Intex Ultra XTR Deluxe Above Ground Swimming Pool Set, Includes Cartridge Sand Filter Pump, SuperTough Puncture Resistant, Rust Resistant, 24' x 52"

This is our 3rd Intex pool. Started with the “bubble”, then had 15’ metal frame, now this 26’ ultra frame. This is a HUGE pool! The box that it came in was delivered by freight truck (400+lbs). Trucking company dropped it at the end of our driveway, thank goodness we have a tractor so we were able to move it, but something to keep in mind. We were already familiar with setup from our other pool so it was fairly straightforward. The most difficult part of assembly was getting the final piece of top rail locked in. Please do not believe the listing when it says “ready in hour”. It will take you days unless you have a crew, and even then at least a day before you even start adding water. My husband and I did it ourselves. I’m going to give you some tips to help with installation, but the number one tip is find the You Tube video from Pawpaws Place. It’s about an hour long and he takes you from beginning to end. Follow every step and you will be good!Helpful hints:1. Level, level, level. Make sure your site is almost perfectly level. Any deviation will skew how the water sits in the pool. You have about 1” that you can be off. Any more and it won’t be good.2. Get liner as wrinkle free as you can before you put on legs, this will make it easier for you later when you start adding water to get the rest of the wrinkles out.3. If you’re planning to leave up year round, put something under each leg. Pawpaw recommends 12x12x1” blocks, but to be honest, that’s way more digging than we wanted to do. I ended up going to a metal fab shop and have them make 8x8x1/4” plates (26). I think they’ll hold well.4. This does not come with a backwash hose. Purchased backwash hose and clamp from Lowe’s and we had to buy some PVC fittings to make it work.5. They don’t come with a skimmer basket anymore. Highly recommend purchasing one to get the surface crud.6. The supplied ground cloth is pretty thin. We had some geo textile cloth that we put under the ground cloth for added protection.7. Use a level and keep checking legs both side to side and front to back as the water goes in. This is where the ground leveling comes into play. If your ground is not level, liner with push out on some legs, and cause others to move inward. Fill slowly and check, check, and recheck. We are on a well so I had to go slow with water -55 minutes twice a day. I checked leg level before each addition. Got pool filled to about 4,000 gal then had another 6,200 trucked in. We went around and around with level as water was going in and made adjustments. They will reach a point where you cannot move them anymore .All in all, I think it’s worth the time and money. Pool company wanted over $10,000 for metal walled pool and installation. I just couldn’t fork over that much. With pool, water, and misc. things, I’d guess we have about $2500 in it. The seller was great, I had a couple of questions and they responded immediately. Would definitely recommend if you don’t mind some hard work. Watch the video by Pawpaws Place!

Great pool love love this pool

TLDR: 1) Prep the land *meticulously*. If you think you’re overdoing it, you’re not. Depending on how I level the spot is, you could be looking at about 5ish entire days of manually shoveling tons of dirt and grading. 2) If you plan on paying landscapers to prep the spot, pay for sand for the base and then pay landscapers to level it- save up a little bit more and buy a traditional steel-sided above ground pool that’s built to last. 3) buy the Intex-branded skimmer that hangs on the side of the pool.Cannot stress enough the importance of prepping the spot for the pool. I won’t get in to the details because you can find a plethora of YouTube videos detailing what needs to be done. You don’t wanna drop over $1,000 on the pool only to have the legs buckle and break or liner separate because it’s too off-level. Nearly 7,000 gallons of water is well over 50,000 pounds. If it’s too off-level, that weight is going to unevenly be distributed to one side and the legs *will* break or the liner *will* separate and rip. Look it up on YouTube. You don’t want that nightmare hahaha. If you’re planning on doing all of it yourself then carve out at least 4 or 5 entire days of prep time. If you plan on paying a company to come out and prep the land then save your money and save up for a traditional steel-sided above ground pool. Between the cost of having the spot prepped, sand delivered, and then sand spread and leveled along with the cost of the pool itself… You may as well save up an addition $2k and get something that’s built to last. I spent nearly 5 whole days prepping the spot, $200ish for the tools to do said prepping, then about $350 for the sand… And when I filled it, it was still *somehow* 4-5” off level due to the legs sinking in to the sand. Drained, re-prepped, placed pavers under the legs of the low side and refilled and it’s now between 2” - 3” off level. Overall, after the back-breaking leveling of the land moving literal tons of Earth one shovel full at a time and the faith-testing task of getting the last metal bar (that makes up the top of the pool) to click in to the plastic joint— it’s well worth it. Time will tell if it holds up like some people claim (I have serious doubts about people getting more than a couple summers out of Intex pools…). Wife is happy and the kids’ summer is *made*, so all in all it was worth it. Had I known I’d spend roughly $3,000 on the pool, tools to level, sand to make a base, water to fill, and start-up chemicals… I probably would’ve saved up till next summer to afford a nicer traditional steel-sided pool… But, hindsight is always 20/20 vision I suppose. One last thing— if you do get this I *highly* recommend getting the Intex branded skimmer that hangs over the side of the pool. The filter inlets under the water surface are great for filtering the water but you’re going to have a ton of bugs and leaves to scoop out every time you go to swim. It’s only like $40 and is well worth every penny.