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Yes, you can rent a rototiller for around $60 per day and do the work yourself, but it’s not recommended. Tilling is more of an art than a science, as tilling too deep can be detrimental to your soil structure and the organic matter that is beneficial to plants and shrubs, and tilling too shallow won’t properly introduce fertilizer or break up the soil for rooting plants. Additionally, tillers are powerful machines with sharp blades to cut through small roots and soil, so they are inherently dangerous to use. It’s usually worth it to hire a professional rototiller.

An aboveground pool should be level within 1 inch—and it starts to become unsafe after a couple of inches. Any slope will lead to an uneven distribution of water, which will put pressure on your pool’s structure, wearing down the pool liner. In certain cases, it could cause your pool to collapse. Even if you’re within a safe window, you may still notice that the water level is uneven.

It depends on the model of your pool. You’ll always have to level the topsoil, but most vinyl-lined pools require an additional 1- to 2-inch layer of sand to protect the liner. This way, when a foot kicks down to the bottom of your pool, it’s not scraping the liner against the hard ground. If your pool isn’t vinyl-lined, you can skip this step or add a layer of another base material, like decomposed granite. Always check your manufacturer’s instructions before you begin.

A perc test takes an average of around two hours, but it can range from one hour up to around six hours. Perc tests that require wider or deeper holes and those that require multiple holes dug throughout your property will take longer because there’s more excavation involved. The actual filling of the hole and monitoring to gauge the rate of percolation should take under an hour per hole.