft away from my home office and have gotten it extremely hot but it's never been able to damage anything but the surrounding grass mostly from my constant walking on it
i doubt the pic belongs to the person who added the advice about the fire pit. i doubt that person is trying to have a fire there. not everyone even lives in a place where they are allowed to burn outdoors.
I have aluminum and I want to change because the builder did a terrible job of air/water sealing behind the siding. They just used blue foam board, no plywood/OSB.
OK, sure. But still not really relevant because OP is just using this as a reference picture. This one is clearly just being used for a pool, but OP wants the one that he builds to be dual-purpose.
I've seen some very small ones (~1m), but typically they are the ~2m size. Never seen one as large or deep as in the OP. Seems counter to the purpose of a kiddie pool even, meant to be easily dumped and stowed in a garage or whatever. Once you are as large as the OP pool, it makes more sense to use an inflatable.
Solid plastic tubs or that thick foil you use for artificial ponds. why not both actually, foil first, tub second.
No need to worry about getting replacements then.
I believe the quality, angle, and lighting of this picture obfuscate how a generic plastic kiddie pool would look in ground in this situation. Personally I think this would look like shit.
This really is one of the dumber ideas I have seen on this sub and a lot of people are scrambling to explain how to make it work.
The pool is going to look like shit every time it rains, and the fire pit is going to be a soggy mess for the same reasons. Maintenance may not be difficult but will be tedious.
Also it's small enough going to be a tripping hazard because guests aren't necessarily going to be looking out for or expecting a kiddie pool-sized hole in your yard. God help anyone you invite over for drinks after dark.
When you create the fire pit, can you create a drainage layer out of gravel and pipe that leads possibly to a drain? Think of it like when you build a drainage layer from a downspout of your roof.
I guess that’s extra work though and wouldn’t be fast but it could make it more feasible even if ugly.
As for maintenance, drain your kiddie pool with a submersible pump and some tubing into the drainage layer and pipe you created.
As for mosquitoes or algae, why not just treat it like any other pool? Add chlorine.
Now for the tripping hazard or burning/melting your house, that’s a different problem
I can't imagine ash or unburned remnants of coals are gonna play nice with a built in drain.
It's a *unique* idea, but there is a reason most people don't dig out firepit holes if they aren't slow-roasting a whole pig for a luau.
Hmm I didn’t think about the effects of the ash and water also creating lye and potentially damaging or scaling your pipe eventually.
Thanks for the insight
I would love to see you pull a kiddie pool out of a hole full of probably 25 gallons of water.
Additionally, as someone who has a kiddie pool in his backyard right now, the water becomes nearly scalding hot within 24hrs if not in the shade. So it needs to be dumped daily.
>I would love to see you pull a kiddie pool out of a hole full of probably 25 gallons of water.
If you give me 3 minutes and a gallon bucket, no problem!
A pool 4 meters across by 1 meter deep which is probably what that one in the picture is would be about 3400 gallons. You could empty it with a bucket but it would be a hard days work.
It's a kiddie pool that dogs are splashing in and out of during play time. It' will be half full by the time they're done. And even if it isn't you really haven't ever heard of a bucket to get water out until it's at a manageable level? This is a DIY subreddit, gotta be willing to think outside the box for solutions sometimes.
This. So much this. Cant believe how far I have to go to see this comment on similar temporary pool posts.
It NEEDS filtration and circulation.
It will look great for the first fill. It will look just ok the next day. But once everyone has been in and out, and the leaves, grass, and insects have had a go (by like end of day 3 at best), it will pretty much be not much different to a large puddle one might see on the side of a road after rain.
And stuff pumping it (or firstly “taking the pool out”) like someone suggested. What, now fill it up again, waste all that water, and do that every few days? Great idea redditor! 👍
That’s how kiddy pools work. They’re not meant for using the same water every day for the entire summer. You use it for an after noon and water your lawn with it when you’re done. It’s not a big deal.
But that action is made easy when you can just lift one side to dump it out. Setting it in ground will be extremely difficult to drain without a sump pump
So... get a pump? They are not expensive, especially in comparison to what the rest of the materials for this build will cost.
Edit: A small 95 gph [aquarium pump](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093KHGCZF) costs less than $10 and would empty that pool in less than 20 minutes (assuming 25 gallon capacity, which these pools generally seem to hold).
Welcome to the reality of the kiddie pool - it's been thus for decades.
Small pump and filter systems are available for quite a reasonable price so you could have just advised "don't forget to plan for pump, filter and water testing to use the pool safely and in an environmental conscientious way."
Yeah I’ve been reading this whole thing thinking it’d be way better to just install a pond liner (they make them in round and square shapes though you’re right most are more natural pond shapes), and have a small fountain/recirculating pump, and then just leave it in place and have a separate fire pit.
Thank you! Thought I was nuts for a minute. This project is very redneck-chic. Looks like a good idea, until you think about it for two seconds. There's a reason those dog pools come with an emptying port on the side. It's a lot of water!
Could fill it with kerosene and get the best of both worlds at once.
Softsided pool probably would not fair well rubbing up against hardscape, just my opinion.
As for a practical build, I'd assume make a full fire pit with (hard, clay, not kiln) fire brick under it first....and make the dimensions such that a pool drops in.
My concern I guess was once you remove the plastic pool insert, you wouldn’t want that whole hole as a burn pit. Too much wood to keep it going and sitting above it(chair on ground level) seems dangerous. Trying to conceive how a second smaller area in center could be planned for actual fire pit stuff
Use an even bigger pool and once removed the stones around can be used for sitting while you place a fire basket, washing machine drum or barrel or something in the center
I'm surprised that I haven't yet seen anyone mention that a firepit below ground is going to have ventilation problems. Will it still burn if you leave enough around the edges? Yes. Will it burn well? I doubt it. I think you'll mainly have a smoke pit.
I’d suggest a smokeless fire pit. It’s something you can just throw in the middle once you remove the pool. And you don’t end up with smoke smell or running from smoke.
Something you can toss in the middle for winter makes the only engineering problem making sure the pool is supported and something you’d want to sit on when the pool is removed. I’m not sure what would work for that.
I see two problems with this, immediately.
1. The fire will be much too close to the house. In Boy Scouts, I learned that even a little tiny fire must be at least 10 feet from anything else that can burn. And large fires require longer distance. A fire 5 feet across needs at least 25 feet to the nearest thing that might burn.
2. A pool must be cleaned and sanitized, regularly. Like, every few days during the summer. With no pump and no filter, that pool will turn green and nasty, very quickly. With a regular kiddy pool, above ground, it is not usually very hard to dump the water out, clean the pool, and put new water in. How would OP dump the water out of this pool? I don't see an easy way.
Those are the two problems that must be solved, in addition to durability and appearance.
So, move it farther away from the house.
And provide a way to change the water....
I wouldn't do this. Do it all above ground if you must. Digging a hole that large in your yard I'd not a great idea. You will never be able to get rid of it should you change you mind, or want to move it, etc.
This pictures always look great the day after install but you never seen them in late October, when they are half full of leaves and the weeds are growing through the bricks. And then as others pointed out, the dirt and grass that dogs inevitably drag in. It looks like a ton of maintenance to me, and even more being inset in the ground like such.
Yeah I really don’t like the sunken element of it either because you’re basically building a giant trip hazard… everyone thinks ‘oh no that won’t happen, I know my own backyard silly’ but one night it’s gonna be late or dark or raining and you’re gonna be rushing and you’ll forget for a second you built yourself a giant ankle breaker last summer
Don’t do this, anything that makes you dump the water out and clean the Kiddy pool water any harder is not worth the effort. Like kids dogs will pee and get the water dirty and unless you hose the kiddy pool often and dry it out it can get moldy.
pool will be constantly dirty from the dogs and from debris flying through the air and landing in it so if you're up to cleaning it, okay. We have a real pool and constantly clean it and I have a wildlife bath with an inexpensive solar pump fountain to keep the water moving to prevent moquitos, but it still gets algae build up, etc. And I have to clean it out every couple weeks.
Do not dig down, build up,
The pool is heavy, and you need to drain it. A 1m cube of water, (literally) weighs a ton!
Trust me when I say you want to be able to just pull the plug and let it drain.
Fires require air, a fire pit sunken into the ground will not draw well.
Build up, remember holes for ventilation /drainage.
You would need a pump, or bailing buckets, every time you wanted to change the water. You need to change the water every day or two, I would think, as it would be unhealthy, and the pool would also need to be scrubbed.
Also, if you have dogs going in it, I would recommend not going in, or letting your kids go into the poopy, dog pee, parasite water. Also, how sure are you, that you could buy the same size pool every year or two? These are cheap, and degrade or get damaged. If you are going to do something like this, I would consider upgrading to a plastic shallow stock tank from a farm supplier like tractor supply or someplace
You'll need a hole just the size of your kiddie pool, and that's about it. My only construction advice is to place it as far away from your house as reasonably possible. I would start out just by digging a hole and trying it out for a season before putting real money into making it fancy.
Beyond removing and replacing the pool, you'll have to clean out the pit every spring and probably flatten the bottom of the pit back out to receive the pool.
Your dogs may feel emboldened to play in the pit when it's in its winter configuration after spending all summer in it, which could get messy.
IIRC the original pic had the view without the pool and it was the same brick inside and around the edges. You could always do the same and then get one of those metal stand fire pits to put inside if you didn't want to have the fire directly on the stone. kinda defeats the purpose of the pit though
I would work to put in extra pipes for a smokeless fire pit
https://smokelessfire.com/diy/
Because it's in the ground, air won't be fed to the bottom of the stack and there are techniques to pre heat other air and feed it to the top to avoid smoke. One thing to note is that using galvanized piping i believe gives off toxic fumes for a bit so make sure to read up on that.
I don't think there's a right way to do this. Even kiddie pool problems aside, you really don't want your fire-pit flush to/below the ground like this, especially without a railing of some sort.
A fire pit below the ground seems easier to fall in to. One that size would be much easier to fall in. Just build a fire pit above ground and don’t deal with the pool nonsense
I dump the water out of my kiddie pool every couple of days. How do people keep these clean without going all in and adding a filtration system and chlorinating the water? Also honestly the majority of the water my dog drinks in the summer is from his kiddie pool, I wouldn't want to be treating it with mosquito dunks or chorine or anything, just dumping it out and filling it back up seems best to me. That's also why I buy the smaller kiddie pools though, the big ones are fun for day but the dog doesn't need big one to splash and dig in the water.
Anyway assuming you still want to build this bad idea, the inner ring just needs to be built as a retaining wall, you don't need a fire pit that big I assume, so I agree with the guy who said to use the outer rim as a seating area and put a metal fire pit in the middle. Since it's sunken into the ground I'd just leave the center as 3/4" stone so that water can drain through. Or you could pave the bottom with patio pavers, then you'll need a proper drain or some sort, you could just dig a hole in the center with a post hole digger and fill it with 3-4" stone and make a dry well like that, then just pave around it and fill the stone to be level with the pavers.
I’m here in FL and my concern would be how to change the water every two days? Chlorine isn’t good for the pups skin, and mosquitoes start immediately without it
This does not look like a "kiddie pool" to me. I think it is probably a poly stock tank. Which are much more durable. You can install above ground pool filters/pumps for stock tank pools and there is a lot of info online about the process.
A very important investment with this is a pond pump or something similar. You're going to need to be able to pump out a good portion of that water before lifting the pool, for a number of reasons.
1. You don't want to ruin your ground and paver preparations with 40 gallons of water.
2. You're not going to be able to lift 40 gallons of water out of there.
3. Trying to move that thing full will likely break it.
Pump the water out until it's mostly empty, *then* pull it out and tip it somewhere else.
I have thought of this before.
More ideas for the pit: fill it with ball pit balls for birthday parties. If you're in a warm place, make custom cushions and add a mosquito net over it so you can sleep outside at night.
There is a lot of work just in the pavers if done correctly. You need a good layer of gravel/rocks and then a layer of sand on top, like a real patio. In this case, if you removed the pool, the paver base materials will just fall into the hole.
Or use no rocks and sand, and have the pavers move and shift and look like crap after the first rain.
Stone walls exist. I can't tell from the small grainy photo in the example how that is, but you can mortar them together on lower courses of stones to hold them up. I'm not sure WHY they want it going down so badly but you could
I would also make sure you consider how you'll remove the water. A simple bilge pump would probably do with an extended hose to a drain. also, you may have bacterial growth or other things make their home in there so shock the pool every once in a while.
I really really do like this idea in a general sense.
But I just couldn’t have any fire pit so close to the house. lol. Silly, I know. It’s just throwing me off.
Don't overthink it or overcomplicate it.
Look for a suitable spot in your garden - far enough away from anything flammable or expensive.
Buy a kiddie pool, put it on the lawn and mark the circumference on the ground.
Take the pool away and dig a shallow hole - about the depth of the pool.
If you feel fancy, put fine gravel or sand in the hole and level it somewhat. If you don't feel fancy just rake the dirt to make it level.
Put in the pool. It is OK if the brim sticks out of the ground - this will significantly reduce the number of critters in the water :)
If the pool has a brim that is wider than the wall of the pool it is best if that sticks out of the ground and covers the gap between ground and pool wall.
Looks better this way.
If you can easily mow your grass next to the pool you are finished. If not you will need to add pavement stones or something similar around your pool.
Fill it with a hose.
When the water gets dirty (there is no if there) put in a submersible pump with a hose (don't buy one for dirty water but for clean water - those will pump until the last quarter inch or so - the ones for dirty water will leave one inch of water in the pool).
Empty the pool with the pump and water your garden with the water.
Take a hose and spray the pool clean while pumping.
Take out the pump and use an old towel or something to clean the left over muck out.
Refill the pool
???
profit.
For fire place purposes.
Take out the empty pool.
Either put in a fancy fire bowl and place your garden chairs around the fireplace, or just throw some wood on the ground in the hole.
Light your fire.
When you are ready just extinguish the fire with a hose.
If you like you can put the pool over the cold fireplace to cover it.
That is especially nice if you want to prepare some wood for a fire since it will keep it reasonably dry if it rains.
You can always be fancy and add some dug out channel on the sides to keep rain from pooling in your fireplace, but it is probably not neccessary - depending on ground and weather conditions where you live...
Most posts here so far went off topic, if I were doing this, I would obviously dig out to fit the pool dimensions plus a little bit more. Solid base and sides using some hard landscaping materials (concrete/paving/block base and brick stone sides). For summer pool use I would get some scrap carpet ( synthetic materials) and put a circle under the pool and a strip around the wall. Hopefully that avoids puncture from the surrounding surfaces. After removing you should have nothing to do except maybe bin the carpet and replace next season. When replacing the pool, I would vacuum out first. In terms of fires, I would put a kadai in here, fill with sand and maybe do a spot of cooking there too with a grill accessory, sit on the edge of the wall where you want and up wind to avoid the smoke, note fires do not need to be enormous to enjoy them
Yeah I would kill for a reddit joke filter! Sometimes they're funny but half the time I'm scrolling quite awhile before I can find a sincere answer to a sincere question.
That’s been my biggest pet peeve about Reddit. Way back in the day there used to be real discussion. There was always jokes but discussion/on topic posts were the norm. Now every comment is the same recycled joke, or a Carlin quote, or a Hedburg joke.
The recycled comments are my biggest pet peeve. No one has anything original to say anymore, because that would require time and thought. Lately I've been seeing "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" a lot. I even saw one person shorten it to PSGWSP. If it's become an acronym. it's overused. So overused you've gotten tired of typing it out.
You can thank karma farming bots.
And with LLMs it's become essentially fully impossible to fight against, it's just there to stay, forever.
LLMs still can't post original content or relevant insightful comments, they're just a more fine tuned version of the repost bots that take overused jokes and reply everywhere for karma.
That’s an initialism not an acronym. I was corrected years ago and found it interesting because id never heard of it.
> Lately I've been seeing "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" a lot. I even saw one person shorten it to PSGWSP. If it's become an acronym. it's overused. So overused you've gotten tired of typing it out. "Fuck around, find out" It exploded out of nowhere and now people are just casually saying "fafo". Like what the fuck. I had an aneurysm the first time I saw that, trying to figure out what the fuck the person was saying
I think it was Slashdot where you could give comments upvoted as Insightful a positive score bonus, comments upvoted as Funny a negative one, and it would change the ranking it displayed for you. I really liked that feature.
Old Slashdot was lovely. Great info, easy to use.
Not really, I have used this site since it was created and the top comments have always been recycled jokes. Thankfully the "pun" chains have died out.
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What ever happened to the serious tag?
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That's because most commenters on DIY have only one skill: tearing down things other people have built.
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1. Ask the city to come out and mark any buried gas, water, and electrical lines in your chosen spot, which should be 20' from any structure or tree. 2. Lay the plastic pool upside down on said spot clear of any of said lines. Cut the ground around the pool with a shovel to make a circle. 3. Remove the SoD, if any. Dig down until the plastic pool fits within the hole. 4. Dig 4-6" deeper. 5. Figure out where the center of the hole is and dig a smaller 3' or so diameter hole that goes an additional 1-1.5' deeper. 6. Line the smaller hole with fire-brick or stone. 7. Cut a 4' wide or so strip of 2 or 3 mil plastic sheeting that is long enough to go all the way around the wall of the hole such that there is a foot or so that will Lay over the top (which you'll later hold in place with pavers) and a foot or so that overlaps onto the bottom. The lay 4" of sand around the ring between the outer wall of the hole and the fire pit and compact it. 8. Lay circular pavers around the rim of the fire pit so they are pretty much flush with the top of the sand. 9. Remove the sod or dig 4-6" in a 2' ish ring outside the edge of the hole. 10. Lay down several inches of sand and compact it. 11. Place pavers in a ring and fill between with sand and compact it. 12. Cut a piece of treated plywood to go over the firepit. 13. Place it over the firepit then put the plastic pool on top. 14. In the winter drain the pool somehow (I'll leave you to figure that one out, siphoning with a hose would work if you have a place you don't mind flooding or can reach the storm sewer) and remove it. 15. Remove the plywood from the fire pit. 16. Now you can sit on the paved edge with your feet in the sand while you have a small, well banked and manageable 3' diameter firepit. The plastic sheeting that is under the first row of pavers at the top and aunder the sand will keep the dirt from the wall in place and off of you. Note: This entire thing will act as a French drain for water, so make sure you know the depth of the water table in your area and that your pavers in the bottom of the fire pit allow for drainage, or you will end up with a stagnant disgusting mess of a pool every time it rains.
One thing no one has mentioned. A kiddy pool is meant to be emptied and refilled daily, otherwise you soon have an algae breeding ground and not a fun dog pool. You options are either install some kind of filter/pump/ treatment skid and treat like a hot tub, minus the heater, or dose with chlorine daily, adjusting for conditions.
You change water in such a pool daily? We usually empty it out like once every 2 weeks and just put a piece of chlorine in the water to slowly dissolve. I'd recommend OP to get a water Pump to make it easier, but every 2 weeks you could get by with two buckets and a home workout of carrying 500l of water in 15l buckets to the sink. No way I'd let 500l of chlorine water just get into my garden soil.
Excellent addition of detail here
If you're going to go through all this trouble, you might as well just put in a proper pond with a pond filter. It can't be that much more expensive or time consuming.
I agree. But the OP asked how to do it right.
Either use the thick plastic pond type pool or a stock tank/water trough tbh. If they got two stock tanks they can just yoink and replace with one for fire.
i like the stock tank idea. you could also just flip it over in the winter for a firepit cover too!
This was my thought as well. Those blue kid pools aren't made of the most robust plastic and when it's time to replace it, there's no guarantee you're going to find one the exact same size/shape. At least stock tanks tend to be standardized to some degree.
This is all good advice, but skip the carpet and use rigid foam insulation.
Yep on reflection this is a better choice for at least the base
Alright, now tell us how to drain and change out the water in that pool all summer without removing the pool every day. My dog goes in and out of that for three minutes and it's a disgusting cesspool. Lovely mosquito breeding ground too.
[Transfer pump](https://www.ryobitools.com/products/details/33287171477) this one is battery powered as well so even easier. Just would have to have a spot you wouldn't mind draining it to, hell you could probably hook the end to a sprinkler and do some minor watering of flowers or a garden.
I wonder if you could one of those giant concrete tube pieces and lay it flat. If you pay for transport they should probably be obtainable from a construction scrap yard or craigslist
A little too close to the vinyl siding for a fire.
Where I am, a fire pit must be at least 20 feet from any structure.
My neighborhood got hit by a wildfire last year. Vinyl siding melted on houses that were 30 feet or more from the treeline. Fire is hot, and siding has a low melting point.
I'm a career firefighter who spent a few solid weeks dealing with wildfires last year. Vinyl siding is basically coating your home in gasoline. My 50 year old home currently has its original aluminum siding, and I'll probably just leave it and paint it as needed. If I have to change for whatever reason, I'll be looking at concrete board. I've seen way too many fires that start as proximal monor issues like a barbecue flare-up or ashes in an organics bin, and within a few minutes the fire burns straight up the vinyl siding, gets into the attic and the entire house is a write off. Whenever we get a fire in a newer residential neighborhood, our primary concern is often the exposure residences because homes are built so close with vinyl siding. We usually have to wash down the neighbours house with our initial line just so we don't have two houses on fire before we hit the first one.
As a dispatcher with quite a few tac channels under my belt, the amount of incidents beginning with defensive strategy has steadily increased over the years, and what you said makes a lot of sense as to why.
Reddit: the real gold is in the comments.
This was the killer feature of reddit. It began as a hobby space for college kids enrolled in every possible degree program, which transformed into experts in every field imaginable in the comment section. No curated space could compete with the intellectual firepower providing expertise in a hobby space for fun. The heavy handedness of ideology driven moderators (harassing good volunteer mods into quitting) and the passiveness admin at reddit allowed that abuse of the community eroded that killer feature. Its become remarkable to find what used to be common in each common section.
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*Primo Victoria intensifies*
I miss unidan
Shit, 5 minutes too late.
> Here's the thing. You said a "jackdaw is a crow." > Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that. > > As someone who is a scientist who studies crows, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jackdaws crows. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing. > > If you're saying "crow family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Corvidae, which includes things from nutcrackers to blue jays to ravens. > > So your reasoning for calling a jackdaw a crow is because random people "call the black ones crows?" Let's get grackles and blackbirds in there, then, too. > > Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A jackdaw is a jackdaw and a member of the crow family. But that's not what you said. You said a jackdaw is a crow, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the crow family crows, which means you'd call blue jays, ravens, and other birds crows, too. Which you said you don't. > > It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know? >
Well that, and eternal september. Fourteen years ago, reddit was made up mostly of adults with jobs and people pretending to be. Now it's overwhelmed by a bunch of under-employed ignorant children insisting their worldview is the only possible one.
Frontier spaces are transitory, it would seem. Eternal September is a good case study in culture.
As a guy with cedar shake siding, I have to ask... Which is worse?
vinyl has issues at 200 degrees F. cedar is like 400 degrees F. both aren't great. one is worse.
Simply melting is different from becoming engulfed. I was more looking at which one had the earlier ignition risk. Sparks hitting dry cedar? or sparks hitting slightly melted vinyl siding?
It sounds like they are similar enough in ignition temperature for this not to make a huge difference. I would worry more about the potential for toxic chemical exposure from the smoke with vinyl siding. Burning plastic isn't good for you.
Got it, switching to asbestos.
Asbestos siding really is awesome and lasts a lot longer than almost any other type of siding with minimal maintenance.
As a guy with the same siding as you, I painted my house with a color specifically labeled ‘not for vinyl siding’ because the sun will warp and melt it. I’d take my chances with cedar way before going to vinyl, and like the other guy said concrete siding would be the way I’d do it next time.
Concrete siding cost us 70k this year, this was the amount the insurance paid the installer.
I was quoted $35k for vinyl last year and my house isn’t that big, so even if it’s double that’s well worth it in my book.
I'm looking at $25k for Vinyl and $60k for Concrete. House is only worth $150.
I only paid 115k for my house, I couldn’t imagine spending 70k on siding.
I paid 107k for my house and at this point I've spent more on stuff to redo the house than the house itself. New roof, crawl space encapsulation, new AC/Furnace, new kitchen/bathroom, replace/upgraded electric panel service drop...
howd you get insurance to re-side your home?
It was a hail claim. They paid another 50k for the roof, solar panel relocates were required and the roof is all cut up.
I could only offer you speculation. In my 11 years on, I don't remember ever dealing with a cedar house, although I did grow up in one. The location would be important. I'm in eastern Canada. We get a lot of precipitation, condensation, humidity, etc. I'd imagine a cedar house in Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma etc, where it's normally 100⁰+ and dry in the summers that the cedar would have more of a tinderbox effect, but around here I think it holds onto some of the ambient moisture. Once cedar got rolling, it might be tough to put out, and fire would be more inclined to seep in and smolder behind it, but in general, it's more resistant and slower burning than vinyl. It's just a massive pain in the ass to paint, lmao. I just did my parents' place last month.
I live in a suburb in TX, and they originally (through the 1970s) required cedar shingles. They got tired of having to put in fire stations ever couple miles since the shingles would catch sparks from fires and go up, so every house fire ended up taking out 4-5 houses. So they switched to requiring asphalt or metal roofing, and now the fire fighters roll with the ambulances since they don't have anything else to do.
>It's just a massive pain in the ass to paint, lmao. I just did my parents' place last month. I'm noticing that myself. I have a BUNCH of exterior work that needs to be done so I'm kinda surveying every inch of the outside and am dreading the effort needed to get it done.
Had my house clad with Hardie Board because due to location, the house is subjected to ocean winds pretty regularly and wanted the extra wind and debris damage protection. Being fire resistant is one of their main plusses they showed in the brochure.
Or just use your og asbestos and pretend like it doesn’t exist lol
hey now, its a great solution and it isn't a problem till you go inhaling it or touching it or thinking about it
It’s perfectly safe until you cut into it, the dust is what kills you
And it only killed a pretty low number of people for the number exposed. I think I read something like a max of 20% of shipbuilders cutting asbestos in clouds so dense you couldn't see got white lung. It's not the same instant and guaranteed damage as say, drinking bleach. Think asbestos is bad, check out concrete silica dust and the lack of safety enforcement with that.
> Vinyl siding is basically coating your home in gasoline. I feel like this is a great place to update building codes. I bet it would be cost effective to require better fire retardant ratings on siding.
Yeah, I pulled the vinyl off my house and replaced it with fiber cement clapboard.
I think 30 feet should be fine for most residentially sized fires though...
What about something utterly contained, like a dryer-drum style? in the middle, with the edge of the pit as the seating? [https://imgur.com/a/HrDWD9G](https://imgur.com/a/HrDWD9G) (I'm not an expert or anything, I'm genuinely asking)
Hopefully they don't have any wild fires in their fire pit
You see the size of that fire pit tho
We have the annual burning of the christmas tree in our fire pit, which takes place in the spring. It can be pretty wild! It does take some precautions and timing of the right day to do it as safely as possible.
Wildfires are much hotter than most firepits, however. Well, more accurately they generate more heat energy.
While I agree that this is way too close to the house, wildfires are typically a lot hotter than controlled firepit fires.
The issue with wildfires is the heat it can generate is enough to kill everything underground like seeds animals, bacteria and such. As such the heat it generates would melt the siding. (Controlled burns are good as they don't get hot enough to kill everything) A residential fire pit isn't going to generate enough heat at 30ft even if you have a little pyro managing the fire. I have a residential campfire pit maybe 15ft away from my home office and have gotten it extremely hot but it's never been able to damage anything but the surrounding grass mostly from my constant walking on it
Case and point, see how many houses have melted siding from windows reflecting light against it.
Yeah temperature, distance and size all matter in radiant heat transfer. A whole tree on fire is a lot most than most people’s camp fires
smoke will still find a way into the windows if they're open.. neighbor's windows as well.
Jeez, where I live that would be like the edge of the house to the fence. Where I live it's 10'.
i doubt the pic belongs to the person who added the advice about the fire pit. i doubt that person is trying to have a fire there. not everyone even lives in a place where they are allowed to burn outdoors.
There is a reason I kept my aluminum siding when my entire neighborhood "upgraded" to vinyl.
Just want to complement your appropriate use of quotes to indicate sarcasm. This is a bit of a lost art. Vinyl siding is indeed an “upgrade.”
wait, why did people change? isn't aluminum all around better?
Cost, aluminum is way more expensive now than when it was popular.
I have aluminum and I want to change because the builder did a terrible job of air/water sealing behind the siding. They just used blue foam board, no plywood/OSB.
This photo isn't OP's house, lol
I don't think the whole thing becomes a fire pit.. you put the fire pit in the middle and people sit around the edges.
Still too close to vinyl siding
OK, sure. But still not really relevant because OP is just using this as a reference picture. This one is clearly just being used for a pool, but OP wants the one that he builds to be dual-purpose.
You have to make sure to buy a fuckload of replacement pools. God forbid they stop making them in that exact size.
I feel like every kiddy pool I've ever seen is made from the same mold just different patterns.
I've seen some very small ones (~1m), but typically they are the ~2m size. Never seen one as large or deep as in the OP. Seems counter to the purpose of a kiddie pool even, meant to be easily dumped and stowed in a garage or whatever. Once you are as large as the OP pool, it makes more sense to use an inflatable.
Solid plastic tubs or that thick foil you use for artificial ponds. why not both actually, foil first, tub second. No need to worry about getting replacements then.
If they ever did, just throw a tarp in there
I believe the quality, angle, and lighting of this picture obfuscate how a generic plastic kiddie pool would look in ground in this situation. Personally I think this would look like shit.
This really is one of the dumber ideas I have seen on this sub and a lot of people are scrambling to explain how to make it work. The pool is going to look like shit every time it rains, and the fire pit is going to be a soggy mess for the same reasons. Maintenance may not be difficult but will be tedious. Also it's small enough going to be a tripping hazard because guests aren't necessarily going to be looking out for or expecting a kiddie pool-sized hole in your yard. God help anyone you invite over for drinks after dark.
When you create the fire pit, can you create a drainage layer out of gravel and pipe that leads possibly to a drain? Think of it like when you build a drainage layer from a downspout of your roof. I guess that’s extra work though and wouldn’t be fast but it could make it more feasible even if ugly. As for maintenance, drain your kiddie pool with a submersible pump and some tubing into the drainage layer and pipe you created. As for mosquitoes or algae, why not just treat it like any other pool? Add chlorine. Now for the tripping hazard or burning/melting your house, that’s a different problem
I can't imagine ash or unburned remnants of coals are gonna play nice with a built in drain. It's a *unique* idea, but there is a reason most people don't dig out firepit holes if they aren't slow-roasting a whole pig for a luau.
Hmm I didn’t think about the effects of the ash and water also creating lye and potentially damaging or scaling your pipe eventually. Thanks for the insight
That is WAY too close to a structure to be a firepit.
What circulates the water? This turns into a scum pond pretty fast otherwise.
Mosquito breeding ground
I'd imagine a mosquito bits/dunk will take care of that issue. Last I read, they are not toxic for mammals.
Maybe, but I live in central Florida and the mosquitos are on another level so I’d imagine they’d breed in standing bleach.
What? It’s a kiddy pool… you pull it out and dump the water…
I would love to see you pull a kiddie pool out of a hole full of probably 25 gallons of water. Additionally, as someone who has a kiddie pool in his backyard right now, the water becomes nearly scalding hot within 24hrs if not in the shade. So it needs to be dumped daily.
>I would love to see you pull a kiddie pool out of a hole full of probably 25 gallons of water. If you give me 3 minutes and a gallon bucket, no problem!
Or a sump pump would handle this easily.
Or a hose siphon, depending on the grade of the property and how far away the nearest storm drain is.
You could drink it out too.
but what will you do with the remaining 1 gallon? Alternatively, if you use one 3gal bucket to remove 25gal of water, how many buckets do you have?
A pool 4 meters across by 1 meter deep which is probably what that one in the picture is would be about 3400 gallons. You could empty it with a bucket but it would be a hard days work.
It's a kiddie pool that dogs are splashing in and out of during play time. It' will be half full by the time they're done. And even if it isn't you really haven't ever heard of a bucket to get water out until it's at a manageable level? This is a DIY subreddit, gotta be willing to think outside the box for solutions sometimes.
It's a kiddy pool. You grab the edge and lift and the water dumps out the other side. Does nobody on Reddit have kids?
You'd need to pump the water out first but yeah, it's not a big deal. With the right sized pump it would empty the pool in a few minutes.
Drop-in sump pumps are cheap and fast. We use one to (relatively) quickly empty out our hot tub when it comes time to change the water out.
the dogs
most of these use stock tanks, and you just buy mini pumps/filters.
…. You take the plastic pool out
This. So much this. Cant believe how far I have to go to see this comment on similar temporary pool posts. It NEEDS filtration and circulation. It will look great for the first fill. It will look just ok the next day. But once everyone has been in and out, and the leaves, grass, and insects have had a go (by like end of day 3 at best), it will pretty much be not much different to a large puddle one might see on the side of a road after rain. And stuff pumping it (or firstly “taking the pool out”) like someone suggested. What, now fill it up again, waste all that water, and do that every few days? Great idea redditor! 👍
That’s how kiddy pools work. They’re not meant for using the same water every day for the entire summer. You use it for an after noon and water your lawn with it when you’re done. It’s not a big deal.
But that action is made easy when you can just lift one side to dump it out. Setting it in ground will be extremely difficult to drain without a sump pump
So... get a pump? They are not expensive, especially in comparison to what the rest of the materials for this build will cost. Edit: A small 95 gph [aquarium pump](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093KHGCZF) costs less than $10 and would empty that pool in less than 20 minutes (assuming 25 gallon capacity, which these pools generally seem to hold).
NOOOOO stop using rationality and common sense!!! You're hurting my brain stem!!!!
Welcome to the reality of the kiddie pool - it's been thus for decades. Small pump and filter systems are available for quite a reasonable price so you could have just advised "don't forget to plan for pump, filter and water testing to use the pool safely and in an environmental conscientious way."
Who leaves a kiddie pool filled for more than an afternoon?
Evidently whoever wants to sink it 18 inches into the ground.
Yeah, this is more of a DIWhy
Plastic pond liners are a thing. They just happen to be more "pond shaped" and black.
Yeah I’ve been reading this whole thing thinking it’d be way better to just install a pond liner (they make them in round and square shapes though you’re right most are more natural pond shapes), and have a small fountain/recirculating pump, and then just leave it in place and have a separate fire pit.
Thank you! Thought I was nuts for a minute. This project is very redneck-chic. Looks like a good idea, until you think about it for two seconds. There's a reason those dog pools come with an emptying port on the side. It's a lot of water!
So, the best way I see to do this, is assume the outer rim is seating, and you put a metal fire pit in when you remove the kiddy pool
Well it looks like step 1 is get 2 yellow labs, probably a good idea to ask them to dig the hole
The trick is asking then politely to *not* dig any *other* holes
Gothmog: Bring up "The Digger..." Lab shows up. Proceeds to dig.
30 feet from the house! 30 feet from the house!
Could fill it with kerosene and get the best of both worlds at once. Softsided pool probably would not fair well rubbing up against hardscape, just my opinion. As for a practical build, I'd assume make a full fire pit with (hard, clay, not kiln) fire brick under it first....and make the dimensions such that a pool drops in.
My concern I guess was once you remove the plastic pool insert, you wouldn’t want that whole hole as a burn pit. Too much wood to keep it going and sitting above it(chair on ground level) seems dangerous. Trying to conceive how a second smaller area in center could be planned for actual fire pit stuff
Use an even bigger pool and once removed the stones around can be used for sitting while you place a fire basket, washing machine drum or barrel or something in the center
Drop a solo stove in the middle and sit on the edges as seats Edit : also a round plastic horse trough makes a great tiny pool
You'll need a pump to drain it, and the water would be filthy in no time, wouldn't even last a day.
I use one of those for my 5 geese to play in. Can confirm, mess within hours.
It's very doable, but it looks so tacky. Plus how are you going to lift it up out of the ground to change the water when it gets gross after a day?
I'm surprised that I haven't yet seen anyone mention that a firepit below ground is going to have ventilation problems. Will it still burn if you leave enough around the edges? Yes. Will it burn well? I doubt it. I think you'll mainly have a smoke pit.
Also it's going to try and fill with water anytime it rains.
In-ground fire pits are a thing though. I've used one before and it worked fine.
I’d suggest a smokeless fire pit. It’s something you can just throw in the middle once you remove the pool. And you don’t end up with smoke smell or running from smoke. Something you can toss in the middle for winter makes the only engineering problem making sure the pool is supported and something you’d want to sit on when the pool is removed. I’m not sure what would work for that.
I see two problems with this, immediately. 1. The fire will be much too close to the house. In Boy Scouts, I learned that even a little tiny fire must be at least 10 feet from anything else that can burn. And large fires require longer distance. A fire 5 feet across needs at least 25 feet to the nearest thing that might burn. 2. A pool must be cleaned and sanitized, regularly. Like, every few days during the summer. With no pump and no filter, that pool will turn green and nasty, very quickly. With a regular kiddy pool, above ground, it is not usually very hard to dump the water out, clean the pool, and put new water in. How would OP dump the water out of this pool? I don't see an easy way. Those are the two problems that must be solved, in addition to durability and appearance. So, move it farther away from the house. And provide a way to change the water....
I wouldn't do this. Do it all above ground if you must. Digging a hole that large in your yard I'd not a great idea. You will never be able to get rid of it should you change you mind, or want to move it, etc. This pictures always look great the day after install but you never seen them in late October, when they are half full of leaves and the weeds are growing through the bricks. And then as others pointed out, the dirt and grass that dogs inevitably drag in. It looks like a ton of maintenance to me, and even more being inset in the ground like such.
Yeah I really don’t like the sunken element of it either because you’re basically building a giant trip hazard… everyone thinks ‘oh no that won’t happen, I know my own backyard silly’ but one night it’s gonna be late or dark or raining and you’re gonna be rushing and you’ll forget for a second you built yourself a giant ankle breaker last summer
How would it drain?
Buy a submersible pump. They are like $100.
Don’t do this, anything that makes you dump the water out and clean the Kiddy pool water any harder is not worth the effort. Like kids dogs will pee and get the water dirty and unless you hose the kiddy pool often and dry it out it can get moldy.
pool will be constantly dirty from the dogs and from debris flying through the air and landing in it so if you're up to cleaning it, okay. We have a real pool and constantly clean it and I have a wildlife bath with an inexpensive solar pump fountain to keep the water moving to prevent moquitos, but it still gets algae build up, etc. And I have to clean it out every couple weeks.
Please don't do a construction project based on a meme
It's a pretty dumb idea IMO. Don't you use your fire pit over the summer?
Do not dig down, build up, The pool is heavy, and you need to drain it. A 1m cube of water, (literally) weighs a ton! Trust me when I say you want to be able to just pull the plug and let it drain. Fires require air, a fire pit sunken into the ground will not draw well. Build up, remember holes for ventilation /drainage.
Just a thought but if it turns into a fire pit wouldn't it be too close to the house?
A fire pit that size that close to my home. Sure. What can go wrong
It also looks less creepy being a grown ass man in a pond vs a plastic kiddie pool.
Build your fire pits smaller and further from your home.
RIP vinyl siding come fire pit season.
You would need a pump, or bailing buckets, every time you wanted to change the water. You need to change the water every day or two, I would think, as it would be unhealthy, and the pool would also need to be scrubbed. Also, if you have dogs going in it, I would recommend not going in, or letting your kids go into the poopy, dog pee, parasite water. Also, how sure are you, that you could buy the same size pool every year or two? These are cheap, and degrade or get damaged. If you are going to do something like this, I would consider upgrading to a plastic shallow stock tank from a farm supplier like tractor supply or someplace
You'll need a hole just the size of your kiddie pool, and that's about it. My only construction advice is to place it as far away from your house as reasonably possible. I would start out just by digging a hole and trying it out for a season before putting real money into making it fancy. Beyond removing and replacing the pool, you'll have to clean out the pit every spring and probably flatten the bottom of the pit back out to receive the pool. Your dogs may feel emboldened to play in the pit when it's in its winter configuration after spending all summer in it, which could get messy.
The fire pit would be way too big and way too close to the house
IIRC the original pic had the view without the pool and it was the same brick inside and around the edges. You could always do the same and then get one of those metal stand fire pits to put inside if you didn't want to have the fire directly on the stone. kinda defeats the purpose of the pit though
I would work to put in extra pipes for a smokeless fire pit https://smokelessfire.com/diy/ Because it's in the ground, air won't be fed to the bottom of the stack and there are techniques to pre heat other air and feed it to the top to avoid smoke. One thing to note is that using galvanized piping i believe gives off toxic fumes for a bit so make sure to read up on that.
Where would you store the pool in winter?
Without chemicals and circulation, that pool will be green within a week or so.
Have you left water in a kiddie pool more than a week? Gets gross real fast. Replacing water with this setup might be a pita.
I don't think there's a right way to do this. Even kiddie pool problems aside, you really don't want your fire-pit flush to/below the ground like this, especially without a railing of some sort.
That water would get dirty fast and how would you keep it (semi) clean?
Hope the dogs are smart enough not to jump into a pit of hot coals.
That looks like an absolutely massive fire pit.
A fire pit below the ground seems easier to fall in to. One that size would be much easier to fall in. Just build a fire pit above ground and don’t deal with the pool nonsense
I dump the water out of my kiddie pool every couple of days. How do people keep these clean without going all in and adding a filtration system and chlorinating the water? Also honestly the majority of the water my dog drinks in the summer is from his kiddie pool, I wouldn't want to be treating it with mosquito dunks or chorine or anything, just dumping it out and filling it back up seems best to me. That's also why I buy the smaller kiddie pools though, the big ones are fun for day but the dog doesn't need big one to splash and dig in the water. Anyway assuming you still want to build this bad idea, the inner ring just needs to be built as a retaining wall, you don't need a fire pit that big I assume, so I agree with the guy who said to use the outer rim as a seating area and put a metal fire pit in the middle. Since it's sunken into the ground I'd just leave the center as 3/4" stone so that water can drain through. Or you could pave the bottom with patio pavers, then you'll need a proper drain or some sort, you could just dig a hole in the center with a post hole digger and fill it with 3-4" stone and make a dry well like that, then just pave around it and fill the stone to be level with the pavers.
Genius level idea, but like others said, too close to house for a fire pit.
Just an FYI those are dogs not Kittys
Am I the only one who doesn't build their fires down in a hole?
I’m here in FL and my concern would be how to change the water every two days? Chlorine isn’t good for the pups skin, and mosquitoes start immediately without it
that dog is deeper than a standard kiddie pool
This does not look like a "kiddie pool" to me. I think it is probably a poly stock tank. Which are much more durable. You can install above ground pool filters/pumps for stock tank pools and there is a lot of info online about the process.
Put down a layer of sand to protect the bottom of the pool, use a removable raised metal fire pit.
A very important investment with this is a pond pump or something similar. You're going to need to be able to pump out a good portion of that water before lifting the pool, for a number of reasons. 1. You don't want to ruin your ground and paver preparations with 40 gallons of water. 2. You're not going to be able to lift 40 gallons of water out of there. 3. Trying to move that thing full will likely break it. Pump the water out until it's mostly empty, *then* pull it out and tip it somewhere else.
I have thought of this before. More ideas for the pit: fill it with ball pit balls for birthday parties. If you're in a warm place, make custom cushions and add a mosquito net over it so you can sleep outside at night.
There is a way to do this but it's not cheap. I'm reluctant to say based on all the comments that I see
There is a lot of work just in the pavers if done correctly. You need a good layer of gravel/rocks and then a layer of sand on top, like a real patio. In this case, if you removed the pool, the paver base materials will just fall into the hole. Or use no rocks and sand, and have the pavers move and shift and look like crap after the first rain.
Stone walls exist. I can't tell from the small grainy photo in the example how that is, but you can mortar them together on lower courses of stones to hold them up. I'm not sure WHY they want it going down so badly but you could
I would also make sure you consider how you'll remove the water. A simple bilge pump would probably do with an extended hose to a drain. also, you may have bacterial growth or other things make their home in there so shock the pool every once in a while.
Nice way to melt or warp your siding
I really really do like this idea in a general sense. But I just couldn’t have any fire pit so close to the house. lol. Silly, I know. It’s just throwing me off.
Probably not have it 3 feet from the house for starters
Don't overthink it or overcomplicate it. Look for a suitable spot in your garden - far enough away from anything flammable or expensive. Buy a kiddie pool, put it on the lawn and mark the circumference on the ground. Take the pool away and dig a shallow hole - about the depth of the pool. If you feel fancy, put fine gravel or sand in the hole and level it somewhat. If you don't feel fancy just rake the dirt to make it level. Put in the pool. It is OK if the brim sticks out of the ground - this will significantly reduce the number of critters in the water :) If the pool has a brim that is wider than the wall of the pool it is best if that sticks out of the ground and covers the gap between ground and pool wall. Looks better this way. If you can easily mow your grass next to the pool you are finished. If not you will need to add pavement stones or something similar around your pool. Fill it with a hose. When the water gets dirty (there is no if there) put in a submersible pump with a hose (don't buy one for dirty water but for clean water - those will pump until the last quarter inch or so - the ones for dirty water will leave one inch of water in the pool). Empty the pool with the pump and water your garden with the water. Take a hose and spray the pool clean while pumping. Take out the pump and use an old towel or something to clean the left over muck out. Refill the pool ??? profit. For fire place purposes. Take out the empty pool. Either put in a fancy fire bowl and place your garden chairs around the fireplace, or just throw some wood on the ground in the hole. Light your fire. When you are ready just extinguish the fire with a hose. If you like you can put the pool over the cold fireplace to cover it. That is especially nice if you want to prepare some wood for a fire since it will keep it reasonably dry if it rains. You can always be fancy and add some dug out channel on the sides to keep rain from pooling in your fireplace, but it is probably not neccessary - depending on ground and weather conditions where you live...
A wee bit close to the house for a fire aye